“I love you,” she said.
He smiled in the darkness. “But do you love him?” Geoffrey persisted.
“No!” she said quickly.
He frowned slightly at the too-quick denial. Was she lying to protect his feelings or to hide something from him? “Did he ever know you?”
“Geoffrey!” Damn!
“Did he?”
Oh Lord, help her not to rouse his suspicions. “No,” she said with what she hoped was just the right tinge of righteous annoyance. “He never knew me.” She felt him relax, and said a quick prayer of thanks. Now, the tension gone, she was suddenly exhausted. “I am tired,” she yawned.
Once more he enfolded her in his protective clasp. “Go to sleep, my dearest wife,” he said. “Go to sleep.”
In the house to the right of them, however, the master and mistress were far from sleep. In the uproar that had followed the duel the Queen had instructed the Burkes be brought to her. “My lord,” she addressed herself to Niall, her dark eyes very large and angry. “I have already told your wife that she is no longer welcome at this Court. As for you-you deliberately disobeyed my orders and killed Lord Basingstoke. For that I could have you beheaded. Do you realize that?” In her dancing costume of pale green watered silk, ecru lace at the neck and sleeves, Elizabeth ought to have appeared young and mild. But this was Elizabeth at the angriest Niall had ever seen her, and the frivolous dancing gown was obscured by her flaming red-gold hair and snapping dark eyes. In this rage, Elizabeth flamed as hotly as her father, the infamous Henry the Eighth. She continued. “We understand mat you were sorely provoked, Lord Burke. Nonetheless are also banished from Court, and from England for the period of one year. Your wife, however, is never to set foot in my realm again. We give you one month in which to prepare for your departure.”
“The woman called Claro?” Niall asked in an unwavering voice.
“I beg Your Majesty’s permission to deal personally with her.” “We do not wish to hear of it, my lord,” said the Queen slowly and with particular meaning, “lest we be forced to review our clemency to you.”
‘That is understood, madam.”
“Farewell, then, my lord Burke,” said Elizabeth, extending him her hand. He kissed it. Elizabeth pointedly ignored the subdued Constanza, as she had ignored her throughout the interview.
Niall Burke slowly released the beautiful, bejeweled hand. “You are ever gracious, Majesty.” Grasping his wife’s arm, he led her through a side door, down a maze of corridors, and out into the courtyard to their carriage. He pushed her up into the coach, and shouted to the liveried servant on the box, “Home!” Then he climbed in and sat opposite her. The vehicle lurched forward. Niall Burke sat back in his seat and looked at his wife. “Amazing,” he said after a long while. “Simply amazing! Despite the fact that you are obviously the biggest whore in Christendom, you look like an angel.” Her violet eyes wide, she cowered from his brutal appraisal. “What’s this, Constanzita? Shyness? Why shy with me when you are as familiar with every man in London?”
“What are you going to do with me?” she asked him, finding her voice and unable to bear the strain any longer.
“What the hell can I do with you?” he countered. “You are my wife, may God have mercy on me. I must surely be cursed. My first wife was a religious fanatic who couldn’t bear any man’s touch and my second turns out to be a notorious whore who encourages every man’s touch! The one woman in the world I ever truly wanted loses her memory and marries another!”
Constanza Burke relaxed just a little. For a moment she was free of his searing contempt. “What do you mean the only woman you ever really wanted?”
He looked coldly at her. “The Countess of Lynmouth is Skye O’Malley. She did not die, as your father assured me she must have done, but she did lose her memory.” He gave her a brief explanation of what had happened.
“Is that why you’ve been so unhappy and preoccupied these last few months?”
“That is why,” he said, “and how fortuitous for you, my dear.
It made it so much easier for you to play the whore.” She wondered if his own sorrow might make him receptive to her anguish. “Please try and understand. I cannot help this terrible need, Niall. I truly can’t.”
“I know it, Constanza, and that is why I must do what I must do.
We are banished from England and we must go home to Ireland. I cannot have you running about the countryside bringing further shame upon my name. You’ll be confined to your apartment in my father’s castle. You’ll never leave them, my dear, and you’ll have a warder of my choosing who will never leave your side except when I bed you. And I’ll do that often, my dear, for since I am forced to remain shackled to you to prevent my name from becoming a joke, I must therefore breed my legitimate heirs on your well-used body.” “Especially since you can’t breed them on the fine Lady Southwood!” she snapped back. Realizing her folly too late, she was unable to escape the blow he aimed at her. The sound of it echoed inside the carriage, and her head swam with the force of it. She felt his hand cruelly locking itself into her hair, and her neck snapped back as he yanked her about to face him. His silver eyes were narrowed. His harsh voice ripped into her like shards of ragged glass.
“Listen well, my dear, to what I have to say. I could take you home now and beat you to death. I could strangle you and dump you in the Thames, and no one would care, not even me. Nothing would be said for your actions have merited death. “But you are my wife. And though I am forced to confine you, as the only way of assuring your faithfulness, I will get my sons on you, and you will live in luxury. But never,” and he yanked her hair harshly, “never do I want to hear her name on your lips! Do you understand me, Constanza?”
“Y-yes!”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Very good, my dear. I am pleased.” Letting her go, he pushed her back into her seat. Lowering the coach window, he called to his driver to stop. “My horse is tied to the back of the coach,” he told Constanza. “I am returning to the palace for the Countess’s tiring woman, and then I am riding to Lynmouth House to warn them that the Countess is in labor with her child. I will see you at home later.”, She nodded dumbly, but he was already gone. A moment later two footmen climbed into the coach, and sat opposite her. “Master says we’re to guard you as you’ve not been yourself,” said the older one dourly. She ignored them, looking after Niall as he galloped off.
Despite the lateness of the hour and the empty streets, the trip to the Strand seemed to take forever. The footmen had been eating onions, and the already fetid air in the closed coach was unbearable quite quickly: Constanza was becoming paler by the moment, her mind bursting with all Niall had said.
In Ireland she would be incarcerated-for the rest of her life. She was to be a brood mare. The thought repelled and excited her at the same time. Shifting nervously in her seat, she boldly eyed the younger of the two footmen whose eyes were glued to her full breasts. The boy flushed guiltily, turning even redder as Constanza’s pointed little tongue swiftly licked around her pink lips. The familiar longing now began. Imprisoned! Watched over constantly! She would go mad! Somehow Ana would have to help her to escape Niall. But right now, Constanza had to satisfy her hunger. Who knew when she would get another chance?
“Stop the coach!” she commanded imperiously. “You!” Her accusing finger pointed at the older of the two footmen. “You stink of onions! Ride up top. I am close to fainting.”
Accustomed to obeying orders, the man called to the driver to stop and scrambled up the coach’s side to join the driver. As the vehicle began to move again Constanza wordlessly fell to her knees before the remaining footman, fumbled with his livery and, bending her head, took his organ into her mouth. The boy could only gasp with surprise as his mistress’s insistent lips and tongue drove him. When he thought his delight could be no greater, she rose and, lifting her skirts, impaled herself on him. The footman swiftly tore her bodice open and pushed his face into her breasts. He kissed, sucked, and bit on them, prodding her to frenzy as she jogged up and down on him. She spent twice, then, when she was weak and languid, the footman became emboldened. Lifting her up, he turned her over and shoved her face down on the opposite seat. Her skirts pushed above her waist, her little white bottom glowed pale and he entered her from behind. His beefy hands fumbled beneath her, squeezing her breasts rhythmically with each stroke of his rod as he murmured the foulest of obscenities in her ear. A moment before his climax he reached one hand beneath her to tweak at the little button of her sensuality, and they shuddered their satisfaction in unison. He had barely drained when she bucked him away from her, straightened her skirts, and sat calmly down to lace her bodice. “Fix your livery!” she hissed. “And remember that one word will cost you your position.” She was calmer now than she had been all evening, and now she was able to think.