Lynmouth ran into the room. 'Mama!' He flung himself into her arms.
'Robin! Oh, my dearest Robin!' Then she began to cry.
'Mama!' Robin Southwood's voice held an amused note that reminded Skye of his late father, Geoffrey, and she wept all the more. 'God's bones, Uncle Robbie!' said the boy. 'I think I had best leave.'
'Don't you dare!' Skye wiped her eyes on her handkerchief, hastily retrieved from her dressing-gown pocket. 'It is just that I am so very glad to see you, Robin, and you look and sound more like your rather each day.' She held him at arm's length. 'You have grown taller. Are you happy at court, Robin? I was so proud of you last night. But you are so young to be a page. Are you sure that you wouldn't rather live at Lynmouth, my love? Or perhaps you will come with me to Beaumont de Jaspre.'
'Beaumont de Jaspre? Where is that, Mama? Why on earth are you going to a place called Beaumont de Jaspre?' Robin had been out of the room when the Queen had briefly announced Skye's betrothal the previous evening. He had been sent to fetch Her Majesty's pomander.
'I can see that the court gossip has not caught up with you, Robin. The Queen is sending me to Beaumont de Jaspre, which is a small duchy between Provence and the Languedoc. I am to be bride to its duc.'
'That is outrageous!' The boy's small face was a mask of stunned anger. 'My stepfather is barely cold in his grave, and
Skye could not destroy his faith in Elizabeth Tudor. He was an Englishman, and not just any Englishman. Despite his youth, he was one of England's premier noblemen. But his title and all his wealth would amount to nothing if he did not give his complete loyalty to the Crown, and Skye understood that. 'Robin,' she said quietly as she drew him toward her, 'the Queen needs my help very badly. She must have a safe haven for English ships in the Mediterranean, and Beaumont de Jaspre will provide that haven. She must have a listening post into France and Spain, and again Beaumont de Jaspre will provide her with it. All the duc requires of England in return is a wife. It is the Queen's decision that I be that wife, and I am proud that she trusts me to aid her, even though I am Irish,' Skye said wryly. 'Niall would be proud of me, as would your father, and Willow's, too.'
'I had not thought about it that way, Mama,' he said, but his lime-green eyes filled with tears, and his small lower lip trembled. 'Will I ever see you again, Mama?'
'Oh, Robin!' She hugged him quickly. 'I have only to get settled, and then you will come to me. You, and Willow, and Deirdre, and your new baby brother, Padraic. Even Murrough and Ewan, if they want to come also!'
'When do you go, Mama?' His little voice quavered slightly.
'Within the month, Robin.' She kissed him soundly, once on each cheek. 'Come now, my little love, I've been in Ireland since last autumn, and you didn't miss me at all, I vow! You are having far too much fun with the court, my lord of Lynmouth!'
A small smile touched his lips, and he looked up at her with a look so like his father's that Skye's heart almost broke with the rush of memories. 'Perhaps, madam,' he allowed, and she laughed.
'You are a villain,' she teased him, 'and you grow more like Geoffrey every day.'
'Robin Southwood!' Willow stood in the dayroom door, her small foot impatiently tapping. 'How long have you been in our mother's house and not come to bid me good day?!'
Robin pulled from his mother's embrace and, turning, made his half-sister a most elegant leg, sweeping his small dark green velvet cap with its pheasant's feather from his blond head as he did so. 'Your servant, Mistress Small,' he said as he bowed low.
Willow curtseyed prettily, spreading the skirts of her rose-pink velvet gown as she did so. 'Good day to you, my lord Earl,' she said.
Then with a giggle and a whoop the two children were hugging each other as their mother smiled happily at their antics.
'Is there room for me, too?' a slightly deeper voice inquired.
Skye turned to see a tall, dark-haired boy standing in her doorway. 'Murrough!'
'Good morning, Mama.' He came forward and kissed her. 'Lady Clinton has released me from my duties as long as you are in London with the court. I hope that will be all right.' He looked anxiously at her. Thank God, she thought guiltily, there was nothing of his father about him.
'Dearest Murrough, I am delighted, and so grateful to Elizabeth Clinton for letting you come!' Skye hugged her second eldest son. 'You have grown thin. Are you eating properly? I know how it is with pages. You are always so busy there isn't enough time to eat or to sleep.'
He grinned down at her. 'Yes, I am eating, but I have grown four inches in the last year, Mama. I guess now that my meals have to go further I need to eat even more if I am to satisfy you. How is Ewan?'
'He's fine,' she replied. Then, 'You miss him, don't you?'
'Aye, I miss him, and Ireland, too.'
'You understand why you must stay here, Murrough?'
'Aye, Mama, I understand. I am landless, and even if you settle monies on me, a man without his own land is nothing.'
'There is Joan Southwood to think of too, Murrough. She deserves her own home.'
'How is she?' he asked.
'Growing quite lovely, Murrough. Her hair has become a beautiful golden brown, and reaches to her hips; and her eyes have just a hint of Geoffrey's green in them. They are quite a delicious hazel color. She is, of course, as sweet-natured as ever, and works quite diligently on the items of her trousseau she believes you will appreciate. She is half through a large tapestry depicting a knight slaying a dragon. Anne says she is a very accomplished needlewoman. She is going to make you a fine wife.'
'I know, Mother, and I thank you for making me such a good match. Joan is a good girl, and will suit me admirably. I’ll win her, and the children we will have someday, fair lands in the Queen's service. See if I don't!'
'I know that you will, Murrough.' Skye gave him another hug. 'You know of my impending marriage?'
'Aye. Is it what you want?'
'No, but I have no choice. I must protect your half-brother's lands, and the Anglo-Irish in the Dublin Pale eye the Burke lands like ravenous wolves. I needed a favor from the Queen, and royalty never gives from the heart.'
He nodded in understanding. Murrough O’Flaherty was twelve years old. He had been two when his mother disappeared, and six when he had been reunited with her again. He was nine when his stepfather, Geoffrey Southwood, the Earl of Lynmouth, had died, and ten when he had been sent into service as a page with the Earl and Countess of Lincoln's household. Of necessity he had grown to maturity quickly. He knew that with his mother's money he should never want for the material things in life, but he also knew that if he was to win his own lands, and, he hoped, a title, it must be in the service of England's Queen. He comprehended, perhaps better than any of his brothers and sisters, his mother's difficult position.
'Do you want me with you?' he asked her half hopefully, for he loved her dearly.
Skye's eyes filled with quick tears, which she rapidly blinked away. 'Thank you, Murrough,' she said. 'When I am settled I will want you to visit me, and meet your new stepfather, but I will not spoil the progress you have made here at court.' She touched his cheek gently in a maternal gesture of gratitude. 'Go and speak with your brother and sister now, my knight errant.'
He moved off, and Robbie, who had been sitting opposite her the entire time, sniffed loudly. 'They're a fine litter, your children,' he muttered.
'Go see Dame Cecily now,' she scolded him. 'She is probably up and wondering where you are.'
'When is Edmond de Beaumont coming?'
'He's been asked for seven. I think I shall have the children, too. There are no other guests. Just you, your sister, and myself.'
He nodded. 'We'll not be late? I have some business to see to this evening.'
Skye laughed. 'We'll not be late,' she said, knowing that his evening 'business' was with a whorehouse.
'The beef was good,' he said, rising, and then ambled out of her dayroom, patting the children's heads as he went.
'Who wants to go riding with me?' Skye demanded of her children, and they all noisily assented. 'Go and
