“Geoffrey!” Her voice was husky with shock.

He chuckled. “I cannot help it, pet, you’re the most damnably tempting piece, and I want to bury myself deep in you.” She felt herself go weak with desire. He had the most wicked ability to rouse her with no more than a word. She tingled with hunger for him, and wondered if that was wrong. In a burst of outraged virtue she exclaimed, “My lord, this is not right.” “Indeed it isn’t, my darling. I have made love in a coach, and it is wretchedly uncomfortable as well as awkward. We shall wait until we reach the Queen’s Head Inn. But then I promise, madam, to show you no mercy.” He ceased his teasing of her already aroused person, and Skye tingled with delicious anticipation of their stop at the Queen’s Head Inn.

The coach rumbled through the early-moming countryside. Winter was in strong evidence upon the quiet land, brown with fallow fields, and dotted by frozen puddles. The bare trees stood black against the lavender-and-gold dawn sky. Here and there smoke rose from a chimney. Once a barking dog dashed from a farmyard to run alongside the coach for a short while, snapping at its wheels, but it soon fell behind. Inside the rolling vehicle the Earl and Countess of Lynmouth slept fitfully, the motion of their carriage jerking them back to semi-consciousness every now and then. The horses were changed after several hours, giving the Earl’s party time to relieve themselves and break their fast. The innkeeper, mightily impressed by the crested coach, its occupants, and the liveried entourage, offered Lord Southwood and his sleepy wife a private parlor. Almost immediately thereafter two servants arrived, their trays laden with clear hot soup, ham, spiced apples in honey, cheese, bread still steaming from the oven, and sweet butter. The innkeeper himself brought in two pitchers, a frosted one filled with brown October ale, the other with sweet apple cider. The smells wafting from the trays wakened Skye fully, and under her husband’s tolerant and amused gaze she fell to the food with gusto. The soup took the chill from her bones, and put color back into her cheeks. She smacked her lips over a piece of hot buttered bread with thin salty slices of ham, and enjoyed it so much that she ate another, the second with an added embellishment of cheese. Sighing contentment, she sat back, and Geoffrey chuckled. “Sometimes I find it hard to believe you’re old enough to be my wife.”

“I was hungry,” she said simply.

“I’m having the innkeeper pack us a basket, for, if you remember, our next stop offers no such amenities as this. It’s only a place to change the horses. Is there anything you fancy?” “Hard-cooked eggs and winter pears,” she answered promptly, and when he looked at her strangely she laughed and said ruefully, “No, Geoffrey, I am not breeding again… yet.” She nuzzled his cheek, saying, “I love you so much, my lord husband. I want a houseful of your sons.”

What Niall Burke would have given to hear those words. On the island of Mallorca he felt as out of place as a chicken in a fox’s den. By good fortune, Doctor Hamid had a cousin on the island who was also a doctor. Though Spain had been swept clean of the Moslem Moors, here on its Mediterranean islands located halfway between Europe and North Africa, the tolerance was greater, due in part to centuries of intermingling and intermarriage.

Ana, overjoyed to see her mistress, was brought back from retirement and, along with Polly, took over Constanza’s care. Niall knew that his wife would not dare misbehave here on Mallorca as she had in England. There was no reason to separate Constanza and Ana. He bought a small house in the hills above the city. The house afforded them the greatest privacy and had little room for entertaining. Upon seeing his child, the conde turned furiously on Niall. “What have you done to her?”

Niall sighed, and led his father-in-law from the bedroom out onto the patio. “That she is ill is of her own making, Francisco. I tell you mis not to hurt you but so you may understand her. Do not withdraw your love. There is a very strong chance that Constanza will not recover. I brought her home because she may die, and despite her perfidy I want her happy.”

“What has she done?”

“Constanza is a woman for whom the love of one man is simply not enough.”

At first the Conde was uncomprehending. But as his son-in-law’s words began to penetrate he grew red, then white with anger. “Just what is it you are saying to me, my lord?” he demanded. “Constanza is a whore.”

“You lie!”

“To what purpose, Francisco? Ana will verify all I say. I sent Ana home because she could not control Constanza. Without meaning to, Ana aided her. Constanza caused such a scandal at the English Court that she was exiled from England permanently. I thought of taking her home to Ireland, but she is badly diseased, cannot bear children now, and will probably die soon. I might have obtained an annulment of this marriage, Francisco. That would have embarrassed you. You are, after all, still King Phillip’s governor on these islands.” “I am not surprised that the licentious English Court corrupted my child. Look at its bastard Queen, the daughter of the great whorewitch! England is as damned as its Court.”

“As an Irishman, Francisco, I’d like to agree with you. But I can’t. Elizabeth of England is young, but I sense greatness in her. She will lead her country well. Her Court is elegant and intelligent, witty and bright. And not particularly licentious, Francisco. Oh, there are some who play at lewd games, but when you think of carnality, the French Court is far ahead of any other in Europe.” The older man’s stem face crumbled. Whom could he blame? “Then what am I to think, Niall? Is the fault mine? Where did I fail Constanza?”

“You didn’t, Francisco. It will take you time, as it did me, to understand that the fault is not in you. The fault is in Constanza, deep within her, eating outward like a maggot inside a perfect fruit. To the eye the fruit is beautiful, the skin firm, the color exquisite.

Inside, however, is rot, and decay. Constanza herself is probably not to blame.”

Suddenly the Conde was weeping. “Ah, Blessed Mother, my poor child! My poor child!”

“Francisco, Constanza is dying and there are no other children. Have you ever thought of marrying again? I do not understand why you never did. Now, if you wish your line to continue, you must do it. You are not an old man, and there is time for you to sire sons.”

A surprised glance met Niall’s. “It is strange that you mention that,” he said. “After Constanza’s mother died I was left alone by the matchmakers. I suspect that was meant to give me time to grieve. But shortly thereafter I withdrew from society entirely, appearing only when it was necessary to my duties. After you married Constanza and left this island I became lonely, and I began to socialize again. I have recently received an offer of marriage with the orphaned granddaughter of an old friend of mine who lives here on Mallorca. I hesitate because the girl is only fourteen.”

“Could you be happy with her, Francisco? Is the match a good oner* “Yes, I should be happy with Luisa. She is pretty, she is pious, and she has indicated she could be happy with me.” “Then for God’s sake, man, marry her and get yourself some heirs!”

It took Constanza Burke two years to die, and in that time her new stepmother bore the Conde two sons and became pregnant with a third. Neither woman could abide the other. Luisa much resented her stepdaughter because Luisa’s children might have to share the Conde’s wealth someday with Constanza. She refused to believe that Lady Burke was dying.

Constanza believed that Luisa embodied criticism of her, particularly when her first half-brother arrived not even ten months after her father’s wedding day. The second was born eleven months later, and when he was but three months old Luisa announced that she was pregnant again. “Her fertility is a reproach to me,” Constanza wailed to Niall. “She delights in being the perfect Spanish wife in order to show the island that I am not! She is what neither my mother nor I could be-a mother of sons. God, how I hate her!” Though Luisa was a perfect wife for the Conde, she was far too smug and stuffy for so young a lady. She was not the beauty her stepdaughter was, but she was quite pretty with creamy gardenia skin that she zealously protected from the sun, smooth, blue-black hair that she wore neatly netted at the nape of her neck, and dark brown eyes that would have been beautiful if there had ever been any emotion to liven them.

Niall did his best to protect bis wife from her stepmother. Whether Luisa was deliberately cruel or simply thoughtless, Niall could never be sure. Things finally reached a head one afternoon when Luisa said something-Niall never found out what it was-and Constanza stumbled from her bed shrieking, “Get out of my house, you damned fecund cow!” Then she collapsed. Ana ran to her mistress while Polly hustled the young Condesa from the room. “Take your hands off me, girl,” snapped Luisa, attempting to break Polly’s hold on her arm.

“On your way, mistress, or I’ll put a curse on your unborn brat!” Polly squinted her eyes and twisted her mouth to give her threat serious meaning.

“Oh!” Luisa crossed herself and, wrenching free, fled out the door to her carriage.

Constanza was unconscious for several hours. Dr. Memhet was called, and shook his head. “She will not last the night, my lord. Your vigil is almost over.” The priest was called, and gave the dying woman extreme unction. He was a young priest, and the dying woman’s confession left him white and shaken. Never before had he heard such evil from a woman’s lips. He fell wearily to his knees, hoping his prayers might help a little.

The Conde arrived, wisely leaving his wife at home, and then they all sat and waited for death to claim its victim. Ana wept softly while telling her beads. Polly wiped her mistress’s forehead free of icy perspiration. And Niall sat pensively by bis wife’s bedside wondering, not for the first time, if it might have all been different if he had taken Constanza directly home to Ireland instead of exposing her to London.