Geoffrey Southwood felt his heart lurch wildly. “Skye?” he asked.
“The bey’s wife. Her name was Skye muna el Khalid. She herself is another wild tale. More wine, sir?”
“Tell me!”
And so Captain Browne told him all he had heard about Skye, which was a great deal indeed. And when Geoffrey left the ship, he was elated. His coach clattered back through the noisy city streets and he began to plot.
It was her! There could be no mistake! And he had her, for there was a child. The bey’s child? Probably. Robert Small did not act like her lover. She would probably do anything to protect her child, for the child’s future would be determined by its family’s reputation. As long as she was the respectable young widow, all would be well. She would not want her true story known, for her own sake and for the child’s. Yes… Geoffrey had her!
Geoffrey Southwood was a wealthy man. Although he seldom discussed it, his paternal grandmother had been a rich merchant’s daughter. Over the past few centuries many noble families had mar- ried into the monied middle class to increase their finances. The Southwood family understood that money was power. They were not an important family, but their title was an ancient one, earned on the field at the Battle of Hastings.
The first Earl of Lynmouth had been Geoffroi de Sudbois, the third son of a noble Norman family. He had joined Duke William’s invasion of England in hopes of winning a place for himself and his descendants, for there was nothing for him in his native France. His oldest brother was his father’s undisputed heir and had three sons of his own. The next de Sudbois brother had opted for the religious life, and was already the valued right hand of his prior. The Duke of Normandy’s invasion of England was a godsend to Geoffroi de Sudbois, for it offered him a chance to make a place for himself.
His father gave him war-horses and their equipage, along with a small velvet bag of gold. When Geoffroi’s oldest brother protested, his father said, “As long as I live, what is mine shall be disposed of as I choose. When I am gone, and it is yours, you may dispose of it your way. Do not be greedy, Gilles. Your brother cannot succeed unless he is properly equipped and mounted. Do you want him to always have nothing? To be constantly coming back here coveting your position, his mere presence a threat to your boys? It will be better for all if he makes a place for himself in England.”
The eldest de Sudbois son understood his father’s point, and even pressed upon his surprised brother a fat purse of silver marks. This purse proved the means by which he recruited himself a small troop of cavalry. Those who joined him supplied their own horses, mail, and weapons. He paid them one silver mark upon debarkation for England. What booty they could take in battle was theirs to keep. and there was always a chance to win oneself land and even a title.
The young Seigneur de Sudbois and his thirty-five men made an impressive addition to Duke William’s invading army. Even more impressive was the soldier that de Sudbois proved himself to be. He managed to fight near his Duke twice, once even preventing a direct attack upon his overlord. Toward the end of one day, he found himself in.on the kill of the English King, Harold.
Duke William of Normandy had seen enough of the young lord- ling to be both amused and impressed. “He’s a valuable man,” observed the Duke, “and God knows he’s worked hard enough to win a bit of this land for himself. I’ll give him something down in the south, toward the west If he can take the land and hold it, it’s his.”
Geoffroi de Sudbois took and held the little earldom of Lynmouth. He ruthlessly slew the Saxon lord of the holding and all his kin, with the exception of the Saxon’s thirteen-year-old daughter, Gwyneth.
He raped her upon the hall’s long table and, when the girl was proved a virgin, he sent for a priest and wed her instantly. The practical Gwyneth cleaved to her new lord and dutifully sired the next generation. Within a hundred years de Sudbois was anglecized to Southwood, but through the many generations the ruthlessness of the original Norman Geoffroi de Sudbois and the determination of his Saxon wife remained strong traits, even down to the sixteenth- century Geoffrey Southwood.
This Earl of Lynmouth was twenty-eight years old. Six feet tall, he had dark-blond hair, lime-green eyes, and, as Skye had observed, the face of an angel. It was a beautiful face, yet an entirely masculine one. Oval, the forehead was broad, the cheekbones high, the nose long and slim, the mouth sensuous, the chin slightly pointed. His fair skin was tanned, and because his face had no flaws, he kept it smooth-shaven. His wavy hair was cut short. His body was the lean one of a man used to regular exercise.
He had been married twice. At twelve he had wed a neighboring eight-year-old heiress. She died two years later of smallpox, along with her parents. This left him considerably richer, having inherited money, lands, and the barony of Lynton. Sexually active, he had mourned his wife for the shortest time possible and then wed again. The second wife was five years his senior, painfully plain but very wealthy. An orphaned heiress, her guardians had thought themselves stuck with the poor girl until Geoffrey Southwood’s father offered for her for his son. Mary Bowen was of an old and noble family. More important, her lands adjoined those of the Earl of Lynmouth’s.
On her wedding day, the poor plain bride showed herself enam- ored of her handsome bridegroom, and grateful to have been rescued from the shame of spinsterhood. On her wedding night, however, her opinion changed. Her shrieks could be heard all over the castle as Geoffrey Southwood battered his way through her maidenhead and impregnated her. During the next six years she delivered a child every ten months. All but the first were daughters, and each was as plain as her mother. In disgust, Geoffrey finally stopped visiting his wife’s bed. His seven plain daughters were more than enough for one man to dower.
Mary Bowen Southwood was more than content to remain in Devon. She feared her husband. After the horror of her wedding night she had learned to lay quietly during their mating, occasionally even simulating the response expected of her. When it was first apparent that she was pregnant, he had treated her in a kindly fashion. She was glad to have pleased him, especially when Henry was born. But then had come Mary, Elizabeth, and Catherine. The week after little Phillipa’s birth he had been so furious that he slapped her, shouting that she had done it deliberately, that she’d give him a son next time or he would know the reason why. She had learned fear in her subsequent pregnancies. Susan was born next. Geoffrey was in London. Frightened but dutiful, she sent him word. A six months’ silence followed. When he finally arrived home he handed down one final ultimatum. “Produce another son, madam, or you’ll spend the rest of your life here in Devon with your brood of daughters.”
“What of Henry?” she dared to ask.
“Henry goes to the Shrewsburys’ household,” he said flatly.
When the twins, Gwyneth and Joan, were bom, the Countess found herself and all of her daughters moved from Lynmouth Castle to Lynton Court. Geoffrey Southwood had had enough.
From that time on he saw his wife and family once yearly, at Michaelmas, when he arrived to hand over the money needed to run their little household for the following year. He refused to make matches for his daughters, on the premise that they were all like their mother and he would not be responsible for other men’s dis- appointment when the girls produced a string of daughters, as their mother had done.