Skye O'Malley (42 page)

“Considering your reputation as a swordsman, this is surely a case of the pot calling the saucepan black,” she teased.

He guffawed heartily.

The days sped by. She heard nothing from Geoffrey. And then came the day of her appointment with Cecil and the Queen. She dressed elegantly but soberly. William Cecil, Lord Burghley, Her Majesty’s chief advisor, was not a man to be swayed by a show of bosom. Her gown was dark-blue velvet, its severity relieved by a small white lace ruff at the neck. The sleeves were slashed and edged with gold, her white silk underblouse showing through the openings. She wore a gold chain interspersed at intervals with small flat plaques of
carved white coral roses. Her shining hair was parted in the center and drawn into an elegant chignon at the nape of her neck.

The river was frozen solid, so they went to Greenwich in Skye’s coach. Cecil awaited them in a book-lined room. He wasted no time but came directly to the point. “If we grant you a royal charter, what does Her Majesty gain?”

“A quarter share in the cargo, an accurate map of the area—for we’re carrying two cartographers on each vessel—and of course we’re available to do any errands Her Majesty may require along our route,” replied Robert Small.

“How many ships?”

“Eight.”

“That will be the number going. How many will you bring back?”

“Six at the minimum.”

“You overestimate, I think, Captain Small,” snapped Cecil.

“No, my lord. I don’t. Barring a typhoon, I will actually return with all eight. But a serious storm could lose me one or two.”

“What of pirates, or mutiny?”

“My lord, every captain in my fleet has been with me for several years, as have all my ships’ crews. These men are used to working together under both good and bad conditions. They are a loyal and disciplined lot, unlike most crews. They’ll bring their ships through Hell if necessary, but they’ll bring them home to England.”

Cecil smiled thinly. “Your confidence is commendable, sir. I shall look forward to being amazed.” He turned to Skye. “And where, madam, do you come into this?”

“I finance it,” said Skye quietly.

“You must have great confidence in Captain Small,” said Cecil drily.

“I do, sir. He was my husband’s partner for some years, and never failed him once.”

“And your husband was …?”

“Don Diego Indio Goya del Fuentes, a Spanish merchant of Algiers.”

“The Spanish ambassador claims never to have heard of him, madam.”

“I would hardly think the Spanish ambassador to the English Court would be well acquainted with the residents of Algiers, my lord,” said Skye coolly.

“Perhaps not, madam. I merely mention it in passing. It is my duty to protect my Queen.”

“If you feel, my lord Cecil, that this venture is a danger to your Queen, or would bring some discredit upon her, then I shall withdraw my request for a charter, and you must rule against us with Her Majesty. However, to do so casts doubt upon not only my honor, but on Sir Robert’s as well. I am but newly come from Algiers, but Captain Small has always been a loyal and good servant of England.”

“Madam, you misunderstand me. I merely said that King Phillip’s man knew not of your late husband’s family.”

“Why should he? My husband’s family came to Algiers several generations back. The original Goya del Fuentes was, I believe, a younger son. There is still a branch of the family in Spain—near Granada or Seville. I can never remember which.”

Cecil sighed, exasperated, and Robbie hid a smile. Skye was doing a fine job of confusing the chancellor. It relieved him to see her fast thinking. Now he need not fear leaving her when he went back to sea.

“Really, my lord,” Skye allowed a slightly annoyed tone to creep into her voice, “what it is that bothers you I cannot imagine. I ask for nothing other than Her Majesty’s sponsorship. In return I offer her a quarter share of the profits, the latest mapping of the area, and my ships will be bringing to the peoples of the East word of our Queen’s greatness. This hardly seems to me a suspicious undertaking.”

“Dammit, madam, you deliberately twist my words!” roared Cecil.

“Do I indeed, sir? Pray then, enlighten me as to exactly what it is you
do
mean.”

A burst of tinkling laughter interrupted them, and from a shadowy recess in the room the Queen quickly appeared.

“Do not mind Cecil, Mistress Goya del Fuentes. He is overcautious of our welfare, and we are appreciative of his efforts. Although we might do without any other of our servants, we could not do without him. Come, my friend, you need not know the lady’s pedigree in order to do business with her. Our treasury is not so full that we cannot use the profits from this voyage, and it costs us nothing more than our goodwill. Captain Small’s record speaks for itself.”

“Very well, my lady Queen. I will see the charter is granted if you so desire.”

“I do, my lord Cecil. Work out the pertinent details with Captain Small. Mistress Goya del Fuentes will come and have a glass of wine with us.” The Queen strode from the room and Skye, after curtseying to Cecil, followed her.

As the door closed upon the women the chancellor remarked, “She’s a beautiful woman, Sir Robert, and she has a brain. Her Majesty approves of intelligent women.”

“She is the daughter I never had,” replied Robbie.

“Indeed,” murmured Cecil. “Then are you aware that she spent several days and nights in mid-January with Lord Southwood at the Thameside inn called the Ducks and Drake?”

“I am,” said Robbie, his anger beginning to rise. “You seem to be keeping a rather close watch on an unimportant and harmless young woman, my lord.”

“A woman of Irish descent who was wed to a Spaniard … both traditional enemies of England,” Cecil observed drily.

“And is Lord Southwood also under suspicion?” snapped the captain.

“Only to the extent that a valuable servant of the Queen might be subverted.”

Robert Small was on his feet. “By God, sir! I’ll hear no further slander against Skye! She has suffered greatly, and yet remains a sweet and good lady. There is not a devious or disloyal tendency in her, I assure you.”

“Sit down, sit down, Captain Small. Our own investigations have borne out your words. I would, however, like your personal thoughts about her relationship with Lord Southwood. You need divulge no confidence, of course, but the Earl is a valuable man to the Queen.”

“He claims to be in love with her,” answered Robbie, “and God help her, for she’s in love with him.”

“Curious,” said Cecil. “It is not the Earl’s custom to take women seriously. Then perhaps he really is in love with her?”

Far away, at that very moment, the gentleman in question was raging violently at his pale and cowering wife. Geoffrey Southwood had rarely felt such overpowering fury. “Bitch! Bitch!” he shouted at her. “You’ve killed my only legitimate son! Christ’s body, how could you be so stupid? You knew there was smallpox about, and yet you wrote to the Countess of Shrewsbury and asked to have Henry sent home for Twelfth Night. Without my permission. As God is my witness, Mary, I could kill you!”

“Then why don’t you, Geoffrey?” she baited him. “You hate me, and our daughters! Why not kill us all?”

Her hysterical outburst calmed him somewhat. He eyed her coldly. “I am going to divorce you, Mary. I should have done so years ago.”

“You have no grounds to do such a thing.”

“I have all the grounds I need, Mary. You produce nothing but daughters. The one son you bore me you wantonly killed. You refused to hostess my friends, yet you hoard the household monies I send you to dower your daughters despite the fact I have forbidden them to wed. I have grounds, Mary, but if needs be I’ll produce half a dozen men who’ll claim intimate knowledge of you.”

She went white with shock. “You truly are a bastard, Geoffrey,” she whispered, horrified.

He hit her a blow that sent her to her knees.

“A bastard!” she repeated. He turned and left. They were the last words she ever spoke to her husband. By nightfall Mary Southwood lay ill of smallpox herself, as did every one of her daughters. She died several days later. Mary, Elizabeth, Catherine, and Phillipa joined her. Only the three youngest girls, Susan and twins Gwyneth and Joan, survived. The Earl was saved because he had had a light case of smallpox as a child.

The Countess and her daughters were buried with a bare minimum of ceremony, the bell in Lynmouth Church dutifully tolling their passing as the carts carried their coffins to the family cemetery. Geoffrey told his three daughters of their mother’s and sisters’ deaths. They were so young, only four and five, that he was not sure they really understood him. Looking at them closely for the first time, he decided that they were really somewhat comely. Leaving detailed instructions as to their convalescence, he departed Devon for Court.

He had been in Devon for over two months, and spring had come to England. The Court had left Greenwich and was now at Nonesuch. The Earl of Lynmouth was welcomed back warmly, particularly by the ladies, for news of his loss had preceded him. Anxious to see Skye, he fretted until he could get to London. He could not go until the Queen gave her permission. He waited for the right moment to beg that permission.

In London Robbie prepared to take his leave of Skye. The
Mermaid
and her fellow ships waited now, fully provisioned, in the Pool. He had put off his departure until the last possible moment, for Skye was quite easily upset of late, the least little thing sending her into tears. He had sent to Devon for his sister, Marie, and the two children. The sight of Willow, now almost two, had cheered her somewhat.

He knew what distressed her. It was Southwood’s apparent desertion. Since the Earl had returned with her from their tryst in January
there had been no word from him other than the cryptic message that he was needed in Devon. Robert Small told himself once more that the man was a bastard, plain and simple. Seeing Skye grow so pale and listless, he silently cursed the Earl and bemoaned the fact that there was nothing he could do to cheer her.

Finally Robert Small could delay no longer. On the night before he sailed Skye arranged a small dinner party for him at her house. De Grenville was their guest, dining with Skye, Robbie, Dame Cecily, Jean, and Marie. De Grenville intended to sail with Robbie as far as the Channel. The meal was delicious, but Skye only picked at the food. Her merriment was forced. At least, she thought sourly, Southwood had done her one good turn by arranging an introduction to the Queen, thereby helping them obtain a royal charter. As to love … it was all either passion or pain.

De Grenville was soon in his cups, and he leered at Skye in a friendly fashion. “For a learned and modest woman you cost me dearly, Mistress Skye. Now that the Earl of Lynmouth is back at Court I suppose he’ll be taking my barge.”

He was back! And he’d never even sent her word! “Why should he take your barge, Dickon?” she asked absently.

Robert Small suddenly came to life. “That’s no story for Skye’s ears, Dickon!” he protested, kicking his friend beneath the table.

But de Grenville paid him no heed. His hostess’s rich wine had fuzzed his wits. “Why shouldn’t she know, Robbie? When I turn my barge over to Geoff it will be all over Court. Don’t know why I bet him anyway, but I did want that stallion.”

Skye felt a premonition of disaster run through her. “What bet is this, Dickon?”

“Enough, de Grenville!” cried Robert Small desperately, glancing toward his sister and Marie.

“No, Robbie,” snapped Skye. “I believe I should hear what Dickon has to say. Pray, sir, enlighten me as to what you and my lord Earl wagered.”

“I bet my barge against his prize stud stallion that he couldn’t make you his mistress within a six-month period. Looked like such a sure thing. You certainly cut him dead at the inn in Dartmour. Didn’t think he was your type at all. But then, my father always said women were a fickle lot and not to be trusted.”

Cecily and Marie both gasped. The Gallic Jean shrugged philosophically. But Robbie, who knew her best of all, held his breath in anticipation of the explosion that immediately followed.

“The bastard!” she raged. “The damned bastard! I could kill
him! I
will
kill him! No, I won’t—I shall do to him what Marie did to Captain Jamil!” Bursting into tears, she picked up her skirts and fled the room.

Marie and Cecily rose to follow her, but Robbie stayed them with a gesture and went after her himself. He saw her running across the terrace, down into the garden. His short legs pumping hard, he ran after her calling, “Skye, lass! Wait for me, Skye!” She stopped, but her back remained toward him. As he reached her he could see her shoulders shaking. He walked around her and gathered her into his arms. She wept wildly. “Oh, lass, I am so sorry. But don’t waste your tears on him. He’s not worth it, Skye. He’s not worth any grief.”

“I l-l-love him, Robbie,” she sobbed, “I l-l-love the bastard!”

He sighed. He was going to have to hurt her further, but there was no help for it. Best she know the worst from him than have some ass like de Grenville tell her. He drew her over to a carved stone bench and they sat down.

“I want you to hear this from me, Skye. Southwood’s only son and his wife and four of his daughters are dead of the smallpox. That’s what sent him down into Devon in January. De Grenville tells me the rumors at Court are that the Queen has already picked out an heiress for him, and Geoffrey Southwood would never say no to a wealthy match. And now that he no longer has a son, it is imperative that he remarry. The sooner the better, I would say, for with a new wife he’ll have little time for you, lass.”

She raised her face to him and he thought, as he had thought a hundred times or more, that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever known. Tonight when he left her he would visit a sweet young whore of his acquaintance, but on the long nights at sea it would be Skye he thought of, not little Sally. It would be Skye’s face that he would easily recall to mind, the young prostitute’s fading from memory within an hour of their parting.

“You understand what I’m saying to you, Skye?” He looked anxiously into her wet sapphire eyes. “You understand that in all likelihood it’s finished with Southwood.”