All the Sweet Tomorrows

burgeoning desire until she moaned low with her hunger. She felt his great weight on her as he placed his body atop hers, pressing her deep into the mattress. His throbbing maleness rubbed suggestively against the halves of her bottom, igniting her passion even further. She could scarcely breathe, but she cared not if only he would possess her.

'Adam! Adam! Please,' she pleaded with him. 'I am so hot for you tonight, mon mari!'

He rolled off her, returning her to her back as he did so, and swung himself around so that his dark head was pressed against her white thigh. Caressing her in leisurely fashion, he said softly, 'Now, little girl, now is the time to touch me.'

Skye's slender hand reached out to return her husband's gentle caresses, and the feel of him beneath her fingers roused her further. After a while she pushed herself into a half-sitting position, and turning, he cuddled against her breasts, kissing them lightly while she fondled the hard length of him. She suddenly realized the truth of what he had been telling her all these years. There was no need to rush; the passion that built slowly between them was far more exciting than any she had ever experienced. Finally, when she thought it could be no more wonderful than it was now, Adam pulled Skye beneath him, gently mounted her, and thrust into her warmth. She cried softly with the pleasure his entry gave her, molding him harder against her with the flat of her palms against his smooth back.

'It's like mulled wine,' he groaned against her mouth. 'Being inside of you tonight is like being in hot mulled wine,' and for a moment he couldn't stir so delicious was the sensation; but then he began to move sensuously on her.

She barely heard him, for his tender possession of her had pushed her into a world of such uninhibited ecstasy that Skye was only aware of wave after wave of rapturous passion sweeping over her and surrounding her. It left her at last feeling totally satisfied and content. 'Oh, Adam,' she murmured, 'how can it be so good between us?'

And he laughed softly, saying, 'How can it not be, sweetheart, when we love each other so?'

Love. It was the unbreakable bond between them. A bond forged by the fires of experience, of pain and of passion. At Archambault love surrounded them, for the de Saville family was a close one whose members cared for and protected each other. As Adam's wife, she was now one of them. The comte had insisted that they remain with the family until after the baby was born. Antoine de Saville was a quiet man, but he was also a very wise one. He knew that the closer the bond between Skye and his family the easier this hard time would be upon her. He understood that her predicament, despite Adam's love and understanding, was a traumatic and harsh one. Yet he was a man who loved children, and he believed that not only the mother, but the corning infant must be protected in this situation.

***

Both Murrough and, surprisingly, Ewan, went happily off to the university in Paris. Ewan had decided that since he was here he would take advantage of a French education, as his father had. He was not the scholar that Murrough was, but he would do well enough, and given the situation in Ireland, it could not hurt him to have French connections.

Willow fretted about allowing her dearest Dame Cecily to return to Wren Court without her, but Robert Small's sister was adamant on the subject. 'You've not seen yer mother in almost two years, miss, and she needs you now. Besides, with that silly Daisy having another babe by the New Year I’ll have my hands full there. Daisy's ma has been too ill to help, and well you know it, Willow.'

Secretly and guiltily, Willow was relieved. She loved Dame Cecily with all her heart, but she loved her mother more, and she had missed Skye so very much. This wonderful, voluble, loving new French family was very much to her liking. With a light heart she waved her surrogate grandmother off on the road to Nantes, where she would be embarking upon an O'Malley ship for Bideford. Then Willow attached herself to her recently acquired Grandmere Gaby, and began learning all the secrets of a good chatelaine. When she was not tagging after the comtesse she was with her new cousins, Matilde Rochouart, and Marie-Gabrielle and Catherine-Henriette St. Justine. It was the first time in her life that Willow could remember having friends of her own rank, and close to her own age.

Antoine de Saville, aged seven, and his cousin, Charles Sancerre, aged eight, became the close partners in crime of his lordship, Robin, the nine-year-old Earl of Lynmouth. Together the three boys roamed the estate of Archambault, riding, birding, and daydreaming, a troupe of shaggy dogs at their heels. The three scrapegraces became very adept at eluding their tutor, until finally Adam sternly threatened his stepson with a sound thrashing if he did not behave himself. Comparing notes in hushed tones, the three discovered that all had been promised the same punishment by their outraged elders, and so they finally settled down.

In the big nursery of Archambault little Deirdre Burke learned her first embroidery stitches with her very best friend, Antoinette de Saville, while wee Lord Padraic Burke played on the floor at wooden soldiers with his new cousins, Jean-Pierre, Claude, and Michel, the four watched over by their nurses, plump, rosy-cheeked country girls with broad laps and big pillowy bosoms who spoiled the little boys shamelessly.

It was an ideal situation, for Skye's pregnancy was not an easy one in the beginning. To her great amusement and equal annoyance, Adam reveled in her condition. He happily held the basin for her when she awoke in the mornings feeling wretched; her fussy appetite was an excuse for him to hover over her, offering any delicacies he thought might please her; he rubbed her ankles, which seemed to ache at the most inconvenient times. Sometimes it made her feel guilty as she remembered that this wasn't Adam's child, but the child of a royal rape. She tried for his sake to maintain a cheerful attitude, but occasionally a shadow of unhappiness would cross her face, and when it did there were four people who understood the reason for it. When they were together, Adam's sisters, Isabeau and Clarice, consoled their beautiful sister-in-law as best they could.

'You must not hate the child, Skye,' said Isabeau, the elder. 'Poor baby. 'Tis as much a victim as you were.'

'I pray it not look like its father,' Skye said. 'If it does how can I help but detest it?'

'Think of Adam,' Clarice said, her blue eyes filled with concern. 'Oh, Skye, you don't know what it was like for him when that awful Athenais broke off their betrothal! He was so young then, and he believed himself in love with her. He needed her understanding at the most, and at the least he needed discretion. Instead she shamed him publicly, spreading terrible lies around the district concerning his manhood. With her quick match to the old Duc de Beuvron, nobody, of course, believed her. They thought she was attempting to make excuses for taking a better offer, but Adam, knowing the truth, was so shamed. He has always wanted a child. Let this be his child, I beg of you!'

Skye remembered how Adam had told her that several of the girls on Lundy claimed that he had fathered their babies; and he had not denied it, but rather acknowledged the paternity, and seen to it that neither mother nor child wanted for anything. She saw how good he was with her own children, slipping easily into his role of father. He wrote letters filled with news and advice to the O’Flaherty boys in Paris, and both Ewan and Murrough wrote back, respecting their stepfather and, Skye realized when they arrived for Christmas, even harboring affection for him.

Willow, Skye discovered, was trying out newly discovered feminine wiles on Adam, constantly soliciting his opinion on everything. When at New Year's he presented her with a strand of pale-gold pearls to complement her skin, which was darker than Skye's, Willow flung her arms about Adam, crying, 'Oh, Papa! I do love you so, and I am so glad that you are my father!' Skye felt the quick tears pricking at her eyelids, and she turned away, her heart overflowing with happiness.

Robin quite openly idolized Adam de Marisco. He had been so little when his own father, Geoffrey Southwood, had died along with his baby brother, John. He had not been six when Niall Burke disappeared. Adam was the most stable male influence in his life, and had always, it seemed to him, been there. In Robin's mind, it was only natural