She looked up at him and was frightened by what she saw in those silver eyes. “I have no lover, Niall,” she repeated.
“Then you’ve taken up tobacco, my dear?”
“Yes!” she answered him desperately.
In answer he caught her chin in one hand, and kissed her deeply, his tongue plunging swiftly into her mouth. When he released her lips he smiled cruelly. “You’re a liar, Skye! Your mouth and breath are sweet with no hint of tobacco. What else have you lied to me about? For over two months you’ve denied me with this pretense of mourning. And I, great fool that I am, believed you and respected your grief, and all the while you were sneaking off to fuck with your lover!”
Angrily he yanked her away from the door. Sweeping her up in his arms, he strode across the room to the big bed. “Well now, madam, you’ll fuck with me!” and he dumped her down onto the feather mattress.
While he undid his robe she scrambled up, only to be shoved back onto the bed. “Oh, no, my dear! What you give to him, you’ll give to me too!”
“Whoreson!” she snarled at him as his body crushed her flat, but he only laughed. Infuriated, she struggled against him like a madwoman.
His mouth came down hurtfully on hers, and she clenched her teeth tightly together. His hands tangled in her dark hair, holding her head still. She closed her eyes to blot him out, but she couldn’t close out his voice, which crooned in her ear. “Are you going to be my wife willingly, Skye, or is it going to be rape? Maybe that sort of thing excites you, eh, my darling? I’d rather you’d let me love you and that you would try to love me back.”
“Love you?” Her scorn was thick. “You sicken me! And to think that I once preferred you to Dom O’Flaherty!”
He wanted to hit her. What had happened to them? All desire left him. Rape was not his style. To her surprise, he rolled off her. But when she tried to rise he held her back. “No, madam! From now on you’ll sleep with me. But I’ll not give you further excuse to hate me by taking my rights by force. You’ll have to ask me for loving, my darling. And you will, Skye. You will.”
Relief made her brave. “Never!” she spat.
He laughed, and pulled her into his arms so he might caress her breasts. “Those two pretty apples of yours have grown plumper,” he observed.
“I thought you just said you wouldn’t make love to me unless I asked,” she said, trying to squirm away from him.
“I said I wouldn’t take my ‘rights,’ Skye. I never said I didn’t intend to enjoy your delicious little person.”
“Oh!” she gasped, outraged. “That’s not fair!”
“You’d rather I’d rape you?” he asked in mock surprise.
“I didn’t say that!”
“Then just what is it you want of me, my darling?”
She opened her mouth to speak, then shut it. Let him tease and play his stupid games. She would never yield, nor would she give him the satisfaction of protest. Niall, allowing his hands the freedom of her body, roaming the marvelous skin, noted the grim line of her mouth. He smiled to himself. She would never know how close to rape she had come.
His hands and his mouth wreaked a wonderful torture upon her, and Skye bit her lips and pressed her nails into her balled palms until the pain eased some of the unholy pleasure he forced on her. When he believed he had driven her far enough, he stopped abruptly and, rolling over, went to sleep. She lay next to him, her whole body trembling, and silently hated him as much as she had ever loved him.
Skye quickly discovered that Niall intended being master in everything, not simply in their bedchamber. As soon as she was able to escape him, later that same day, she fled down the winding interior staircase of the castle to the boat cave. She stood horrified at the place where her vessel should be moored. The boat was gone! “Wat!” she shouted. “Where are you, boy?”
“Don’t bother calling for Wat, my darling.” Niall had followed her. “He’s been given a place on a fishing boat, and will no longer be serving here.”
She whirled and her voice shook with anger. “Wat was my servant! How dared you reassign him? And I suspect you know where my boat is.”
“I do.”
“Where?” she shouted at him.
“Precisely where you left it, Skye.”
Puzzled, she turned to look again at the empty mooring.
“Look closer,” he instructed.
She moved down the steps further, and as the sun played on the calm sea, her eyes caught a glimpse of something in the water and comprehension dawned. Slowly she backed up the stairs to the ledge, rage permeating every fiber of her being. She turned to face him, and Niall Burke saw anger as he’d never seen it before.
“Whoreson!” she hissed. “Bastard! You sank my boat! How dare you! How dare you!” And her fist lashed out to hit him a blow that caught him off guard and actually staggered him.
He grabbed at her, successfully holding her arms, and looked down into her face. The hatred he saw there was as fierce as her blow had been. Silently he cursed his father and Seamus O’Malley for ever believing that he and Skye could be reunited. “Aye!” he said through clenched teeth. “I sank your damned boat! I’ll not have you running off to your lover again and possibly passing off his bastards as my sons.”
Outraged, she let out a piercing shriek. “Do you consider me so without honor then, Niall Burke? And I repeat, I have no lover!” Then she wrenched out of his grasp and ran back up the stairs.
Skye was very worried. It was time for the spring parade of ships to be arriving from the Indies. Word had come from Bideford that very morning that half a dozen ships, the largest grouping ever, would be here within the next few days. She had to get word to de Marisco and her fleet, which was waiting now on Lundy for her instructions. If she could not go to them, then they must come to her.
When evening fell Skye climbed up the west tower of the castle. In the tiny topmost room that faced Lundy, she lit two small signal lights in stone dishes and placed them in the window. One was set up high, the other low. Across the clear calm of the sea a boy at the top of de Marisco’s keep looked hard, rubbed his eyes, and looked again. Then he hurried to find his master. Adam de Marisco looked across the eleven miles of water with his spyglass. One high, one low. The meaning was “Come at once. I need you.” They had set up that signal after last winter’s unfortunate episode with Lord Dudley. But why would she need him now? What of her husband? Still, Skye wasn’t a woman to take things overhard. If the signal was there, then she must need him.
Several hours later, for the winds had been light and he had been forced to tack back and forth in order to reach Lynmouth Castle, he sailed into the cave and up to the mooring. Skye’s boat was gone, but she stood awaiting him.
“Adam! Thank God you’ve come! I was afraid you wouldn’t see the signal tonight.” She made his craft fast, and he climbed out.
“Where is your boat, little girl?”
“My husband sank it, Adam. He believes I use it to go to a lover. My sea clothes picked up the scent of your damned tobacco last trip over, and he smelled it on me.”
De Marisco whistled softly. “How did you explain it?” he asked.
“I didn’t.”
“Dammit, Skye! You must drive the man mad. Well, perhaps you’ll calm down when you are with child.”
She laughed harshly. “There’ll be no children, Adam, for the marriage is in name only. I angered him so that he’s sworn never to take me unless I ask—and I never shall! But that’s not why I called you here. I received word this morning that six ships are due into Bideford within the next few days—three English, two French, and a Dutchman sailing in convoy.”
“You’ve got the route they’ll take?”
“Yes, Adam!” her voice was excited. “I’d like to take them all! D’you think MacGuire and his men can do it?”
Adam de Marisco stroked his chin reflectively and his smoky blue eyes sparkled. “Where would you do it?”
“Off Cape Clear. There are plent
y of places to hide there.”
“By God, you’re a bold wench! Yes! Yes, I do believe MacGuire and his men can pull it off!”
“Good! Then tell him those are my instructions,” Skye chuckled. “Lord Dudley owns a half-share in one of those ships. He’ll be ruined.”
“The Queen will make it up to him,” observed Adam.
“Indeed she will, but it will be hard for her to do so, for her own coffers are none too full right now and she will be further strapped by the loss of her share from these goods.”
“Where do you want the goods sent, Skye?”
“I think we should hold these cargoes till midsummer. The flow of ships is greater then and the furor will have died down. It wouldn’t be safe to dispose of the cargo now.”
“If you’ve no further instructions, little girl, I’ll be on my way. I don’t think Lord Burke would be too pleased to find me here.”
“To Hell with him! Oh, Adam! Get me another boat. I shall go mad penned up here.”
“I don’t know, Skye. I’m not sure you’re wise to defy him. Wait a bit, little girl, until your anger is cooled. I’ll return here in a fortnight. If it’s stormy then I’ll come the first clear night after that.”
She pouted slightly then said, “Oh, all right, Adam, but why do I get the feeling you’re in sympathy with him?”
He grinned up at her from his boat. “Because I am, little girl. I cannot imagine being wed to you and not loving your tempting little self. I wonder whether the man’s a saint or a fool.”
She laughed and threw him his rope. “I’m not sure what he is either, de Marisco.”
“Don’t you think that it’s time you found out?” came the reply, and then the lord of Lundy’s little boat slipped out into the sea, its bow pointed for home, scuttling away like a crab on the morning sand.
She stood perplexed, then shrugged. Men! They were always trying to tell a woman what to do and they invariably stuck together. Still, Adam’s words haunted her. What was Niall Burke all about? She realized she didn’t know. Looking back, she saw the spoiled child-woman she had been at fifteen, the “Black” O’Malley’s darling. And she remembered how she had felt when she had first met Niall Burke, a sudden realization that she had met the man whom she would love the rest of her life. What an innocent thing she’d been! For she had loved two men since, learning that it was possible to love more than one man.
But had she ever really loved Niall Burke or had she been sexually aroused? Hating poor Dom so violently had helped turn her toward Niall. What had the Skye O’Malley of ten years ago known of life, of the world, of a man and a woman?
It had been a shock to find herself summarily wed to him without her own consent. Still—and she frowned to remember, instead of accepting the positive aspects of the situation—she had reverted to the child she had once been instead of acting like the woman she had become. Was it then so surprising that he treated her like a child?
After all, he understood her need for freedom, which was a good start. He was attractive, with no disgusting habits such as swilling his food or breaking wind in public. He liked the children, and they liked him. When she thought of the type of man she might have been married to, Niall Burke shone by comparison.
Still, he had sunk her boat, and he accused her of taking a lover. She sighed, having failed to convince herself that Niall was either a devil or an angel.
She returned to the Great Hall to find Niall romping noisily with Robin and Willow. She sat at the board quietly watching them, a soft smile on her lips. He was so good with her children. She thought guiltily that she had given Khalid and Geoffrey children, and was Niall not entitled to children also?
“Hungry, madam?” He sat down next to her. “Be off, you little wild beasts!” he called to the children. “Kiss your mother, and then find your beds.”
Skye enfolded the children in her arms, gently nuzzling Robin’s soft golden hair, kissing the top of Willow’s dark head. “Good night, Mama,” said her little son. “Good night, Robin. God give you happy dreams.” “Good night, Mama,” smiled Willow. “I like our new father, don’t you?” she said enthusiastically.
Niall’s lips twitched and his silvery eyes locked for a moment onto her sapphire ones. Skye flushed as his deep voice drawled lazily, “Well, Mama? Do you like me?”
“Don’t be silly, Niall!” she muttered. “God give you sweet dreams, Willow. Now run along.”
The children ran to hug Niall, and then hurried out. “Where were you?” he asked quietly.
A sharp reply sprang to her lips, but she swallowed it back. “I was below in the boat cave,” she said.
“And the signal lights from the west tower window?”
So he had seen them! “Oh, I must tell Daisy to extinguish them,” she said, as if to herself. Then she turned and uttered a small white lie. “The lights are a prearranged signal to my ships on Lundy Isle. MacGuire is there.”
Comprehension dawned on Niall. MacGuire smoked a pipe! “Is that where you were the other night? On Lundy?”
“Yes.”
“Why the devil didn’t you tell me?” Good Lord! She’d been with MacGuire, and he’d acted the jealous fool! A lover!
“I didn’t like your manner of asking,” she answered loftily, knowing where his thoughts had led him, but unwilling to correct his mistaken impressions.
“Dammit, Skye. I’m always the fool where you’re concerned. Forgive me, my darling.”
With this apology she felt a rush of warmth toward him. She hadn’t actually lied to him when she told him that MacGuire was on Lundy. It was he who had assumed that she had spent her time with MacGuire. Her time with Adam de Marisco had been just as innocent, but that would be far too hard to explain. She wasn’t sure Niall would believe that she was simply friends with the lusty young giant. Better to leave things as they were.
“I forgive you, my lord,” she said sweetly. Standing and looking at him demurely, she said, “Shall we to bed, husband?” Then she walked slowly from the Hall.
He lingered for a few minutes, sitting on a bench before the fire, drinking a small goblet of white wine. She was an enigma. And he only now realized that she hadn’t told him why she was signaling her people on Lundy, or even what they were doing on the island. Well, he thought, I must learn to trust her. In time she’ll tell me. As for now, it would appear that I’m melting the ice.
When he reached his own bedchamber he found Mick waiting with his bath. Swiftly he washed, toweling himself vigorously dry, wrapping a robe about him. Then he entered Skye’s room. Two undermaids were removing Skye’s tub from the room.
“That will be all, Daisy.” She wore only a shawl.
The door closed after the tub and three servants. Niall stood, momentarily hesitant, unsure of what he should do. He feared to leap at her lest he had misread her signals.
Turning from the fire, she allowed the shawl to slide to the floor. She smiled as his silvery eyes warmed and grew wide with appreciation. Slowly she walked toward him, stopping before him to loosen the tie that held his dressing gown. One hand lay flat on his chest, the other slid beneath the fabric of his gown to move tantalizingly over his chest, teasing at his flat nipples, twining in the soft dark hair of his chest. Niall felt his breath catch in his throat. Her hand moved upward to caress his shoulder, and around to his back where her nails raked delicately downward, producing a shudder from him.
Her blue eyes held his captive, her mouth curved seductively in a little smile. Then her hands were opening his gown wide, pushing it off him, and she was pressing her own nude body against his. Her lips nibbled at his ear, her hands caressed his hard buttocks, and then he heard her murmur, “Love me, my lord husband!”
“Skye …” his voice was husky, he wasn’t sure he could move, and the ache in his groin was fierce.
“Come!” She took his hand and led him to her bed, gently pushing him back onto the fur coverlet. He felt like a child, not quite willing to believe the lovely gift being offere
d him, afraid to enjoy it lest it disappear. Amazed, he allowed her to caress and kiss him, and then she mounted him, kneeling to capture his manhood and imprison it between her breasts. He almost sobbed his pleasure when she took him firmly in one hand and rubbed the tip of his penis around the hard nipples of her breasts. Then, while he was recovering, she raised her body and plunged downward, burying him deep within her. He lay momentarily imprisoned between her silken thighs, and then, as if he’d received a signal, he grasped her buttocks and, with a swift move, turned her over so she lay beneath him.
“It’s better the stallion mount the mare than the mare the stallion,” he said, and then he was kissing her passionately. Her mind began to whirl. Once, so long ago that it seemed more a dream than a part of her life, he had taken her innocence. And now, just when she thought she would never do it, she had given herself to him again. It was as glorious as she remembered, and she could not understand why she had denied him for so long.
“I love you, Skye,” he said when the storm was over and he held her close. “Perhaps someday I will regain your love again, but I thank you for now.”
“I will not deny you again, Niall. As for the other, we must begin anew, you and I. What was between us so long ago is unimportant compared with what may be between us now. You must accept in your heart that I have deeply loved two other men. You readily accept the fruits of these unions. Why not the fact of them? I have accepted that when you believed me dead you turned to poor Constanza. Now these others who invaded our lives for such a short but sweet time are gone, you and I are left alone together. We will go on from here and, God willing, I will love you again.”
It was enough. More, in fact, than he had dared hope for.
Holding her firmly, he fell asleep, content. For a while longer Skye lay awake in his gentle clasp. She had made her peace with him, and she was glad.
The other castle inhabitants soon realized that their Countess and her new husband had made their peace. It was going to be a beautiful summer. When the Queen sent a summons requesting the Burkes’ presence at Court, Niall sent back a charmingly worded message begging Her Majesty to allow them the summer to honeymoon in private. The Queen, in love with love, returned her royal consent.
Skye O'Malley Page 55
