"I am of a mind to stay in France for a while longer. We are happy here, and so are the children." His long face, however, belied the reasonableness of his words. What he had to tell her was something he'd been avoiding for several days in hopes of finding a good time. There was, it seemed, no good time.

"You have heard from Robbie?" She was instantly wary.

He nodded, knowing better than to conceal it from her. "Yes, I have heard from Robbie. The Queen, may God damn her sour and dried-up maiden soul, will not recognize our marriage. She says we have forfeited her goodwill by our deceit. What deceit, I should like to know? The witch is simply jealous of our happiness! She has never been woman enough to give up all for love, but she resents those who are brave enough to do what she secretly longs to."

“The Queen can go to Hell," Skye muttered irritably.

Adam laughed, but then grew serious again. “There is more, my love."

Skye smiled grimly. "I would expect that Elizabeth Tudor would not content herself with mere words. Tell me all, Adam, for it will get no better with the waiting."

"She's taken the Burke lands, Skye."

“The bitch! She swore to me Padraic's claim was safe if I wed with the Duc de Beaumont de Jaspre. I kept my part of the bargain, Adam. Damn these Tudors for the treacherous dogs they are! Damn her! Damn her! Damn her!" Then suddenly Skye remembered, and she asked of her husband, "Uncle Seamus? What has happened to my uncle?"

Here Adam chuckled. "He did not give in easily, Skye. First he tried diplomacy, reminding the Queen of her promise to you, and that you had indeed kept your bargain. When that did not work that wily old cleric secretly filled Burke Castle with gunpowder, and then blew it to smithereens the night before the new English owner was to take possession. Every tenant farmer on the property had been given notice of eviction by the new owner, and so, as Burke Castle went so did all the cottages and farmhouses on the estate. All that's left of the holding is the land itself and a number of piles of stones, the castle being the largest pile."

"But the people," Skye fretted. "What is to become of Burke people?"

"They've left the land, Skye. Some have gone to the O'Malleys, and others to Ballyhennessey, which so far has escaped the Queen's eye."

"Ballyhennessey is too small," Skye said. "It can barely support its own peasants let alone refugees from Burke lands. Where has my uncle gone?"

"To the O'Malleys, of course, with a large price on his head for wantonly destroying Crown property."

"My brothers will protect him, Adam, but he is such an old man now to have to face such a commotion. He's seventy-one, you know."

"Would you like me to bring him to France, Skye?"

"He'd not come, Adam, for he has his duty to his people as bishop of Connaught, especially now."

He could see that her eyes were sad with his revelations, and it pained him to fret her further, but he had no choice. “The Queen has also taken Lundy, Skye."

"Oh, Adam!" She looked up at him, stricken. "I am so sorry, my darling! All this is because of me!"

"Skye, I will not lie to you. I loved Lundy, and I even loved that damned tumbled-down tower which was all that was left of my castle. I will miss my rooms at the top of that tower, the rooms where we first met, first made love; but, little girl, if I had a thousand times the possessions I should gladly give them all up to have you for my wife. Besides, the Queen got nothing but the island. When I knew that I was going to come after you some instinct made me transfer all my wealth to my bankers in Paris. If we cannot persuade the Queen to relent then I shall obtain lands here in France, and we shall settle here.

“The Queen took nothing of Lynmouth, or Robert Small's possessions, which will one day come to Willow. It is only your Burke children she has acted against, and I suspect, Skye, that given the situation in Ireland now, the English would have eventually stolen those lands. I am sorry, but there is no help for it."

"What of the O'Malleys, Adam? What of Innisfana, my brothers, Anne, Geoffrey's two daughters?"

"For the moment they seem to be safe. I hope you will not be angry with me, Skye, but I instructed Robbie to take over the six ships that belong to you personally, and to separate them from the O'Malley holdings. Your brothers have joined forces with your kinswoman, Grace O'Malley, and she is the Queen's mortal enemy in Ireland. This way I have protected your own wealth."

Skye nodded her agreement. "My brothers are hotheaded fools," she said sadly. “They will tear down everything I have built up for the O'Malleys, and leave our people in poverty, but I can do nothing to help them. They are men now, and they will not listen to me, Adam. They see only the glory of rebellion against the English, and they see not the misery their actions will bring." A deep sigh of regret escaped her, and then she said, "Send for Geoffrey's two daughters, Gwyneth and Joan, and beg my stepmother, Anne, to come with them."

"I don't know if Anne O'Malley will leave her sons, Skye."

"Perhaps not, Adam, but I will ask her nonetheless. That much I can do in my father's memory."

"In time, Skye, the Queen will relent of her decision, I am sure."

"No," Skye said. "I am not so sure she will, Adam. Do you remember when Lady Catherine Grey married secretly with Edward Seymour, the Earl of Hertford? Like ours, it was a Catholic ceremony, but when the proof was needed the priest mysteriously could not be found. Both their sons were declared illegitimate by the Queen!"

"Catherine Grey was a claimant to the Tudor throne, Skye. The Queen was but protecting herself."

"No, Adam. Elizabeth Tudor likes to totally control the lives of her court. She is not capable of loving, or giving love. Once she told me, though she said she would deny it if I quoted her, that she would never wed, for if she did she would be neither a queen nor a woman in her own right, but rather a man's possession, and she feared it. She does fear it, Adam, but yet at the same time she longs for it. She tries to surround herself with women she deems like her, women of wit and beauty and intelligence. When these women fail her by falling in love she is merciless in her disapproval and her revenge. They have, she honestly believes, given in to their baser natures; but Elizabeth Tudor will never give in to her feelings. She will live and die a virgin queen."

"What will happen to England then?" he mused.


"Mary Stewart has a son," Skye said, "and it is this little boy, James, who, I believe, will one day rule England."

Adam listened to his wife, but in his heart he still hoped that one day Elizabeth Tudor would forgive them, so they might return to England. He liked France, but he was an Englishman in his heart. Eventually, although he did not tell Skye, he intended to win the Queen over.


***

Geoffrey Southwood's twin daughters, Gwyneth and Joan, arrived from Ireland in mid-April. They had stopped in Cornwall on their way to attend the wedding of their elder sister, Susan, to young Lord Trevenyan. Susan, at fifteen, had sent her stepmother a properly correct letter offering to accept responsibility for her two sisters now that she was to be a married woman. Gwyn and Joan, however, had fled happily from their strictly Protestant sister's household at the suggestion that they might marry her two young brothers-in-law.

"You should have seen them, belle-mère" Joan giggled. "Two pimple-faced boys with damp hands that were always seeking to get beneath our skirts when no one was looking; but oh, how pious they became when it was necessary."

Gwyn laughed with her sister. "Indeed, belle-mère, though Susan was shocked that we chose to honor our betrothals to your sons, we love Ewan and Murrough. When may we wed?"

"You are but fourteen," Skye said. "When you are sixteen we shall speak on it. This summer you shall stay with us here at Archambault, and then in the autumn perhaps I shall obtain places among the young French Queen's maids of honor for both of you and Willow. Do you think you would enjoy a few months at court?"

The answer was obvious, and shone in the delight upon the young girls' faces.

"I am sorry that Anne would not come with you," Skye remarked.

"She will not leave her boys, belle-mère," Joan said, "though they will surely be the ruin of the O'Malleys."

“That is why I sent for you," Skye replied. "I did not want you caught up in such an affair."

Joan and Gwyneth settled comfortably into the routine of the family, joining their stepsister, Willow, and her French compatriots in their studies and their games. On the twenty-ninth of April Skye went into labor with her child.

"A bit early," Gaby observed, "but I can see the child is large, and certainly ready to be born. Nature seldom makes a mistake in these matters."

"No, it does not," said Eibhlin O'Malley, the nursing nun who had accompanied her nieces from Ireland in order to be with her favorite sister in her travail.

The salon in the de Marisco apartments had been turned into a birthing room, and all the ladies of the household were available to help, though Eibhlin thought it unnecessary. This would be Skye's eighth child. It was not, however, to be an easy birth. The labor began, and then it stopped, began again, and stopped once more. Skye paced the room, feeling the nervous perspiration sliding down her back beneath her robe.

"Perhaps it is not a true labor," she said to Eibhlin. "This has not been like my other confinements."