God’s boots, he thought, how she has changed. I wonder how wise we have been in bringing her back. “Sometimes,” he said aloud, “a woman must show a man the path, sister. Remember that in your dealings with Alexander Gordon.”
“What is today’s date?” she asked him.
“It is the ninth of August,” he replied.
“Today is my daughter’s first birthday,” she said, and then, turning, she left him to return to her cabin.
He felt as if she had hit him. The timbre of her voice had been calm, almost matter-of-fact, but how he had felt the raw pain in it. A loving father himself, Murrough O’Flaherty could not help but wonder about his sister’s child, the infant princess she had been forced to leave behind. She had not talked of her daughter until now, and frankly he had not been brave enough to ask her. He had spoken to Pansy, who had told him of his little niece’s early beauty, of her rare turquoise eyes.
“I ain’t never seen a baby so pretty,” Pansy had allowed, and then she had said, “It weren’t right making m’lady leave her baby behind, but the bishop feared that Lord Gordon would not accept the lass, and the lord Akbar wouldn’t let his daughter go anyhow. He said ’twas all he had left of his love for m’lady. They said in the zenana that they never saw him so taken with a woman as he was with Mistress Velvet.” Then Pansy, as if remembering her place, had stopped speaking for a moment before saying, “I shouldn’t talk so much. You’re not going to tell on me, Captain O’Flaherty, are you?”
“No, Pansy, I’ll not tell on you if you’ll not tell Velvet that I was asking.”
Murrough shook his head. It was a tragic situation. All he could hope was that Alex and Velvet would make their peace and that Velvet would have another child as quickly as possible. She would never forget the child in India, but perhaps in time with other children around her the memory would fade and her lost daughter would seem like a child stillborn. Remembered, but not known.
He gave orders that a boat was to be lowered over the side of theSea Hawk.With luck the family barge would be awaiting them when they docked. For once his plans were executed like clockwork, and the barge was indeed at the appointed place. Velvet, Pansy, Dugie, Michael, and Murrough boarded it, and it began its trip up the river to Greenwood. It was already dark, and the night was cool. Velvet drew her cloak about her.
When she had been well enough to care, she’d learned that some of her clothes had been packed by Daisy and sent with Murrough to India. Although there were several pretty gowns among her things, she had chosen that morning to wear a black silk dress with a low neckline and plain sleeves with simple white lace cuffs. There was something spare, almost severe about the gown. The matching cloak was lined in white silk.
The barge bumped the Greenwood landing and was made fast. Looking up, Velvet thought she had never seen her mother run so quickly, and Daisy easily kept pace with her. Behind them came Velvet’s father and Bran Kelly. Murrough jumped out of the barge and, turning, lifted his sister onto dry land.
Skye stopped short and stared at the young woman in the black cloak. In her mind she was remembering the child of almost thirteen years she had last seen, and the woman before her did not fit that memory. This was a beautiful woman, a woman who had known love and suffered for it. What had happened to her little girl? Then, as quickly as the thought flew through her head, the answer came behind it. Time. Time had passed. Time she and Velvet had not shared together, and in that time the child had become a woman. Her eyes filled with tears, but whether they were for the lost moments she and her daughter had missed or for Velvet’s own pain, she knew not.
Opening her arms, she said, “Welcome home, my darling!” And Velvet, enfolded in her mother’s embrace, knew that nothing had changed between them.
Skye hugged her daughter tightly, instinctively knowing her child’s greatest fear, and whispered reassuringly to her, “I have not yet sent for Alex, my love. First we must talk.” Feeling Velvet relax, she knew that she had said the right thing. She caught her daughter’s face between her hands.
“Oh, how beautiful you have become!” Then she kissed Velvet once on each cheek.
“There is so much to tell you, Mama. Things I haven’t talked about since I left India. They cannot wait! I need to talk with you!”
“Yes! Yes!” Skye agreed. “Tonight! I promise!”
“Velvet!”
She turned from her mother and ran into her father’s arms. With a groan Adam de Marisco buried his face in his daughter’s neck. “I thought never to see you again!”
“It’s all right now, Papa,” she reassured him.
“The thought of your suffering, my poppet …”
“I did not suffer, Papa.”
“But you were sent to the harem of the Grand Mughal,” he protested.
“It is called a zenana in India, Papa, and my lord Akbar loved me. He took me for his wife. I did not know that such happiness existed.”
Beside them, Daisy wept tears of relief at the sight of her daughter, Pansy, and her first grandchild. Bran, however, the more practical where their children were concerned, seeing his child in good health, relieved Pansy’s most immediate fear.
“That bandy-legged Scotsman you handfasted yourself to promised to wait for you. He even asked my permission to formally marry you. I hope you’re still of a mind to do so if only for my fine grandson’s sake.”
“Aye, Da! The more little Dugie looked like his pa, the more I missed Dugald. He’ll be mightily surprised to learn he’s got a son.”
“And what were you doing tumbling into bed with the man before you were properly wed?” demanded Daisy, recovering and reaching out to give her daughter a smack.
“Ma! ’Twas only once!”
“Once is enough!” snapped Daisy.
