Niall did his best to protect bis wife from her stepmother. Whether Luisa was deliberately cruel or simply thoughtless, Niall could never be sure. Things finally reached a head one afternoon when Luisa said something-Niall never found out what it was-and Constanza stumbled from her bed shrieking, “Get out of my house, you damned fecund cow!” Then she collapsed. Ana ran to her mistress while Polly hustled the young Condesa from the room. “Take your hands off me, girl,” snapped Luisa, attempting to break Polly’s hold on her arm.
“On your way, mistress, or I’ll put a curse on your unborn brat!” Polly squinted her eyes and twisted her mouth to give her threat serious meaning.
“Oh!” Luisa crossed herself and, wrenching free, fled out the door to her carriage.
Constanza was unconscious for several hours. Dr. Memhet was called, and shook his head. “She will not last the night, my lord. Your vigil is almost over.” The priest was called, and gave the dying woman extreme unction. He was a young priest, and the dying woman’s confession left him white and shaken. Never before had he heard such evil from a woman’s lips. He fell wearily to his knees, hoping his prayers might help a little.
The Conde arrived, wisely leaving his wife at home, and then they all sat and waited for death to claim its victim. Ana wept softly while telling her beads. Polly wiped her mistress’s forehead free of icy perspiration. And Niall sat pensively by bis wife’s bedside wondering, not for the first time, if it might have all been different if he had taken Constanza directly home to Ireland instead of exposing her to London.
The clock on the mantel ticked off the long minutes, its little bell clanging the passing hours in a bright, cheerful fashion that marked a direct contrast to the somber vigil. Then in that darkest and loneliest time of the night, between the hours of three and four, Constanza opened her violet eyes and gazed about her. Her glance lingered lovingly on the three people she cared for the most, her husband, her father, and Ana. They moved to her side instantly. With great effort Constanza reached out a pale hand to touch her old duenna’s wet cheek. Ana’s plump shoulders shook, but she swallowed the grief that threatened to explode in her throat. Next Constanza looked to the Conde and smiled sweetly. Francisco Cuidadela felt suddenly old and lonely. With Constanza went his last link with her mother, the love of his life. He felt that a part of him was dying too.
Lastly Constanza turned her head toward Niall. “I am so sorry about all of it, Niall,” she said. “Remember that I truly loved you.” “I know, Constanzita,” he said soothingly. “It was the illness, not deliberate.”
She looked vastly relieved then, as if he’d lifted a weight from her. “Then I am forgiven?”
“You are forgiven, Constanzita.” He bent down and lightly kissed her mouth. She sighed deeply and was gone. For a moment he stared down at her, remembering the lithe and lovely girl with the exquisite golden body and hair who had offered him her innocence in a flower field. What had happened? Gently he kissed her eyelids one final time and, turning, left the room.
Behind her he could hear Ana, finally free to vent her grief, wailing pathetically. He stood in the anteroom of his wife’s apartment for a moment, not quite sure what to do next. Then, quickly, he came to a decision. “I am going to sign over Constanza’s Mallorcan holdings to you, Francisco, all except a small house and vineyard, which I think Ana deserves. She should also be paid a pension of twelve gold pieces yearly. We will have the lawyers arrange that. Polly wants to return to England. I want her to have a dowery of ten gold pieces, her passage, and that little string of seed pearls that was Constanza’s. I want the London town house for myself. But the rest is yours.”
“Please, Niall, my daughter is not yet cold, and you callously speak of dividing her possessions as the soldiers spoke at the foot of Christ’s cross.”
“Francisco, I have been living in Hell for two years now. I will do my final duty by Constanza and see to her burial, but I want to go home. Now. You will mourn in your fashion for a full year, but you have a wife and two sons by your side. I have no wife, no sons, and no time for Spanish conventions. I will see to the details of all arrangements today, for I intend sailing home as soon as I can.” Niall Burke was true to his word. Constanza’s body was moved to the governor’s palace where it lay in state for two days. She had been dressed in her wedding gown, and the bier was banked by white gardenias with their shiny green leaves. Pure wax tapers had been placed at both her head and her feet. On the morning of the third day the funeral mass was sung in the Palma cathedral, where they had been wed. Constanza was buried with a minimum of fanfare on a hillside overlooking the sea, and that same afternoon a ship sailed from Las Palmas to London. Lord Burke and a mistress Polly Flanders were on it. On Mallorca, except for the few who had known them, it was as if Constanza Maria Alcudia Cuidadela and Niall, Lord Burke, had never existed.
Several weeks later, after an uneventful voyage, Niall saw Polly safely placed with a good family as a ladies’ maid, her precious dowry with a reputable banker. He longed to go south to Devon to see Skye, but after a drinking bout with some old friends at Court he knew he would probably not be welcome. The Southwoods, he learned, had not returned to Court but preferred the country. Only once a year did they come to London, after the New Year, in order to give their famous Twelfth Night masque. The beautiful Countess had presented her husband with a second son, John Michael, Lord Lynton. They were divinely happy, a most perfect couple. Niall Burke left London for the west coast of England and sailed home to Ireland. Delighted to have his son back, but anxious for his happiness, the MacWilliam paraded before Niall every suitable available woman between the ages of twelve and twenty-five. He was thoroughly rebuffed.
“You’ve got to take a wife,” the old man argued. “If you won’t think of yourself, think of me. I need another heir!” “Then you marry again! Twice I’ve wed because it was my duty and both marriages were disastrous. The next time I marry it will be for love and for no other reason!” shouted Niall. “You’re talking like a child!” the MacWilliam yelled back. “Love indeed! Christ bear me witness, I’ve spawned me a fool for a son! No wonder Skye O’Malley married her fine English lord!”
“Go to Hell, old man!” snarled the heir to the Burke fortunes. And he slammed from the hall and spent himself riding his great red stallion at breakneck speed across the hills. Later he rested the foamflecked animal on a cliff above the sea, and stood staring west across the blue waters. He knew the old man was right, damn him. But right or wrong, he’d not wed again except for love. Niall sighed. It was Skye he loved. He would always love her. He did not believe he could take another wife to his heart and his bed, not while Skye lived. Once he had tried to fool himself, and the result had been the destruction of an innocent girl. Poor Constanza, asking his forgiveness on her deathbed. “It was I who should have asked your forgiveness, my poor Constanza,” he said aloud. Then, mounting the stallion, he rode off to get gloriously drunk and dream futile dreams of a woman with hair like a dark night cloud and eyes the blue of the seas off the Kerry coast.
Skye was living a waking nightmare. After a sunny, warm March had come a cold, wet April. The disease had begun in the village of Lynmouth, the dreaded white throat sickness. It struck at children in particular, attacking one child, skipping its brother. Before she could isolate the children in the castle, Murrough O’Flaherty and Joan Southwood were ill.