A Love for All Time (78 page)

Conn stood awkwardly, unsure of whether he should take her in his arms or not, and Aidan was forced to smile slightly as the truth of Skye’s words penetrated her brain. He really did love her, and that knowledge gave her the courage she needed to speak openly with him.

“I’m going to have a baby,” she said quietly, and then waited to see what effect those six simple words would have upon him.

His handsome face lit with pleasure, but then it grew grave. “Are ye unhappy about it, sweeting? Is that why ye have been so out of sorts today?”

She had the incredible urge to giggle.
Out of sorts?
God’s nightshirt! What understatement! Then she sobered. “I could never be unhappy about having yer baby, my darling husband. Ye cannot know how I regret the loss of our first child, a child barely conceived before it vanished, and yet thank God I did not have to bear that babe in slavery, Conn! Nay, my love, I am not sad about having yer child, it is just that I cannot be certain if it is yer child.” She went on to explain to him her uncertainty, finishing by saying to him, “Ye do not have to accept this child, Conn. I can go away when my condition becomes obvious, we will make some reasonable excuse, and then the child can be put out to nurse as are other wealthy bastards.”

“Is that what ye want, Aidan?” What did
he
want? he wondered. The reality of her words was beginning to penetrate his brain.
I cannot be certain if it is yer child,
she had said. If she could not be certain, could he? Was he really willing to raise the son of another man? Accept him as his heir? God help him! He loved her with all of his heart, but he wasn’t sure.

“Nay, but I will not force this baby upon ye, Conn. What if it is a son? I cannot press another man’s son upon ye as yer heir.”

“Ye have said yerself, Aidan, that ye cannot be certain that this child is mine, but it could very well be, and frankly, my darling, I prefer to believe that it is. We will have no more nonsense about yer going away, or about farming out the child, Aidan. This child is our child. It will be born here at
Pearroc Royal
as it should be, and I will love it, and spoil it probably even more than ye will.” Brave words, Conn, me lad, he thought, but then seeing the open relief in her eyes he forced his lips into a small, reassuring smile that broadened as she scolded him in her no-nonsense fashion.

“I will not have our children spoilt, Conn,” she said sternly. “They must be strong in both mind and body, and learn to accept the responsibilities of their station in life.”

“I intend to spoil them,” he said, “even as I spoil ye,” and then he closed the gap between them, and pulling her into his arms kissed her passionately, rendering her slightly dizzy and giddy with pleasure and happiness. “I love ye, Aidan. I shall always love ye, and I will keep saying it over and over again until ye are completely reassured, my darling. Now unless ye are feeling peaked, I want ye to dress yerself, and come downstairs to supper to celebrate with me the impending birth of our first child who will be born . . .” He stopped, and cocked his dark head to one side. “When?”

Aidan laughed for the first time in several days, and the sound was a happy one. “Late winter,” she said. “Perhaps early March.” She smiled shyly at him. “There is still time, my lord, for us to love each other,” and she blushed softly.

His arms tightened about her, and he groaned with longing against her ear. “Aidan, my darling wife, are ye certain?”

She looked up at him, and he was startled to see a new light shining in her silvery-gray eyes. “Dearest Conn, in coming to terms with this child, I have realized that to continue to deny us the pleasure of each other because of the cruelty and perversion of one man is very foolish.

“ ’Tis not ye, my husband who hurt me, and yet I have made ye suffer for what the sultan did to me.

“It will still not be easy for me, Conn, for I seem to no longer have any feelings, I don’t understand it at all. It is as if the passion has frozen in my veins, but perhaps in time yer loving will thaw that passion again. I pray so, Conn for I love ye.”

He held her close against his chest, breathing in the subtle perfume of her, feeling more certain now than he had in weeks that she was not mad. She was only his poor hurt Aidan, and it was up to him as her husband to make her whole again. He stroked her soft, thick hair gently for a long minute, and then he said, “Get dressed, and come to supper, my love. May I help ye?”

Looking up at him he saw genuine amusement in her eyes, and her mouth turned up in a smile as she said, “I’d rather have ye help me than dear, old Mag who will fuss and fret over me until I am ready to shriek; but can ye help me without being playful, Conn?” Stepping back from him she reached down and grasping the hem of her gown she pulled it over her head, and flung it aside. “Well?” she demanded.

Why was it, he thought, that each time he saw her she was more beautiful in form? He wanted to tell her to hell with their supper, and tumble her back into their bed to kiss and caress her to his heart’s content. He wanted to call Mag, and send her down to the Great Hall to tell his sister, and his brother-in-law to go home!

“Well?”
Aidan repeated.

With a sigh he opened the chest holding her petticoats, and chemises, and pulling out the necessary garments began to help her to dress. “Never let it be said,” he chuckled as he regained his sense of humor, “that I am a man lacking in self-discipline, madame. ’Tis a great sacrifice I make in the name of propriety.”

Aidan laughed. “Ye could tell Skye and Adam to go home,” she teased him, “but ’twould really not be fair since it was I who took them from their own dinner table.” She pulled on a pair of lightweight knitted silk stockings, deliberately giving him a fine view of her long and shapely legs. Handing him her silk garters she thrust out a limb.

Conn slowly slid the first garter up his wife’s leg to her thigh, tying it firmly, but not too tightly there, and then mischievously pressing a warm kiss upon the soft flesh of the inside of that thigh. Hearing the surprised breath hiss through her lips he smiled, his head lowered as he diligently affixed the second garter to her other leg, so she could not see that smile. He saluted the second thigh as he had the first.

“Devil,” she murmured, but there was no hint of rebuke in her voice. Then she moved away to choose a gown of warm cinnamon-colored silk which he helped her to fasten up. The dress had creamy lace set provocatively into the neckline, and more lace at the sleeves which hung over her hands just past the wrists.

Conn slipped his arm about her still-slender waist, and lowering his head pressed several ardent kisses upon the warm, scented flesh on the side of her throat. “I shall enjoy undressing ye far more, Aidan, than I have enjoyed dressing ye.”

To her surprise she felt her mouth turning up in a smile at his words. “Yer a bold man,” she scolded him. “Go, and tell yer sister that I shall be down shortly. I can see that yer easily tempted, my lord, and I would not have ye impugn the hospitality of our house.”

With a grin he released her, and left her to fix her lovely hair, and choose her jewelry. Seeing him coming into the Great Hall the ghost of that grin still upon his face, Skye breathed a sigh of relief.

“Aidan has spoken to ye?” she asked him, wondering if her sister-in-law had told him all.

“Aye,” he said, and then reaching Skye and Adam he lowered his voice so the bustling servants busy setting the table for the meal could not hear him, “but I am certain that the child is mine. Whatever has happened is not her fault, and what the hell else can I do? I love Aidan, and neither do I want her unhappy nor parted from me again.” Skye felt her heart swell with a huge rush of love for her youngest brother, and her eyes misty she hugged him hard.

“What’s that for?” he demanded.

“For being a real man, and the kind of brother that any sister would be proud to call her own, Conn,” she answered him.

“I’m no saint,” he reminded her. “I’m afraid, Skye. Afraid that it isn’t my son. Afraid that it will be born with the stamp of another man upon its face, but what can I do? It might be my child, and I’ll not have Aidan saddened any longer over something that was not her fault!”

Adam de Marisco nodded. “Yer wise. Aidan has suffered enough as it is. Poor lass. Only two years ago she was just come to court, the queen’s little country mouse. What an innocent she was! Ah, well, Conn, ’tis all over now. Cavan FitzGerald is long gone, and thanks to God’s luck ye’ve got yer wife back again.”

“I’d like to get my hands upon the damned bastard,” said Conn angrily. “He deserves to be dead for what he did. What kind of a man would sell his own flesh and blood into slavery?”

“There might be a way,” said Adam slowly. “ ’Tis been confirmed that he was working with the Spanish. That ex-agent of Spain’s, Antonio de Guaras, who has been imprisoned in the Tower since ’77, was found to have been passing messages back and forth in the leathern bottles of malmsey wine that were regularly shipped in to the Tower governor. There was always one empty in the incoming shipment that one of the guards, a man with popish leanings, extracted and brought to de Guaras. It was even simpler to send out the messages in the empty bottles. De Guaras had worked out a cipher, but it was fairly simple for Walsingham’s agents to break his code. That was how Cecil was so certain that ye were innocent.

“It seems that Antonio de Guaras’ brother Miguel was the one involved with Cavan FitzGerald. The plot was to destroy the O’Malleys of Innisfana’s credibility with the queen because not only have her brothers been wreaking havoc up and down the Spanish Main, but Skye and Robbie’s trading company has been plucking some fat plums from the Spanish not only in the Levant, but in the East Indies as well. The Spanish and the Portuguese, of course, consider the East Indies their particular property. The plot had the heavy hand of Ambassador de Mendoza about it. God help the man for he lacks subtlety among other attributes. He is even worse than de Spes although I must say that his manners are a trifle better.

“Cecil and Walsingham learned from de Guaras’ correspondence that Cavan FitzGerald fled with brother Miguel to Spain where the king was to reward him with his own land, and a wife. The monies that Cavan gained from Aidan’s sale were to have financed our Master FitzGerald’s new venture in Spain.”

“Then he’s in Spain,” said Conn thoughtfully.

“Aye,” said Adam.

“Where?”

“We don’t know yet, but we could have our agents find out. Are ye interested ?”

Conn nodded. “I want the bastard dead,” he said grimly. “It is his fault Aidan suffered as she did. It is his fault that neither my wife nor I will ever know for certain if our eldest child is mine. Aye, I want the bastard dead! He’s a man of no principles, and I see no reason for mercy in his case. He showed none to Aidan or to me. He would have seen me executed for a crime I didn’t commit, and then he would have married my wife. When he found he couldn’t do that, he dealt with Aidan in a ruthless and cruel fashion. Nay, I’ll feel no regrets in destroying him. My only sorrow is that I can’t do it myself.”

“If ye had the opportunity,” said Aidan coming to his side, “I should like the same opportunity. I think I could easily kill Cousin Cavan with my bare hands.” She paused a moment as if in thought, and then she said to them, “My grandfather might know where Cavan is. If I were to write him, and if he were in contact with Cavan, how unnerving it would be for that bastard to learn that I am home again. It might bring him out of hiding. Of course we will not tell my grandfather the truth of my adventures, but I burn for vengeance more than even ye, my darling Conn. No matter how much ye may love me, ye cannot know what Cavan’s actions really cost me.
How much he has cost us
.”

Conn looked at his wife thoughtfully. “One letter could do no harm,” he said, “and there would be no danger to ye, my love. Cavan could not destroy our love for one another, but he has cost us time, and a child.”

“Yet,” said Skye wisely, “how much stronger is yer love for all yer problems. Do not waste yer time in futile hatred, my dears. Cavan FitzGerald will be punished in the end. It is preached that proper vengeance belongs to God.”

“In this one instance,” replied Aidan, “I could wish that God would allow me the vengeance.”

“Be careful,” teased Adam, “lest ye get yer wish. Fate can sometimes play us tricks. I do not think ye would want a man’s death on yer conscience.”

“Perhaps not,” agreed Aidan, and then she smiled. “Let us speak no more of Cavan FitzGerald. It makes me unhappy, and I would not be unhappy now, Adam. Skye and Conn already know, but ye do not, dear brother. I am to have a baby! Is that not happy news?”

Adam de Marisco’s deep blue eyes grew warm with approval. “A baby, is it?” he said. “Aye, Aidan lass, ’tis indeed happy news! Velvet and Dierdre will both be delighted to learn of their new cousin.” Walking over to the high board where there was a decanter of wine, and some goblets, he poured the fragrant Archambault burgundy into four goblets, and passed them to the others. Then raising his hand he said, “A toast to the next generation of St. Michaels! Long life! Health, and good fortune to not only this child, but to all yer children!”

Conn slipped an arm about his wife, and looking down into her upturned face echoed a hearty,
“Amen!”