All the Sweet Tomorrows

by Bertrice Small

  They were, Anne was ashamed to admit, weak but well meaning men who drank too much, and wenched too much, and were given to foolishness, such as pirating with their distant cousin, Grace, and her men. Eventually the English were going to descend on Innisfana and wreak their vengeance. Thank God that Skye was coming home! She would set everything to rights, even this matter of Grace O’Malley.

  There was a dull boom, followed by several more, and running to the window, they saw a fleet of eight ships entering the harbor under full sail. Behind them, Grace O’Malley’s vessel keeled slowly over and sank into the bay. Even at this distance they could see men in the water, clinging to the rigging.

  “Sweet Jesu, my ship’s been sunk!” Then Grace O’Malley swore a violent string of vulgar Gaelic oaths that caused even Brian to redden.

  Anne put a hand over her mouth to stifle her laughter as her eldest son said with pompous understatement, “My sister is come home at last. Now we’ll settle this matter between us.”

  “Aye,” Anne said softly, “Skye will settle it, I’ve not a doubt, Brian, but I think mayhap ’twill not be to yer liking.”

  “Mother, you must uphold my right!”

  “Brian, I’ve warned ye that you’ve no rights in this matter. Yer father of sainted memory, may God assoil his dear soul, passed on his authority to your sister, Skye. It is her right to hold that authority, or pass it on to whomever she deems fit.”

  “It’s not right that she hold the title if she’s not here to physically hold the authority,” Grace O’Malley said slyly.

  “Skye has always taken care of Innisfana and its people, even from a distant shore,” Anne defended her stepdaughter. “She’s done a fine job building our wealth, which my sons have squandered. Perhaps if one of them had shown any maturity, she would have passed on her badge of office.”

  “The woman is in England’s hire,” Grace said scornfully. “She’s no better than an English landlord!”

  “That’s right!” Brian agreed.

  “I wonder if you have the courage to say that to your sister, my son,” Anne murmured.

  “I’m not afraid of Skye,” Brian blustered.

  “Well, you damned well ought to be if you’re the one responsible for trying to prevent me entry into my own harbor,” Skye snapped, striding into the hall of the O’Malley tower house, her husband and her captains at her back. She glanced about the room. “Good day, Anne,” she said, and then her glance flicked to the other woman who was sprawled insolently in a chair.

  “You sunk my ship,” Grace drawled.

  “It got in my way,” came the reply.

  “Could you not have asked it to move then?” Grace said with some humor as she stood up.

  Skye looked at this woman who was her relative. She had to be at least six feet tall. She was big-boned like a man, but handsome in appearance with sparkling deep-blue eyes, and short, dark curls. Skye knew that Grace was a good ten years older than she was, but the woman didn’t show it. “Anyone sending a warning shot across my bow is looking for a fight,” Skye said. “No one bars me entry to my own harbor, my own holding. Do you think to add Innisfana to your own lands, cousin?”

  Adam watched, amused. Here were two well-matched hellcats, although he felt that Skye and her eight ships held the advantage.

  Grace O’Malley caught his assessing look, and gave him a slow smile as she calmly took him in from head to toes. “Innisfana’s too small for me to be bothered with, cousin,” came her reply, and then she said, “Who is this big handsome stud? If he’s one of yer captains I’ve a mind to hire him away from ye.” Grace O’Malley’s appetite for attractive men was well known, and her lovers were legion.

  “That’s something else you can’t have, cousin. This is my husband, Lord de Marisco.”

  “ ’Tis the second Englishman ye’ve married, Skye O’Malley,” came the faintly insulting reply. “The first, I’m told, was a golden-haired fop, but as for this one …” Again she raked him with a bold look, her eyes deliberately lingering where they should not. “Well, dearie, ’tis enough to make me curious to perhaps sample one.”

  “Not this one,” Skye said in a cold, even voice.

  “Are ye Englishmen then ruled by yer women, Lord de Marisco?”

  “Only when they’re beautiful and hot-blooded Irish wenches madam,” Adam said with an amused grin. “One O’Malley is more than enough for me.”

  Grace laughed, appreciating his humor and seeing with her shrewd eye that the man was in love. Her younger cousin had always had the Divil’s own luck when it came to men, she thought enviously.

  “I’ll have someone sail you up to Clare, cousin,” Skye said, “and any of your pirates we’ve managed to fish out of the sea.” She turned. “MacGuire! Take her home, man!”

  “Aye, m’lady,” came the reply. Then the old captain turned to Grace O’Malley. “Follow me,” he said shortly, and departed the room.

  Grace picked up her fur cloak from where she had carelessly thrown it and, with a wink at Adam, said, “Farewell, cousin, de Marisco. We’ll meet again, I’ve not a doubt.” Then without any pretense at hurry she sauntered after MacGuire.

  Skye turned on Brian. “Where are your brothers?” she demanded.

  “They’re about,” he answered sullenly. “We just didn’t expect ye so quickly.”

  “I’ll wager you didn’t! Fetch them, Brian. I want them here within the hour! Get out now!” Brian O’Malley almost ran from the room. When he had gone Skye turned to her stepmother. “Anne, I’m sorry, but I’m going to take their hides off. ’Tis bad enough what they’ve wasted, but you realize they’re within a hair’s breadth of losing everything else.”

  “I couldn’t handle them, Skye. I needed yer father, for they’re his lads right enough. Michael, bless him, never gave me a moment’s grief, but my own four needed a man’s influence. Yer Uncle Seamus couldn’t be around all the time, and there was no one else.”

  “I know, Anne. ’Tis just the way things turned out,” Skye soothed her stepmother, although she secretly thought that had Anne been a stronger woman, there would have been no problem. She looked about the hall, and was surprised at what she saw. “This place is filthy,” she noted. “I’ve never known you to keep a dirty house, Anne.”

  “ ’Tis not my house any longer, Skye. Ever since Brian married my niece, Maggie O’Brian, she’s been mistress here, and she’ll accept neither help, nor advice from me.”

  Skye felt a bolt of irritation shoot through her. She remembered how lovely the hall had been when it had been Anne’s responsibility. The tables had gleamed with beeswax and rubbing, reflecting back the huge porcelain bowls of flowers, either fresh or dried depending on the season, that Anne always filled the house with. Looking around, she saw that the tabletops were smeared and dull; the chair cushions dusty, frayed, and worn. The giant andirons were black from lack of polish and the fireplace walls thick with greasy, black soot. There were dust balls in all the corners, and rushes filled with bones covered the floors. The corners of the ceilings were cobwebbed, and the place stank to high heaven.

  “I’ll not have it!” Skye roared furiously. “Where in hell are the servants! Dammit, Anne, get the servants in here at once!” She turned to her captains. “Secure the harbor,” she commanded. “I’ll expect you all for dinner tomorrow. I don’t dare ask you tonight for fear there is no dinner in this badly run establishment!”

  Skye’s captains hurried from the room, glad to be free of what promised to be a battle royal with their mistress taking on not only her half-brothers, but a sister-in-law as well. Anne O’Malley had already fled the hall seeking the servants. Alone with her husband, Skye said, “It’s impossible, Adam! The whole damn thing is impossible! Anne is a sweet woman, but she is so easily overridden by not only my brothers, but obviously Brian’s wife also! What am I to do? I cannot stay here and control their lives always. We have our own life to live, and dammit, I want that life!”

  He took her in his arms and h
eld her tightly. Skye pressed herself against his velvet doublet while the familiar, clean smell of the spicy clove-scented soap he used soothed her turbulent emotions. He knew how Skye loved a calm and orderly house, and to find that her childhood home, which she had left well tended, had become a slovenly disgrace was disturbing to her, especially coupled with the fact she must regain control of her brothers. “It will be all right, little girl. Lady Anne knows what must be done. Delegate the authority back to her, and with your support she will be able to function once more.”

  “Ummm,” Skye murmured, hearing him, but suddenly wishing she were anyplace else with Adam but the middle of the hall of O’Malley House. She snuggled against him for a brief moment, and feeling his own desire awakening, Adam scolded her gently.

  “Dammit, little girl, this is neither the place nor the time!”

  “Don’t you want me?” She rubbed teasingly against him, suddenly feeling mischievous.

  “Skye!” He tried to put her away from him, but she clung tighter, and to both his horror and his delight her questing hand slipped beneath his doublet and around to caress his buttock. “Skye, you vixen, cease your torture or I swear I’ll take you right here and now, no matter the consequences!”

  “Do you want me, Adam?” she repeated.

  “Yes!” he groaned through gritted teeth, and she released him to stand demurely back, laughing softly at his discomfort.

  “I want you too,” she said. “For the life of me I don’t know why we didn’t take Velvet back to Belle Fleurs and leave the O’Malleys to Hell!”

  “Because, sweetheart, you are your father’s daughter. You accepted the responsibility for your family from him, and you are not a woman to go back on your word.”

  “I could pass the mantle on to Brian,” she said.

  “Knowing that he’s not fit for it, Skye? You’ve too much conscience, I’m thinking.”

  “Aye, worse luck!” she agreed.

  Adam chuckled. “You’ll feel better after you’ve knocked a few stubborn O’Malley heads around,” he promised her as into the hall straggled a group of shabby-looking women and several men led by Anne and another, younger woman.

  “This is my daughter-in-law, Maggie,” Anne introduced the girl.

  “How old are you?” Skye demanded, too angry to even greet her unknown sister-in-law civilly. The girl was a little bit of a thing with sharp features and carrot-red hair.

  “Seventeen,” came the mumbled reply.

  “Didn’t your mother teach you how to manage a household?” Skye demanded.

  “Me mother died when I was four or five. I was the eighth child, m’lady.”

  “Then what in the name of God gave you the idea you could run this house, lass? Why did you remove Lady Anne from her position as chatelaine?”

  “I’m the O’Malley’s wife,” came the reply. “I couldn’t allow another in me place. My older sisters all said if I didn’t make clear from the beginning that I was the lady of the house, I wouldn’t ever be.”

  “I think we’d best get several things straight,” Skye said patiently, although she was longing to smack this rather stupid girl. “My brother, Brian, is not the O’Malley, I am. This is my house in which you live, and you’ve turned it into a pigsty! Rushes on the floors! Sweet Jesu, this house hasn’t seen rushes on the floors since my father was a boy! Where are the fine carpets we had? Now listen to me, Maggie O’Malley, the Lady Anne will resume her duties as chatelaine of this house until she no longer desires that position. You will learn from her so that when the day comes she believes you competent you may take over from her. From the looks of this place ’twill take at least ten years for you to learn! How many children do you have?”

  “Four.”

  “Any girls?”

  “One.”

  “When she’s old enough then she’ll learn too, and her sisters, should she have any!” Skye turned and looked with a hard eye at the servants. “Diligence will be rewarded in this house, and laziness will be punished. I’m not averse to beating my servants when they don’t perform.” She glared fiercely at them, and the little group visibly quailed while Adam sought to not laugh, for Skye had never been known to hit a servant. “I am the O’Malley. D’you understand? ’Tis my orders that will be obeyed here, and you’re to obey as well Lady Anne unless I tell you not to. Is that understood?”

  Wide-eyed, the group nodded.

  “The hall first, Anne, please.”

  Anne O’Malley, her confidence suddenly restored, began issuing quick orders. “You, Maeve, get those rushes up! Mab, bring the beeswax, and let’s get started on those tables! Paddy, you and Tam clean the fireplaces and the andirons! The rest of you, use yer eyes and yer brooms! I want this hall shining by nightfall!” With a quick smile she turned to Skye. “Use my apartments until this place is clean. I’ll send the boys to you as soon as they arrive.”

  Skye kissed Anne lightly on the cheek. “My thanks,” she said, and with Adam following her she led the way to her step-mother’s rooms. They had barely settled themselves when Skye’s brothers arrived, banging noisily into the room without knocking and causing their elder sister to shriek outraged at them as they tracked mud across Anne’s beautiful Turkey carpet. Sheepishly they backed out again, removing their footwear at her command before re-entering the chamber. Anne’s rooms were the only haven of cleanliness right now in the entire house, and Skye had no intention of allowing her brothers to ruin it.

  Grinning, they stood before her, all big men as their father had been. Three had his startlingly bright blue eyes, each sported a bushy black beard, and all had black, black hair, which they wore longer than was currently fashionable.

  “Well,” Skye said quietly, “you all look like Da, but you’re not one whit like him, for our father wasn’t stupid and the four of you certainly are! Between you you’ve not the brain of a chicken!”

  “Ye’re not being fair, Skye,” Brian whined.

  “Fair!” She looked scornfully at them. “I spent my youth building up the wealth of this family, for wealth, my dear brothers, is power! I was forced into making a foreign marriage, and so I left you, Brian, in charge of the O’Malley wealth. And what have you done with it? You’ve squandered it!”

  “Money is to be spent!” Brian reasoned.

  “Spent intelligently, not squandered, you dolt! What have you done to increase our wealth? Where did you think additional monies were going to come from?”

  “Da had monies.”

  “Da had little,” she replied. “He scavenged wrecks, some of which, I am certain, he caused. He preyed upon an occasional fat merchant vessel caught without protection. He was more pirate than I care to admit! He wanted better for you when he died.”

  “Died and left his authority to you, Skye,” Brian said bitterly as his brothers, Shane, Shamus, and Conn, nodded in agreement.

  “Ah, that’s what rankles you, isn’t it, Brian? Da left the authority to me. How you would love to be the O’Malley! Well, my little brother, you were barely six when Da died, and our brother Michael, only eight. There was no one else that Da chose to trust. He knew that I would not fail him. Authority, Brian, comes only to those who are willing to accept responsibility, and so far I have seen nothing on the part of any of you to indicate to me that you are willing to grow up! When I see maturity in any one of you, Brian, I promise you that I will pass on my authority. Until then I will continue to keep my faith with our father, may God assoil him.”

  Adam sat back quietly in the shadows of a window seat to watch and listen as Skye spoke with her four half-brothers. He understood the frustration the younger men must be feeling, but he was forced to agree with his wife in her judgments. The O’Malley brothers were not capable of handling responsibility.

  “Dammit, Skye,” Shamus O’Malley exclaimed, “it’s embarrassing having to answer to a woman! ’Tis all right for children, but we’re grown men!”

  “Strange,” Skye murmured. “You chafe under my very light author
ity over you, but you’re quick to throw in with Grace O’Malley and her cutthroats. Don’t tell me that our kinswoman doesn’t issue orders to you, for I know if you sail with her you answer to her, Shamus.” She looked piercingly at her four brothers, who shuffled their feet nervously, and then she sat down, waving the men to chairs also. “Tell me, Brian,” she said, looking hard at him, “tell me what you would do if you were the O’Malley of Innisfana?”

  A huge grin split his face, and it was obvious that Brian had thought often about being the head of his family. “Why, I’d go apirating with Grace, and I’d fight the damned English right back across the sea to their own puny island! God’s bones, what fun we’d have, eh brothers?!”

  Shane and Shamus O’Malley nodded at their elder sibling, and each sported an identical foolish grin upon his broad face. Skye had the incredible urge to hit them, for despite their ages, they were terribly childish.

  “How would you feed your peoples while you were gone?” she demanded. “Who would protect Innisfana from our marauding friends and neighbors, not to mention the vengeful English? Having nothing of your own, Brian, what provisions could you make for your family, and all the others for whom you would be responsible? I’ve seen the results of giving you even small authority.”

  “What in Hell is that supposed to mean?” Brian shouted.

  “It means you wasted all you had, and now you have nothing! You delivered the management of this house into the hands of your wife, a nice enough girl I’ve not a doubt, but a slattern when it comes to household matters! You’ve no judgment, Brian! You don’t look at the long run. You’d run off with Grace O’Malley, leaving Innisfana and its peoples unprotected and poverty-stricken. While you fought the English your neighbors would be making up to them, aiding them and taking your holding in payment for their treacherous service!

  “The first rule of survival is to stay out of politics! The second is to avoid a situation in which you cannot win. The English are just that, Brian. Ireland will never be free of them until they can unite beneath the banner of one leader, and I see no hope of that. Therefore your first duty is to survive, and to aid this family in its survival! If you want to be the O’Malley then show me the qualities that make a good leader, Brian. God knows I’ll be glad to pass on my authority! I’m tired of being responsible for you all! I’m tired of having to answer to an English Queen for your behavior, and I want to live my own life free of such encumbrances! I cannot be quit of you, however, until I am satisfied that you can really be a leader! Until then you’ll obey me, for I am the O’Malley!” She looked directly at them, daring any of them to argue with her, but they avoided her gaze. She knew they resented her, but she also knew that she was right about them.