Lettice pretended to consider the dilemma. She was quite sure that none of them had been Walter, but she was desirous of knowing the identity of the man whose kiss had thrilled her so. “The last gentleman was Walter,” she announced firmly. “I am quite sure.” A great burst of raucous laughter greeted this statement, and when the blindfold was snatched off Lettice found herself facing Lord Dudley. “Ohhhh,” she cried, blushing in pretty confusion, “but I was so very sure! He kisses me just the way Walter does.” “None of them was Walter, my dear,” chortled de Grenville. “Really, Dickon!” Lettice stamped her foot in apparent outrage, and there was more good-natured laughter. Robert Dudley smiled to himself as he put an arm about the Queen. Lettice Knollys was an outright minx. When he’d kissed her she’d thrust her sharp little tongue into his mouth with a delightfully practiced skill. He eyed her from beneath carefully lowered eyelids, and saw to his amazement that she was eying him, just as intently and just as discreetly. Well, well, thought Dudley, a possible playmate on those nights when Bess drives me to distraction and then sends me on my way unfulfilled.
The evening progressed, growing merrier and merrier. Finally the Queen and her intimates departed and were followed shortly thereafter by the other exhausted, exhilarated, and drunken guests. The last of them waved out the door, the Earl and Countess of Lynmouth joined hands and ran up the staircase to their apartments where their body servants awaited them.
“I’ve your night things all ready, m’lady,” smiled Daisy. “No,” said Skye, “my lord and I are but stopping to change. We are off for Devon! Have the girls pack my nightgown and toilet articles now, and get me the deep-blue wool traveling dress and the matching velvet cloak with the sable lining and trim.” “But m’lady,” protested Daisy, “we’ve not packed to leave.” “You and the others may leave tomorrow or the day after. My lord and I prefer to travel quickly.”
“Yes, m’lady.”
In his bedchamber Geoffrey was issuing similar orders. “The large traveling coach,” he instructed his majordomo. “My lady will want to nap along the way. Send a rider ahead to the Queen’s Head Inn to say that we will be stopping there in late afternoon. I will want their best bedroom, a private dining room, and accommodations for the coach and the staff.”
“At once, m’lord!”
Within the hour a great traveling coach, the crest of the Southwood family emblazoned upon its side, lumbered down the Strand. A coachman and a footman sat upon the box. A groom rode behind the coach leading two horses. He was followed by six men at arms.
She giggled happily. “Something very similiar, if memory serves, my darling. But not in a jouncing coach.”
“I don’t believe we’ve ever made love in a coach,” he observed thoughtfully.
“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
“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,
