At the mention of Skye’s name Niall’s head whirled, and he stared with revulsion at the cold, pious, feelingless creature they had wedded him to. A tiny, fair-skinned, flat-chested girl with watery blue eyes, white-blond hair, and a prim mouth was his wife. The comparison between her and Skye with her gardenia skin, flowing blue-black hair, and blue-green eyes was ludicrous! Skye, with her sweetly rounded small breasts, rosebud mouth, and innocently eager passion. Skye! Dom O’Flaherty’s willing wife … who had given Niall a night of bliss only to destroy his happiness almost immediately with a cold letter. He groaned. Skye would soon give Dom sons! And so, he decided with growing anger, would Darragh O’Neill Burke give her husband sons.
Seeing the grim purpose in his silvery eyes, Darragh fell to her knees clutching her rosary beads, her lips moving silently in prayer. Niall angrily snatched away the beads and, pulling Darragh to her feet, ripped the white linen nightgown from her. Catching her in his arms, he kissed her deeply, forcing the narrow lips open. She fought him, clawing at him with surprisingly sharp nails, squirming wildly. Darragh truly believed that God would strike her husband with a bolt of lightning for his impudence, and she prayed it would kill him. As they fell back onto the bed and she felt his great manhood penetrate her maidenhead, Darragh called on every saint in the calendar to avenge her. But soon she was moaning at him to continue, her skinny legs wrapping around him, her lean hips finding the rhythm and moving with it.
Afterward he felt disgusted with himself, and with her as well. He had never in his life forced a woman, but she had driven him to it with her denial of him, and the mention of his beloved, treacherous Skye.
Women! They were all alike. They said one thing, meant another. Beside him, his wife sniveled and complained, “You hurt me! You hurt me!”
“It always hurts the first time, Darragh. It’ll get better now.”
“You’re never going to do that to me again. Never!”
“There’ll be no immaculate conceptions in this family, wife, and besides, you enjoyed it. I know when a woman likes it, my dear. And like it or not, it’s your duty to give me sons. You might even admit to liking it eventually. There’s nothing wrong with a woman taking pleasure with her husband.”
“Never!” she spat at him as he pulled her back into his arms. His big hand stroked her tense body soothingly. “I’ll endure it, for it is obviously God’s will, but I’ll hate it every time you stick that awful thing inside me.”
“Have it your own way, my dear,” he said. “Just remember that I was no more anxious for this marriage than you were. I would just as soon you stayed in your convent.” And he thrust into her again, making her cry out. “Give me a couple of sons, Darragh, and I’ll leave you in peace forever.”
And down the coast, across the water on Innishturk Island, Dom O’Flaherty bent over his beautiful wife, pumping smoothly. Skye was too sensuous a woman to deny her body its release. She let herself begin to fall away into a lovely world of sweet sensations, and then she heard her husband moan. He collapsed atop her. She had not reached her own heaven, but he didn’t care. Niall had cared. She turned her head away from Dom, a tear sliding unchecked down her cheek. Damn Niall. Would he never stop haunting her?
CHAPTER 5
THE MACWILLIAM HAD COMMANDED THAT HIS VASSALS KEEP the twelve days of Christmas with him. They came from all over Mid-Connaught, including Dom O’Flaherty and his bride of several months.
The hospitality was lavish, for unlike his less powerful neighbors, the MacWilliam’s tower house had sprouted three additional interconnected towers over the years. Consequently he now owned a fine stone castle, built along Norman lines around a gardened and cobbled quadrangle. His guests were housed quite comfortably. Although Skye’s father’s tower house was most comfortable and very well furnished, the MacWilliam’s large castle was lavish by comparison.
There were four O’Flahertys partaking of their overlord’s generosity. Dom’s father, Gilladubh, and his younger sister, Claire, had come with Dom and Skye. Skye frankly hoped that they could find a husband for Claire O’Flaherty, though neither Claire’s father nor her brother seemed to realize that, at fourteen, Claire was practically an old maid.
The girl was pretty enough, with thick, flaxen braids, Dom’s pale-blue eyes, and a pink-cheeked complexion. But there was something sly about her, something Skye did not like. On the one or two occasions Skye had attempted to correct the girl for minor faults, Claire had complained to both her father and her brother, and Skye had been told to leave her be. Behind the doting men’s backs, Claire had smiled smugly at her sister-in-law. But Skye had had some measure of revenge when she caught Claire helping herself to Skye’s jewelry. Boxing the girl’s ears soundly—which gave Skye great pleasure—she warned her that if she stole again she would have Claire’s head shaved.
“And if you complain to either Dom or your father, dear sister,” Skye’s voice dripped sweetness, “you’ll be bald for a year.”
Claire O’Flaherty needed no further warning. The fierce look in Skye’s eye convinced her that her brother’s wife was not the soft fool she had originally thought she was. From that moment on the two women maintained a wary truce. Now Skye was determined to marry the girl off as quickly as possible, to get her out of her house.
Skye had known that Niall would be at the Christmas gathering. She soon learned that he was to be their host, as his father was suffering with gout. If Niall expected to find her heartbroken, she would soon disabuse him of that notion. In the six months since Dom had taken her from St. Bride’s she had made a kind of peace with herself. She did not love her husband nor did she ever believe she would, but she played the obedient wife.
Her mother-in-law was long dead, and the running of the O’Flaherty household was left entirely in her hands. Claire seemed not to care, or even have the necessary knowledge. Skye did her job well, which pleased her father-in-law. Gilladubh O’Flaherty was an older version of Dom, a pompous lecher with a penchant for fine wines and good whiskey. Skye soon learned to avoid his quick hands, once going so far as to brandish a candlestick at him and threaten to expose his outrageous behavior.
Sitting on the MacWilliam’s fine guest bed in her petticoats and beribboned busk, she brushed her hair with angry, vicious strokes. Tonight Skye O’Malley would be as beautiful as she could make herself, and she would hold her head up before the arrogant Burkes and O’Neills. It was her good fortune to own a more magnificent wardrobe than most women did, for her father had always delighted in showing off her beauty.
Mag, her tiring woman, brought her gown and laid it carefully across the foot of the bed. She held a small round mirror for her mistress, and Skye skillfully outlined her eyes with kohl and put just the tiniest bit of red to her cheeks, giving her fair skin a faint, healthy blush. Her shining dark hair was smoothly parted in the center, carefully tucked into dainty gold wire cauls, then pinned on either side of her head. Lastly Skye applied to the deep valley between her breasts, to her wrists, to the base of her throat, and to the back and sides of her neck, a rare perfume made especially for her of musk and attar of roses. Let him smell the scent of roses on her! Let him remember, and know she cared not!
Skye stood up, and Mag hurried to help her mistress into her gown. The tiring woman quickly laced the dress and then stood back to survey her lady. A toothless smile split her weathered face. “Aye, you’ll break his fickle heart, my lady! One look at you in this gown, and he’ll wish he’d stood up to that old devil, his father!”
“Is Lady Burke so displeasing to the eye then, Mag?” asked Skye with feigned disinterest.
Mag cackled with laughter, and hugged herself. “Nay, lady, she’s pretty enough. It’s just that you’re so wickedly fair.”
Skye smiled a little cat’s smile. “Get my jewel case, you old crone!” she ordered affectionately and, when the woman hurried to obey, snatched up the mirror. Holding it away from herself, she studied her reflection. The gown of deep-blue velvet was beautiful,
and its low, square neckline revealed her snow-white breasts. The bodice flowed into a full skirt, parting in the center to reveal a Persian blue underskirt of heavy satin, embroidered in gold and silver thread. Her shoes matched her gown, but her stockings were pure silk, and matched the underskirt right down to the embroidery. Skye twirled slightly, and was pleased to see that the stockings would show to great advantage during the dancing.
Mag held open the jewel case and Skye lifted out a sapphire necklace, the large square stones interspersed with round gold medallions, twelve in all, each representing a sign of the zodiac. At the bottom of the necklace a large pink pearl teardrop hung provocatively between her breasts. There were sapphires in her ears and she wore three rings, a sapphire, an emerald, and a large baroque pearl.
Dom strode into the room and asked jealously, “Are you dressing to please Niall Burke, Skye?”
“Rather to please you, my lord,” she said smoothly, “but if my gown displeases you I will change to whatever gives you pleasure.”
He eyed her carefully. He knew there wouldn’t be a woman at tonight’s banquet to compare with her. She would be the fairest creature in the hall. And she belonged to him! He would be the envy of every man there. Roughly he pulled her into his arms and buried his face in the warm scented cleft between her breasts.
“Don’t!” Her voice was sharp. Familiarity had removed her fear of him, and now only a veiled contempt remained. “Don’t, Dom. You’ll put me in disarray.” He stepped away from her. “How handsome you look,” she quickly noted. “Your sky-blue velvet goes quite well with my deep blue.”
“Day and midnight,” he said, offering her his arm.
She laughed. “Careful, my lord, you verge on the poetical. Your fine Paris education may not have gone for nought after all.”
The banquet hall of the MacWilliam’s castle was a great room with heavy beamed ceilings and four fireplaces. They blazed now with giant-sized logs. Tall narrow windows gave views of the snow-covered countryside, the plainness of the hills and fields broken at intervals by large stands of black, bare trees. To the west the hills were stained orange-red with the sunset. The room was crowded with elegantly dressed guests. Servants scurried to and fro with trays of wine, amid a low steady hum of voices.
As they entered the hall the majordomo announced them and Skye felt the eyes of the entire room on them. The story of her wedding night was yet spoken of throughout the district, and now the nobility of Mid-Connaught watched to see the first meeting of the O’Flahertys and the Burkes since that fateful day of last May. The gossips had to admit that Skye and Dom were an outrageously handsome couple.
Skye and Dom moved with a stately slow pace as they proceeded down the length of the hall to greet their host and hostess, Niall and Darragh. Skye kept her head high, her face expressionless, her glance at a point just above the top of Niall’s head. For a brief instant she gave in to her curiosity and glanced at his face. His silver-gray eyes were ice, and sent a wave of bitter coldness sweeping over her to penetrate the very core of her heart.
She was puzzled. She had expected a smug smile, certainly not this disdain. She was discomfited by his attitude, but a quick glimpse of the tiny woman at his side restored her confidence. She felt joy surge through her with the knowledge that Darragh Burke was, for all her noble breeding, no beauty.
They had reached the dais now, and Skye looked past Niall and his wife to where the MacWilliam sat, his painful leg cushioned upon a stool. She flashed Niall’s father a brilliant smile, her even little teeth almost blinding in their whiteness. The old man let his glance sweep over her, and it gave her great pleasure to see the regret in his eyes. Now they both knew that he had made a mistake. She swept him a graceful curtsey. “My lord.”
It amused him to realize how quickly she had read his thoughts. He enjoyed a worthy adversary, and she would make one. If he had been twenty years younger he would have made an attempt to bed her himself. “My friend, Gilly O’Flaherty, tells me you’re a good wife to his boy,” growled the MacWilliam.
“I am,” she answered him coolly.
“I thought you were happiest being a pirate wench.”
“I am that too, when I can, my lord.”
“And are you good at that too, Lady O’Flaherty?”
“I’m good at whatever I set my mind to, my lord.”
He chuckled. “Welcome to you, and to your husband,” and then his eyes crinkled wickedly. “Undoubtedly you both remember my son. Niall.”
She felt Dom stiffen beside her, and she squeezed his hand reassuringly. They would not even acknowledge the insult. Dom’s good manners asserted themselves with the knowledge his wife stood by him. The two men bowed curtly to each other.
Then Niall’s eyes raked her cruelly. “I see you’re already with child, Lady O’Flaherty,” he said loudly.
“Aye, my lord. Wed seven months, and six months gone with child. The women of my family are known to be prolific breeders.” She spoke as loudly as he had. Then she turned and insolently eyed Darragh Burke. “I see your own bride of half a year is not yet as fortunate as I. Are you, my dear?”
Darragh flushed. Her “nay” was audible to all. Skye smiled sweetly, curtseyed again and, taking her husband’s arm, turned away. Behind her she heard the MacWilliam chuckle.
Skye allowed Dom to seat her by the fire. She stared into the leaping flames as he went in search of some mulled wine. She was almost shaking with suppressed fury. How could Niall behave in such a fashion?! He had shamed her before the entire county on her wedding night, left her after making extravagant promises he never intended keeping, and now he pretended that he had been the injured party! The bastard! A goblet was shoved into her hand and she gulped a mouthful of wine to calm herself.
“You were magnificent!” she heard her husband say. “By God, you showed Niall Burke, and in front of all Connaught too! Not that I think it would be easy to get that skinny, overbred O’Neill wench pregnant. I don’t even envy him the task,” he laughed.
“Shut up, you overblown fool!” she hissed at him through gritted teeth. God, why were all men such idiots? “I don’t give a tinker’s damn for Niall Burke, but I’d not insult the MacWilliam’s hospitality, so try not to be too obvious in your glee, husband.”
Dom looked at her strangely, but before he could say another word Anne O’Malley came to greet them. She sent Dom off to join his friends, then settled herself comfortably and looked at her stepdaughter. “Was it wise to insult Niall Burke and his wife?” she asked.
“Was it wise for him to insult me?” Skye snapped.
“You still love him.”
“I hate him! For pity’s sake, Anne, speak of something else. The babe has a tendency to make me weepy, and I’d rather not be misunderstood.”
“Of course,” said Anne O’Malley sagely. “It would hardly do for Niall Burke to think you weep for him.”
“I never realized before what a bitch you can be, stepmother,” said Skye evenly.
Anne laughed. “Oh, the babe does make you testy, doesn’t it?”
“He,” said Skye. “Dom and his father are convinced it’s a lad, and they will accept nothing less.”
“Oh, I see. And how goes it with you otherwise?”
“Quite well, actually, Anne. Da did me a great service in wedding me to Dom. Not only have I gained a lecher for a husband, I also have one for a father-in-law. My husband’s sister is a common bitch not averse to stealing my possessions when she can, and whining to her father and brother when she’s caught. It’s a charming new family I have. I am most grateful to Da.
“My new home is in a shocking state of disrepair, and despite the fine dowry Da gave me, I am told that no money can be found to put it to rights. Half the household items I brought to O’Flaherty House, the silver bowls and candlesticks in particular, are mysteriously missing. In short, I am the mistress of a dung heap peopled by a vain and randy old cock, a vain and randy young cock, and a flighty hen.”
Anne was shocked. “Do you want to come home until the child is born, Skye?” Sweet Mary! She couldn’t let Skye have her baby in that place!
“God, yes! I do want to come home, but they’ll not let me for the next O’Flaherty must be born in his own home, Anne. I would appreciate it, however, if you could arrange for Eibhlin to come to me immediately after Candlemass. Though the child isn’t due until early spring, a late-winter storm at the wrong time could delay her, and I would be frightened if she were unable to reach me in time. Besides,” Skye smiled wryly, “I need the company. Claire is none, and neither she, nor Mag, nor our old cook knows about birthing a child.”
Anne was now very upset.”What of the other women in your household? The maids? The laundresses? Is there no midwife in your village?”
“The few women we can get to work for us come from our nearby village each day and return to their homes at night. They love their children, and no family would allow their daughters in my house because of Dom and his father. They will work O’Flaherty lands, and pay O’Flaherty taxes, and fight for the O’Flahertys, but too many of their girls have been abused by the O’Flaherty men for them to allow their daughters in our house. Even so, Dom and Gilly have had their share of the poor creatures. They go out on horseback and hunt them down while the girls are working in the fields! The O’Flahertys’ reputation is so bad that even Claire has no tiring woman of her own.”
“I knew it was all wrong from the beginning,” said Anne. “I knew it!”
“Then why didn’t you speak to Da as you promised me, Anne? You encouraged him to wed me off the very morning of Conn’s birth!”
“No, no, Skye! That’s not so at all! I tried to tell your father right after Conn was born, but they’d given me herbs in wine to make me sleep, and your father misunderstood me. When I finally awoke two days later, you were wed, and had already been sent to St. Bride’s.”
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