All the Sweet Tomorrows (36 page)

Skye paused a moment, wondering whether to tell him the truth. Why not? she thought. Perhaps it would help convince
him. She drew a deep breath. “Edmond,” she said, “Niall Burke and I were to be married after the death and mourning of my first husband. Before our nuptials could be celebrated, however, it was necessary for me to make a trip to Algiers. My trading company wished to do business with the Dey, and when he heard that the head of the O’Malleys was a woman he insisted upon seeing me. He had given us a pendant to put atop our mast that would guarantee us safe conduct through Barbary waters, but the pendant was lost in a storm and we found ourselves in a fight with pirates. We won, but I was taken from my flagship and Niall was shot as he attempted to rescue me. I believed him dead, and lost my memory as a consequence. Khalid el Bey, known as the Great Whoremaster of Algiers, bought me as a slave. He intended to train me for his finest brothel, the House of Felicity. Instead, he fell in love with me and married me.

“When Khalid was murdered in a plot concocted by his evil friend, Capitan Jamil of the Casbah fortress, I was forced to flee Algiers. Jamil coveted me, and had decided to have both me and my lord Khalid’s wealth. I was pregnant with Willow at the time, but it didn’t slow me down, Edmond. With the help of Osman, who had been my husband’s dearest friend, I converted Khalid’s holdings into gold and fled Algiers with my personal servants via Robbie’s ship several days before my period of mourning was to end.

“Now do you understand why I trust Osman? If he calls me then I must go, Edmond. If he says that Niall is alive then he is, and I will find him! I must do this not only for myself, but for Deirdre and Padraic as well. They have a right to their father, and I have a right to my husband.”

“My God!” Edmond ejaculated. “You are amazing! You are more than amazing!
You are formidable!”
He stopped and, moving in front of her, took her two hands in his tiny ones. “What you have told me,
chérie
, will remain between us. I see now why you trust this Osman, and …” he sighed sadly, “I understand now that you will not be back.”

“Find Nicolas someone quickly, Edmond. Do not let him mourn me until I become so idealized in his memory that no other woman could possibly satisfy him. Find him someone who will understand and be patient with his pain. Someone who will see what a fine man he is, and be willing to wait for him to heal. My instinct tells me it should be a young girl, not necessarily an heiress, or even an eldest daughter, but a girl who would be
pleased for such a plum as the Duc de Beaumont de Jaspre to fall into her lap. Find him someone who will love him, Edmond.”

“Yes,” was the resigned reply, “I will find someone who will love him, and eventually with God’s good luck he will love her, too. Poor girl, I do not envy her her lot, for it will be a difficult one. Nicolas will not be easy to placate.”

They continued down into the lovely courtyard of the castle. Skye had decided to leave at twilight when Villerose’s streets would be fairly empty. No announcement had been made of Skye’s departure, and would not be until she was long gone. It would be most difficult to explain to the people, but explain they would have to eventually. Skye suggested to Edmond as they entered the courtyard that they wait as long as possible in order to protect Beaumont de Jaspre from the French, and give him an opportunity to look over the possible candidates for Nicolas’s hand.

“With my children here it is unlikely that anyone will notice me gone for a good week. The servants, of course, must be told to keep silent.”

Daisy was waiting with her mistress’s cloak, and she wrapped it around Skye, pulling the hood up to disguise her lady from prying eyes. With trembling fingers Daisy fastened the heavy gold frog fasteners, and then stepped back. Her eyes were teary, and Skye gave her a quick hug, chiding, “None of that, Daisy. I’ll be back before you know it!”

“God s-speed, m’lady!” came the quavering reply, and then Daisy turned and fled back into the castle.

Skye watched her go, and then said, “Poor Daisy. We have never been parted since she came into my service. She even went into the Tower with me. Watch over her, Edmond, and see that she and the children get safely off at the proper time.”

He nodded, and then Skye saw Robbie and Nicolas coming toward her. The young duc had dressed himself in his finest clothes, and the dark green velvet was very flattering to his rich chestnut hair and his forest green eyes. About his neck was the heavy gold chain of Beaumont, its lion pendant lying on his chest.

“How handsome you are,” she said sincerely as he stopped in front of her.

“How beautiful you are,” he answered, looking down into her face, and Skye’s heart contracted painfully. His hand gently pushed back her hood so he might have a last look at her, and then he bent his head and briefly and tenderly brushed her half-parted
lips with his own. For a long, heart-stopping moment their eyes met, and then he gently drew the hood back up over her head. “Au
revoir, mon coeur,”
he said, and then turned and walked from the courtyard into the castle, never once looking back at her.

“Go with him!” Skye begged Edmond.

“Aye,” Edmond said, and catching her hand up kissed it fervently. “God speed,
chérie,”
he murmured, and then he too was gone after his young uncle.

A silent servant helped Skye to mount her white palfrey while another aided Robbie. Then together they trotted their horses from the flowered courtyard and across the drawbridge. As they went Skye said in a sad, resigned voice, “I have been here just over one year, Robbie. How macabre! Where will I be a year from now, do you think? Will Niall and I be safely home in Ireland?”

“Lord bless me, lass, who knows?!” He wasn’t going to let her feel sorry for herself, and he could see the terrible emotional toll her farewell from Nicolas had taken. “One thing I can promise you, Skye. Wherever you are a year from now it will not have been a dull year, for you’ve never been a dull woman. By God! I do enjoy trying to keep up with you, my lass! ’Twill be one of two things for me: either I’ll never grow old following after you, Skye O’Malley; or I’ll be old before my time!” He chuckled. “I can just see Cecily’s face when she gets here and finds us gone. She’s always said I make a fuss over nothing when it comes to your constant adventures, Skye lass. Now she’ll see,” he chortled wickedly. “Now she’ll see!”

Part 3
NORTH AFRICA

A
LGIERS
shimmered in the midday heat. The sun glared off the deep-blue waters of the harbor and reflected back onto the white, white buildings of the city. Skye’s ship,
Seagull
, was anchored a short distance out in the harbor. Robbie had no intention of allowing Skye ashore until he had made absolutely certain that Jamil was not in the city.

“You’re an old woman,” she teased him as he climbed down the side of the ship into the small dinghy that would take him into the docks.

“Ye’re damned right, I am!” he shot back, not one bit intimidated. “Do you want to spend the rest of your days in slavery to Jamil, lass?”

“I’d sooner be dead!”

“Then I’ll just be on my way to find Osman,” Robbie said with a chuckle. “Besides, ye’re getting too old to be running around in diaphanous trousers and beaded tops.”

“Too old?!”
She looked outraged. “I’m not yet—”

“Yes, you are!” he laughed. “Not that you look it, Skye lass. Be patient, and I’ll not be long.”

She watched the small boat skitter across the waves and into the docks. Robbie would have no hard time finding Osman, for the famous astrologer had bought Khalid el Bey’s house from Skye when she had fled Algiers over ten years ago. Robbie, who had been Khalid’s business partner, was most familiar with the
house. She could see it from here. Slowly she raised her eyes up to gaze on the house in which she had been so supremely happy. It stood elegant and proud atop a high hill overlooking the entire city. She wondered if the gardens were still as lovely. She would soon know.

When Bran Kelly had returned to Devon for Dame Cecily, Robbie had allowed the young captain to take his own ship, the
Mermaid
, for he wanted the cargo he had traded for in Ottoman Turkey brought back to England. Consequently, it was
Seagull
that had brought them to Algiers, and old Sean MacGuire who had captained her. Now the senior captain of the O’Malley fleet kept his mistress company as she paced anxiously up and down the deck of her ship.

“If he’s to be found, ye’ll find him,” MacGuire said comfortingly.

She nodded, but said nothing.

After a while MacGuire, taking out his old pipe and putting it between his teeth, spoke again. “Niall Burke’s a tough one, and that’s for sure. I remember the cosh we gave him on the head to make him more manageable the morning after yer first marriage. If he had a headache he never said so.”

“If he’s here,” Skye said slowly, “I keep wondering how he got from a deserted beach on Ireland’s west coast to North Africa.”

“Yer friend Osman is sure to know, m’lady Skye.”

“Yes, Osman …” She stared off again across the harbor to the white building upon the hill.

Time. Time moved so slowly here in Algiers, she recalled. She hoped that Robbie would remember to hurry. The voyage from Beaumont de Jaspre had not been a long one, only a few days, but with each hour that had passed the last year had faded and her memories of Niall Burke become stronger. The how and why began to haunt her, and she grew more and more anxious to reach Algiers, to speak with Osman. Was it a hoax perpetrated by Jamil, or had Osman really sent for her?

“You’d better change out of those clothes if you intend to be ready when he gets back,” MacGuire said after what seemed a very long while.

“There’s time,” she said, not even stopping her pacing.

“Nay, m’lady, there’s no time. Look!” He pointed out toward the docks. “There’s Sir Robert’s boat now making its return trip.”

“Holy Mother!” Skye ran to her cabin and, once inside, began with suddenly clumsy fingers to get out of her sea garb. If
she really wanted to cause a stir all she needed to do was appear in the streets of Algiers unveiled and dressed as a sea captain. Opening the tiny trunk of clothes that Daisy had so carefully packed for her, she drew out an exquisite caftan of pale-mauve silk. The neckline was modestly high and embroidered in tiny purple glass beads that extended down from the round of the neck in a band two inches wide and six inches long. Such a band also ringed each of the wide sleeves. Sliding the caftan on, she then undid her long hair from the confining single braid in which she always dressed it when at sea. She brushed the dark mass free and fixed a band of mauve silk with the identical purple beading on her head to contain the hair and keep it from falling into her eyes.

Makeup!
Skye scrambled through the trunk, and there it was: a small ebony box containing little ivory pots of color, each set carefully in its own niche, and several sable brushes. The inside lid of the box was mirrored so she might see what she was doing no matter where she was. Skillfully she outlined her eyes with blue kohl and darkened her lashes. Neither her lips nor her cheeks needed the addition of color, for Skye had always been a healthy woman.

Finished, she gazed into the mirror and her eyes widened in surprise, for staring back at her was a woman she thought she had left behind some ten years ago when she had escaped Algiers and the unwelcome advances of Capitan Jamil. It was uncanny, and not a little frightening, for the woman in the mirror did not look a day older than the nineteen-year-old girl she had been. True, her eyes were wiser, and her cheekbones etched more finely now, but other than that there was no change. Skye shivered, and then shaking off the feeling of déjà vu, she closed the makeup case with a snap, stood, replaced the ebony box in her trunk, and walked from the cabin.

Robbie’s small boat had already reached the
Seagull
, and he had just climbed to the deck when she exited her cabin. Stunned, he stood looking at her for a long minute. Then he shook his head in wonder. “How is it possible?” he said, the rest of his thought unspoken.