“I thought you just said you wouldn’t make love to me unless I asked,” she said, trying to squirm away from him. “I said I wouldn’t take my ‘rights,’ Skye. I never said I didn’t intend to enjoy your delicious little person.”
“Oh!” she gasped, outraged. ‘That’s not fair!”
“You’d rather I’d rape you?” he asked in mock surprise.
“I didn’t say that!”
“Then just what is it you want of me, my darling?” She opened her mouth to speak, then shut it. Let him tease and play his stupid games. She would never yield, nor would she give him the satisfaction of protest. Niall, allowing his hands the freedom of her body, roaming the marvelous skin, noted the grim line of her mouth. He smiled to himself. She would never know how close to rape she had come.
His hands and his mouth wreaked a wonderful torture upon her, and Skye bit her lips and pressed her nails into her balled palms until the pain eased some of the unholy pleasure he forced on her. When he believed he had driven her far enough, he stopped abruptly and, rolling over, went to sleep. She lay next to him, her whole body trembling, and silently hated him as much as she had ever loved him.
Skye quickly discovered that Niall intended being master in everything, not simply in their bedchamber. As soon as she was able to escape him, later that same day, she fled down the winding interior staircase of the castle to the boat cave. She stood horrified at the place where her vessel should be moored. The boat was gone! “Wat!” she shouted. “Where are you, boy?”
“Don’t bother calling for Wat, my darling.” Niall had followed her. “He’s been given a place on a fishing boat, and will no longer be serving here.”
She whirled and her voice shook with anger. “Wat was my servant! How dared you reassign him? And I suspect you know where my boat is.”
“I do.”
“Where?” she shouted at him.
“Precisely where you left it, Skye.”
Puzzled, she turned to look again at the empty mooring.
“Look closer,” he instructed.
She moved down the steps further, and as the sun played on the calm sea, her eyes caught a glimpse of something in the water and comprehension dawned. Slowly she backed up the stairs to the ledge, rage permeating every fiber of her being. She turned to face him, and Niall Burke saw anger as he’d never seen it before. “Whoreson!” she hissed. “Bastard! You sank my boat! How dare you! How dare you!” And her fist lashed out to hit him a blow that caught him off guard and actually staggered him. He grabbed at her, successfully holding her arms, and looked down into her face. The hatred he saw there was as fierce as her blow had been. Silently he cursed his father and Seamus O’Malley for ever believing that he and Skye could be reunited. “Aye!” he said through clenched teeth. “I sank your damned boat! I’ll not have you running off to your lover again and possibly passing off his bastards as my sons.”
Outraged, she let out a piercing shriek. “Do you consider me so without honor then, Niall Burke? And I repeat, / have no lover!” Then she wrenched out of his grasp and ran back up the stairs. Skye was very worried. It was time for the spring parade of ships to be arriving from the Indies. Word had come from Bideford that very morning that half a dozen ships, the largest grouping ever, would be here within the next few days. She had to get word to de Marisco and her fleet, which was waiting now on Lundy for her instructions. If she could not go to them, then they must come to her.
When evening fell Skye climbed up the west tower of the castle. In the tiny topmost room that faced Lundy, she lit two small signal lights in stone dishes and placed them in the window. One was set up high, the other low. Across the clear calm of the sea a boy at the top of de Marisco’s keep looked hard, rubbed his eyes, and looked again. Then he hurried to find his master. Adam de Marisco looked across the eleven miles of water with his spyglass. One high, one low. The meaning was “Come at once. I need you.” They had set up that signal after last winter’s unfortunate episode with Lord Dudley. But why would she need him now? What of her husband? Still, Skye wasn’t a woman to take things overhard. If the signal was there, then she must need him.
Several hours later, for the winds had been light and he had been forced to tack back and forth in order to reach Lynmouth Castle, he sailed into the cave and up to the mooring. Skye’s boat was gone, but she stood awaiting him.
“Adam! Thank God you’ve come! I was afraid you wouldn’t see the signal tonight.” She made his craft fast, and he climbed out. “Where is your boat, little girl?”
“My husband sank it, Adam. He believes I use it to go to a lover. My sea clothes picked up the scent of your damned tobacco last trip over, and he smelled it on me.”
De Marisco whistled softly. “How did you explain it?” he asked.
“I didn’t.”
“Dammit, Skye! You must drive the man mad. Well, perhaps you’ll calm down when you are with child.”
She laughed harshly. “There’ll be no children, Adam, for the marriage is in name only. I angered him so that he’s sworn never to take me unless I ask-and I never shall! But that’s not why I called you here. I received word this morning that six ships are due into Bideford within the next few days-three English, two French, and a Dutchman sailing in convoy.”
“You’ve got the route they’ll take?”
“Yes, Adam!” her voice was excited. “I’d like to take them all!
D’you think MacGuire and his men can do it?”
Adam de Marisco stroked his chin reflectively and his smoky blue eyes sparkled. “Where would you do it?”
“Off Cape Clear. There are plenty of places to hide there.” “By God, you’re a bold wench! Yes! Yes, I do believe MacGuire and his men can pull it off!”
“Good! Then tell him those are my instructions,” Skye chuckled. “Lord Dudley owns a half-share in one of those ships. He’ll be ruined.”
“The Queen will make it up to him,” observed Adam. “Indeed she will, but it will be hard for her to do so, for her own coffers are none too full right now and she will be further strapped by the loss of her share from these goods.”
“Where do you want the goods sent, Skye?”
“I think we should hold these cargoes till midsummer. The flow of ships is greater then and the furor will have died down. It wouldn’t be safe to dispose of the cargo now.”
“If you’ve no further instructions, little girl, I’ll be on my way.
I don’t think Lord Burke would be too pleased to find me here.” ‘To Hell with him! Oh, Adam! Get me another boat. I shall go mad penned up here.”
“I don’t know, Skye. I’m not sure you’re wise to defy him. Wait a bit, little girl, until your anger is cooled. I’ll return here in a fortnight. If it’s stormy then I’ll come the first clear night after that.” She pouted slightly then said, “Oh, all right, Adam, but why do I get the feeling you’re in sympathy with him ?”
He grinned up at her from his boat. “Because I am, little girl.” I cannot imagine being wed to you and not loving your tempting little self. I wonder whether the man’s a saint or a fool.” She laughed and threw him his rope. “I’m not sure what he is either, de Marisco.”
“Don’t you think that it’s time you found out?” came the reply, and then the lord of Lundy’s little boat slipped out into the sea, its bow pointed for home, scuttling away like a crab on the morning sand.
She stood perplexed, then shrugged. Men! They were always trying to tell a woman what to do and they invariably stuck together. Still, Adam’s words haunted her. What was Niall Burke all about? She realized she didn’t know. Looking back, she saw the spoiled child-woman she had been at fifteen, the “Black” O’Malley’s darling. And she remembered how she had felt when she had first met Niall Burke, a sudden realization that she had met the man whom she would love the rest of her life. What an innocent thing she’d been! For she had loved two men since, learning that it was possible to love more than one man.