When at last the four men stumbled wearily from the little cabin, Ana crept over to where Maria lay. The Condesa’s body was wet with sweat and semen, the hollows beneath her purple eyes dark with exhaustion. She beamed her sweet smile at Ana. “Ah, sweet body of Christ, my dear Ana, I have not been so well fucked since we left Castile.”
“Nina, you are mad! You were a virgin on your wedding night!
I myself saw the blood on your sheets.”
Maria laughed her tinkling laughter. “Chicken’s blood,” she said. “The Conde would not have known a virgin if he’d had one. On our wedding night he was hot to possess me, and I pretended to be shyly reluctant. It took him two hours to get my nightgown off.” She laughed again. “And when I finally let him take me I shrieked and struggled. When I pretended to shove him away, I broke the small bladder of chicken’s blood I had secreted for the occasion, then I pretended to faint. There, however, I overdid it. The Conde, alas, is not a particularly vigorous lover, and since our wedding night he handles me with such delicacy that it is like being fucked with a feather. I have been wild with desire for months now, but I dare not take a lover. There are no secrets on Mallorca.”
“My dearest,” begged Ana, “what is it you tell me? That you were not pure when you married the Conde? It is not so! I, myself, watched over you! When could you have had time to deceive me? When? You studied, made your devotion regularly, gardened, and rode. All decent pursuits!”
“Ana, Ana, what an innocent you are,” said Maria. “My guardians left us alone in that jewel of a house. Though our bills were paid they never appeared from one year to the next. I was easy prey for those who liked to deflower innocents.”
“Who, nina? Who?”
“Our good priest for one, my Ana. I was six when he first took me on his lap and slipped his hand up my gown to touch my sex. I was eleven when he finally took my virginity in the confessional. You sleep soundly, my old duenna. After that I chose my own lovers from among the gardeners, the grooms, my tutor, and the gypsies who camped on our lands several times every year. It was their old queen who gave me the chicken’s blood in the bladder. I need loving, Ana. I must have it! I almost lost my mind these past months, but God, what lovers the Moors are!”
Poor Ana was overcome. She had raised this girl from birth, and believed she knew her well. How could something so pure and freshlooking be so filled with evil? Dear Holy Mother, how could she not have seen it? Then her great love for Marie overcame her abhorrence. “Nina,” she said quietly, “we are in grave danger. These Moors mean to sell you into a harem. You would not like being confined, or sharing one man with a hundred other women. If you tried to deceive your master you would first be terribly tortured and then killed.”
“Do not fear, Ana,” came the confident reply. “The Moors will not sell me. They will ransom us back to my lord husband.” “Nina, how can you be sure?”
“I am with child, Ana. I will bear the Conde a child next year. They cannot sell a pregnant woman. I should make some lovely houri with a big belly! I have told Captain Hamid this, and have agreed to service him and his crew for the term of our stay with him.
“Maria!”
The young Condesa laughed. “Do not scold me, dear duenna. I’ll wear them out before they wear me out. Besides, soon I shall be too fat with my baby. And once the child is born all I will have again will be my husband.” She sighed bleakly.
The beautiful Condesa calmly accepted the role of ship’s whore and was available at any hour of the day or night. Ana could only watch helplessly, and pray that their ransom would be paid quickly. When it was, and they were returned to Palma, Ana watched with amazement as her mistress, how pale and demure as befitted a young Spanish matron of noble blood, fell fainting into her anxious husband’s arms. Soon, under the stern eyes of the Archbishop of Mallorca and the Conde, Ana swore on the holy relics kept in the Palma cathedral that her mistress had remained untouched by the Moors during the period of her captivity. This extraordinary restraint was due to their respect for her impending motherhood. But the Conde was suspicious. Even when Constanza was born six months later, a fat full-term baby, he still doubted. Ana never knew why. for Maria had never given the Conde any reason to doubt her. Ana liked to believe that Maria had died of a broken heart, brought on by the Conde’s distrust. In reality she died of the complications of childbirth. The greatest of these complications was a massive dose of venereal disease. The doctor, used to his fine and elegant lady patients, never even identified the pox as the true cause of Maria’s death. And the Conde believed she had died of shame at having been held captive by infidels.
It came to Ana now that her Maria had been an evil creature who had passed on her devil’s seed to the innocent Constanza. Now Constanza was tainted too, and there was nothing Ana could do about it. Sooner or later Lord Burke would find out the double life his wife was leading, and when that happened… Ana shuddered and an icy sense of disaster surrounded her.
Ana’s complaints had roused Niall from his black mood. He saw mat he could not rest until he knew the truth about the new Countess of Lynmouth. There was only one man who could tell him. The fierce storm that had torn through England had delayed the sailing of Robert Small’s fleet. Despite careful precautions, several ships had been damaged and it would take some weeks to repair them. The Devon captain was therefore still in London, and Lord Burke sought him out, finding him at the King’s Head Inn. The two men exchanged pleasantries and then Niall seated himself opposite the captain and said straightforwardly, “I need your help in unraveling a mystery, sir.”
Robert Small sipped his ale and regarded the Irishman quietly.
He replied, “If it’s in my power, m’lord.”
“Several years ago,” began Niall, “I fell in love with a young girl. She was already betrothed, and my father did not think her highborn enough for me. She was wed to another man and bore her husband two sons before being widowed. My own marriage had been a farce, and was annulled by the Church. My father then agreed to a marriage between the lady and myself. Not only had she proven herself a good breeder, but she was wealthy by then. We were formally betrothed, but before we could wed, it was important to my lady’s family interests that she make a sea voyage. I joined her on that voyage.”
Robert Small felt an eerie sense of premonition creep over him. “We had almost reached our destination when we were attacked by pirates. In the last moments of the battle one of those devils kidnaped my lady.”
Robert Small felt a trickle of nervous sweat roll down his back. His stomach, full with a rich dinner and stout English ale, began to roll. Dear Christ, what was Lord Burke after? “What is it you want of me, my lord?” he asked abruptly.
“The truth, Captain. You brought to England a woman known as Senora Goya del Fuentes, the widow of your dead partner, allegedly raised in a convent in Algiers. I might have accepted that story except that the lady is the identical twin of my lost betrothed. Identical! Yet when I questioned her she seemed honestly to have no knowledge of Ireland or the O’Malley family.” He paused. “At the bedding of the Earl and Countess of Lynmouth, Lady Southwood’s gown slipped and I saw a tiny mole at the crest of her right breast. The possibility of two women who look so alike and bear the same name, I must reluctantly accept. But that two unrelated, coincidentally identical women should have the same mole I do not think possible. I believe the Countess of Lynmouth is the lost Skye O’Malley, and I think you know the truth of this matter. Why will she not acknowledge me or her past?”
“Because, my lord, she has no memory of anything prior to Algiers,” said Robert Small calmly. “The only thing she was ever able to tell us was her name. Later on, she realized she was able to speak, read, and write in several languages. She had a strong sense of values, acquired somehow, but who she was and where she came from is all unknown, though I, of course, recognized her accent as Irish.