“My death?” exclaimed Alex, who had gone white when Murrough had said Velvet was in a harem. “Ye told Velvet I was dead?”
Now the earl looked as if he wanted to hit Padraic as well, and the young man, seeing the dark look on his brother-in-law’s face scrambled to his feet and moved closer to his mother.
“You sneaking little coward!” snarled Murrough, stepping threateningly toward Padraic again.
Skye leaped up and stood between her sons. “Am I to understand that Padraic told you and Velvet that Lord Gordon had been killed? Why would he do such a thing?” She looked at Alex. “What do you know of this, m’lord?”
“ ’Twas a duel,” he muttered.
“A duel that needn’t have been fought!” snapped Murrough. “And my sister begged you not to, but would you listen? Nay!”
“Stop this bickering!” snapped Skye, who was becoming irritated and anxious to learn exactly what had happened. “You were injured in a duel, Alex, and Padraic, believing you dead, took it upon himself to inform Velvet. Is that correct?”
Padraic nodded.
Skye turned back to her elder son. “What I would like to know, Murrough, is whyyoutook it upon yourself to remove your sister from London and take her on such a hazardous journey? You didn’t even allow her time to bury her husband. Why?”
“Because she begged me,” he said weakly.
“Because she begged you?”Skye was astounded. “Murrough! You’re a grown man, the father of children yourself. Your eldest son is only a few years younger than Velvet! How could you do such a thing?”
“Mother,” he said brokenly, “you don’t understand. She was totally hysterical when she learned Alex had been killed. Hysterical and unreasonable. Robin and his wife weren’t here to help me, nor were Willow and James. My little sister begged my aid, and I could see no other way of handling it than the manner in which I did. She believed that Alex would want to be buried atDun Broc, and she could not bear to make her first trip to what was to have been her home in order to bury her husband. She kept sobbing that Alex’s line had ended and that it was all her fault because she was not with child yet. There was simply no reasoning with her! I thought it better to take her with me than to leave her to God knows what mischief.”
Alex’s mouth compressed itself into a grim line. How typical of Velvet to run to her parents in a crisis. She hadn’t grown up at all.
Skye slumped back onto the settle next to her husband. She didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry, and she could tell from his face that neither did Adam. People could make the most ungodly disasters of their own lives and those around them by their headstrong actions. Murrough thought he had done the right thing for Velvet, but it was, in the end, the wrong thing. He should have checked Padraic’s facts, for he knew his younger brother was often careless in his reports. Though Murrough had not waited, she knew, for fear of losing another day and missing the favorable winds across the Indian Ocean in his rescue mission of herself and Adam. How could she possibly upbraid him for what he had and hadn’t done? If anything she blamed Alex Gordon, who would fight a duel that needn’t have been fought, and Padraic, who had run off to his sister like Henny Penny to shout the sky down.
“All right, my sons, I believe I now understand this ridiculous muddle, and I blame all of you, including Velvet, whom I believed I had taught to face life better than that. Now we must consider what we have to do to regain her release and that of Pansy. At least the girls are together, for I know the people of the East and they would not separate Velvet from her tiring woman.”
“What will happen to them, m’lady Skye?” quavered Daisy, and Skye, looking at her faithful servant and friend, was shocked. Never in her entire life had she seen Daisy lose heart, but then this time Daisy’s fears were for her child, not for herself.
“Velvet, I imagine, has already been made a concubine of this Akbar,” Skye told her. “As for Pansy she will not be harmed. She will simply continue to serve her mistress, Daisy. You need have no fears for her.”
“My wife, some Turk’s concubine? You speak about your daughter’s fate quite matter-of-factly, madame,” said Alex grimly.
“Akbar is the Grand Mughal of India, Alex, not a Turk,” said Skye in an amused tone of voice. “If I speak matter-of-factly it is because I have been at one time in my life in the same position in which Velvet now finds herself. It is not always an envied position, Alex, but Velvet is my daughter, and she will survive! It could be far worse. We might not know where she was, or she might even be dead.”
“Perhaps it would be better if she were dead than in another man’s bed,” said Alex bitterly.
Adam was at his son-in-law’s throat in an instant. “You young whelp!” he snarled at the startled Scot, his knee on Alex’s chest pinning him in his chair. “Your father was my friend, but you’ve turned into a smug, selfish bastard. You came out of your Highlands when our backs were turned and forced my child into your own bed. Don’t think I don’t know thewholestory of your scandalous courtship of my daughter, for I do!
“Once long ago I watched my beloved Skye be bartered into marriage with a stranger. Then I saw her almost destroyed by another man in her attempt to rescue Padraic’s father, her first love. At no time did I stop to consider that she had known other men. It was not important to me as long as she loved me, and it wouldn’t be important to you either if you really loved my daughter, but I’m not certain that you do. I believe you consider her naught but a possession, some sort of brood mare. I’ll not have it! If when we get her safely home you don’t want her, and frankly I’m not sure you deserve her, then an annulment will be arranged!” He stood back and glowered fiercely at the young earl, and Alex shifted uncomfortably.
“Adam!” Skye chided her husband gently. “Alex is upset as well he might be. In his own way he has been as sheltered as Velvet.” She gently separated the two, then took Alex’s hand in hers. “I understand your distress, Alex, but whatever has befallen Velvet I know she still loves you. She is not a girl to give either her heart or her body wantonly, but I don’t have to tell you that for you know it, don’t you?”
“I can’t bear the thought of any other man touching her, madame,” he said, low.
“Yet you’ve known other women, Alex.”
“ ’Tis different, madame,”
Skye smiled wisely. “Any man can have her body, Alex. Only you can possess her heart.”
He looked down at her and thought that she was probably one of the most beautiful women he had ever known. The beauty, however, was not simply limited to her face and form.
She had a great heart. He sighed. “We Scots are hard men, madame. I don’t know if I can be as generous of spirit as Adam.”
“Let us bring Velvet home first, Alex,” she said, “and then we will see.” He was very concerned with his own feelings, she thought. He did not stop to consider that Velvet, believing him dead, could easily fall in love again. She looked at Murrough once more. “You say that the Jesuits have some influence with Akbar?”
