“The Spanish ambassador claims never to have heard of him, madam.”
“I would hardly think the Spanish ambassador to the English Court would be well acquainted with the residents of Algiers, my lord,” said Skye coolly.
“Perhaps not, madam. I merely mention it in passing. It is my duty to protect my Queen.”
“If you feel, my lord Cecil, that this venture is a danger to your Queen, or would bring some discredit upon her, then I shall withdraw my request for a charter, and you must rule against us with Her Majesty. However, to do so casts doubt upon not only my honor, but on Sir Robert’s as well. I am but newly come from Algiers, but Captain Small has always been a loyal and good servant of England.”
“Madam, you misunderstand me. I merely said that King Phillip’s man knew not of your late husband’s family.”
“Why should he? My husband’s family came to Algiers several generations back. The original Goya del Fuentes was, I believe, a younger son. There is still a branch of the family in Spain—near Granada or Seville. I can never remember which.”
Cecil sighed, exasperated, and Robbie hid a smile. Skye was doing a fine job of confusing the chancellor. It relieved him to see her fast thinking. Now he need not fear leaving her when he went back to sea.
“Really, my lord,” Skye allowed a slightly annoyed tone to creep into her voice, “what it is that bothers you I cannot imagine. I ask for nothing other than Her Majesty’s sponsorship. In return I offer her a quarter share of the profits, the latest mapping of the area, and my ships will be bringing to the peoples of the East word of our Queen’s greatness. This hardly seems to me a suspicious undertaking.”
“Dammit, madam, you deliberately twist my words!” roared Cecil.
“Do I indeed, sir? Pray then, enlighten me as to exactly what it is you do mean.”
A burst of tinkling laughter interrupted them, and from a shadowy recess in the room the Queen quickly appeared.
“Do not mind Cecil, Mistress Goya del Fuentes. He is overcautious of our welfare, and we are appreciative of his efforts. Although we might do without any other of our servants, we could not do without him. Come, my friend, you need not know the lady’s pedigree in order to do business with her. Our treasury is not so full that we cannot use the profits from this voyage, and it costs us nothing more than our goodwill. Captain Small’s record speaks for itself.”
“Very well, my lady Queen. I will see the charter is granted if you so desire.”
“I do, my lord Cecil. Work out the pertinent details with Captain Small. Mistress Goya del Fuentes will come and have a glass of wine with us.” The Queen strode from the room and Skye, after curtseying to Cecil, followed her.
As the door closed upon the women the chancellor remarked, “She’s a beautiful woman, Sir Robert, and she has a brain. Her Majesty approves of intelligent women.”
“She is the daughter I never had,” replied Robbie.
“Indeed,” murmured Cecil. “Then are you aware that she spent several days and nights in mid-January with Lord Southwood at the Thameside inn called the Ducks and Drake?”
“I am,” said Robbie, his anger beginning to rise. “You seem to be keeping a rather close watch on an unimportant and harmless young woman, my lord.”
“A woman of Irish descent who was wed to a Spaniard … both traditional enemies of England,” Cecil observed drily.
“And is Lord Southwood also under suspicion?” snapped the captain.
“Only to the extent that a valuable servant of the Queen might be subverted.”
Robert Small was on his feet. “By God, sir! I’ll hear no further slander against Skye! She has suffered greatly, and yet remains a sweet and good lady. There is not a devious or disloyal tendency in her, I assure you.”
“Sit down, sit down, Captain Small. Our own investigations have borne out your words. I would, however, like your personal thoughts about her relationship with Lord Southwood. You need divulge no confidence, of course, but the Earl is a valuable man to the Queen.”
“He claims to be in love with her,” answered Robbie, “and God help her, for she’s in love with him.”
“Curious,” said Cecil. “It is not the Earl’s custom to take women seriously. Then perhaps he really is in love with her?”
Far away, at that very moment, the gentleman in question was raging violently at his pale and cowering wife. Geoffrey Southwood had rarely felt such overpowering fury. “Bitch! Bitch!” he shouted at her. “You’ve killed my only legitimate son! Christ’s body, how could you be so stupid? You knew there was smallpox about, and yet you wrote to the Countess of Shrewsbury and asked to have Henry sent home for Twelfth Night. Without my permission. As God is my witness, Mary, I could kill you!”
“Then why don’t you, Geoffrey?” she baited him. “You hate me, and our daughters! Why not kill us all?”
Her hysterical outburst calmed him somewhat. He eyed her coldly. “I am going to divorce you, Mary. I should have done so years ago.”
“You have no grounds to do such a thing.”
“I have all the grounds I need, Mary. You produce nothing but daughters. The one son you bore me you wantonly killed. You refused to hostess my friends, yet you hoard the household monies I send you to dower your daughters despite the fact I have forbidden them to wed. I have grounds, Mary, but if needs be I’ll produce half a dozen men who’ll claim intimate knowledge of you.”
She went white with shock. “You truly are a bastard, Geoffrey,” she whispered, horrified.
He hit her a blow that sent her to her knees.
“A bastard!” she repeated. He turned and left. They were the last words she ever spoke to her husband. By nightfall Mary Southwood lay ill of smallpox herself, as did every one of her daughters. She died several days later. Mary, Elizabeth, Catherine, and Phillipa joined her. Only the three youngest girls, Susan and twins Gwyneth and Joan, survived. The Earl was saved because he had had a light case of smallpox as a child.
The Countess and her daughters were buried with a bare minimum of ceremony, the bell in Lynmouth Church dutifully tolling their passing as the carts carried their coffins to the family cemetery. Geoffrey told his three daughters of their mother’s and sisters’ deaths. They were so young, only four and five, that he was not sure they really understood him. Looking at them closely for the first time, he decided that they were really somewhat comely. Leaving detailed instructions as to their convalescence, he departed Devon for Court.
He had been in Devon for over two months, and spring had come to England. The Court had left Greenwich and was now at Nonesuch. The Earl of Lynmouth was welcomed back warmly, particularly by the ladies, for news of his loss had preceded him. Anxious to see Skye, he fretted until he could get to London. He could not go until the Queen gave her permission. He waited for the right moment to beg that permission.
In London Robbie prepared to take his leave of Skye. The Mermaid and her fellow ships waited now, fully provisioned, in the Pool. He had put off his departure until the last possible moment, for Skye was quite easily upset of late, the least little thing sending her into tears. He had sent to Devon for his sister, Marie, and the two children. The sight of Willow, now almost two, had cheered her somewhat.
He knew what distressed her. It was Southwood’s apparent desertion. Since the Earl had returned with her from their tryst in January there had been no word from him other than the cryptic message that he was needed in Devon. Robert Small told himself once more that the man was a bastard, plain and simple. Seeing Skye grow so pale and listless, he silently cursed the Earl and bemoaned the fact that there was nothing he could do to cheer her.
Finally Robert Small could delay no longer. On the night before he sailed Skye arranged a small dinner party for him at her house. De Grenville was their guest, dining with Skye, Robbie, Dame Cecily, Jean, and Marie. De Grenville intended to sail with Robbie as far as the Channel. The meal was delicious, but Skye only picked at the food. Her merriment was forced. At least,
she thought sourly, Southwood had done her one good turn by arranging an introduction to the Queen, thereby helping them obtain a royal charter. As to love … it was all either passion or pain.
De Grenville was soon in his cups, and he leered at Skye in a friendly fashion. “For a learned and modest woman you cost me dearly, Mistress Skye. Now that the Earl of Lynmouth is back at Court I suppose he’ll be taking my barge.”
He was back! And he’d never even sent her word! “Why should he take your barge, Dickon?” she asked absently.
Robert Small suddenly came to life. “That’s no story for Skye’s ears, Dickon!” he protested, kicking his friend beneath the table.
But de Grenville paid him no heed. His hostess’s rich wine had fuzzed his wits. “Why shouldn’t she know, Robbie? When I turn my barge over to Geoff it will be all over Court. Don’t know why I bet him anyway, but I did want that stallion.”
Skye felt a premonition of disaster run through her. “What bet is this, Dickon?”
“Enough, de Grenville!” cried Robert Small desperately, glancing toward his sister and Marie.
“No, Robbie,” snapped Skye. “I believe I should hear what Dickon has to say. Pray, sir, enlighten me as to what you and my lord Earl wagered.”
“I bet my barge against his prize stud stallion that he couldn’t make you his mistress within a six-month period. Looked like such a sure thing. You certainly cut him dead at the inn in Dartmour. Didn’t think he was your type at all. But then, my father always said women were a fickle lot and not to be trusted.”
Cecily and Marie both gasped. The Gallic Jean shrugged philosophically. But Robbie, who knew her best of all, held his breath in anticipation of the explosion that immediately followed.
“The bastard!” she raged. “The damned bastard! I could kill him! I will kill him! No, I won’t—I shall do to him what Marie did to Captain Jamil!” Bursting into tears, she picked up her skirts and fled the room.
Marie and Cecily rose to follow her, but Robbie stayed them with a gesture and went after her himself. He saw her running across the terrace, down into the garden. His short legs pumping hard, he ran after her calling, “Skye, lass! Wait for me, Skye!” She stopped, but her back remained toward him. As he reached her he could see her shoulders shaking. He walked around her and gathered her into his arms. She wept wildly. “Oh, lass, I am so sorry. But don’t waste your tears on him. He’s not worth it, Skye. He’s not worth any grief.”
“I l-l-love him, Robbie,” she sobbed, “I l-l-love the bastard!”
He sighed. He was going to have to hurt her further, but there was no help for it. Best she know the worst from him than have some ass like de Grenville tell her. He drew her over to a carved stone bench and they sat down.
“I want you to hear this from me, Skye. Southwood’s only son and his wife and four of his daughters are dead of the smallpox. That’s what sent him down into Devon in January. De Grenville tells me the rumors at Court are that the Queen has already picked out an heiress for him, and Geoffrey Southwood would never say no to a wealthy match. And now that he no longer has a son, it is imperative that he remarry. The sooner the better, I would say, for with a new wife he’ll have little time for you, lass.”
She raised her face to him and he thought, as he had thought a hundred times or more, that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever known. Tonight when he left her he would visit a sweet young whore of his acquaintance, but on the long nights at sea it would be Skye he thought of, not little Sally. It would be Skye’s face that he would easily recall to mind, the young prostitute’s fading from memory within an hour of their parting.
“You understand what I’m saying to you, Skye?” He looked anxiously into her wet sapphire eyes. “You understand that in all likelihood it’s finished with Southwood.”
She sighed. “I am carrying his child, Robbie. In six months’ time, more or less, I shall present the seventh Earl of Lynmouth with a child, and I pray God it’s a son! And I also pray that his rich, new wife does precisely what his last rich wife did—deliver girls!”
“Marry me, Skye.”
“You are prejudiced, Robbie,” she smiled wanly. “Take me back inside and I’ll bid de Grenville goodnight. What time do you sail tomorrow?”
“We catch the midday tide. I’ll come in the morning to bid you farewell.”
They walked back through the garden and into the house. De Grenville had fallen asleep in his chair.
“Il est un cochon,” muttered Marie.
“No,” said Skye.
“He hurt you, mignon.”
Skye shrugged. “Better I heard it from him than from a stranger, Marie. Alas, our good wine does not agree with him.”
Suddenly the small dining-room door was flung open and Skye’s bargeman stumbled into the room beside her majordomo, Walters, who gasped, “Madam, the Queen comes!”
“What!?”
The bargeman spoke up. “The Queen, mistress! She’s almost here! She sent a messenger ahead of her on the river.”
“My God, I’m not dressed properly to receive her! Quick, Marie!” And she raced upstairs to her own apartment, calling to Daisy as she ran. “Fetch the burgundy-colored silk with the gold-and-cream-stripped underskirt. The rubies! My gold ribbons! Marie, go back downstairs and have Walters clear the dining room. I’ll want ham, cheeses, fruits, thin sugar wafers, and wines. Have them set on the sideboards in the banquet room. Wake de Grenville and have Robbie sober him!”
Marie turned and ran from the room while the maids fluttered about Skye. She quickly changed her clothes. “Hawise, watch the window! Sing out the second you see the Queen’s barge!”
A few minutes later, as Skye smoothed the wrinkles from the elegant silk gown, Hawise called, “The Queen’s barge is rounding the bend, ma’am!” Skye flew from the room and down the stairs. Catching Robbie and de Grenville by the hands, the trio sped across the terrace, down another garden, and reached the barge, landing moments before the Queen’s boat bumped it. The two men stepped forward to aid Elizabeth as she disembarked, while Skye swept the monarch a magnificent curtsey, her wine-colored skirts billowing gracefully, her dark head lowered in perfect submission.
The young Queen eyed her hostess approvingly. “Rise, Mistress Goya del Fuentes. ‘Pon my soul, you make the most elegant and graceful curtsey I’ve ever seen!”
Standing, Skye thanked the Queen with a smile and Elizabeth said, “We hope you’ll forgive us this unorthodox visit, but it was brought to our attention that Sir Robert sails tomorrow. We could not allow him to leave on such a lengthy voyage without giving him our good wishes.”
Robbie flushed with obvious pleasure. “Majesty, I am overwhelmed by your kindness.”
“Madam,” said Skye, “will you take refreshment?”
“Thank you, mistress. Sir Robert, de Grenville, you may escort me. Southwood, take Mistress Goya del Fuentes and Mistress Knollys.”
The Queen moved off, leaving Skye stricken. Here was Geoffrey stepping up from the Queen’s barge, handing out a ravishing lovely red-headed girl.
“Skye, may I present the Queen’s cousin Lettice, this is Mistress Goya del Fuentes.”
Lettice Knollys smiled in a friendly fashion, her pale skin glowing and youthful. “We’re of an age,” she said. “May I call you Skye, and you call me Lettice?”
“But of course,” Skye answered. God in Heaven, was this girl the rich match the Queen proposed for Geoffrey?
“It’s good to see you, Skye,” the Earl of Lynmouth murmured softly as he escorted both women up the garden to the house. Behind them the other half-dozen barges that had escorted the Queen were unloading their passengers.
“What a charming house you have,” remarked Lettice. “I have always wanted a small house on the Strand. You do not come to Court, do you?”
“There is no need. And besides, I am not of the nobility. If the Queen invited me, however, I would, of course, obey.”
They had reached the house now, and as
they entered, Southwood said quietly, “Lettice, I must speak with Skye. Keep the Queen occupied for me.” Before Skye had time to protest he had whisked her into the library and shut the door firmly.
“I cannot leave my guests! The Queen will notice!” she protested.
“Madam, I have been parted from you for three months now. Have you no warmer welcome for me?”
“Sir, you presume a great deal! I do, however offer you my deepest sympathy on the loss of your wife and children.”
“You knew? How?”
“De Grenville told me earlier this evening.” She turned and walked a little ways from him. “I understand I am also to wish you felicitations on an upcoming marriage. Is it Mistress Knollys? And will you honeymoon on your barge?”
“I don’t own a barge.”
“Why, sir,” she said scathingly, “did you not win de Grenville’s barge? I understood the wager was his barge against your stallion. He is quite distressed by the loss of the animal.”
“Damn de Grenville for a fool!” swore the Earl. “Sweetheart, listen to me! The bet was made when you snubbed me, on the first day we ever met. I had no intention of collecting on it. It had nothing to do with our falling in love later on. I intended to tell Dickon so, but I forgot it when I was summoned to Devon. That worthless bitch I married had brought my son, Henry, home when there was smallpox in the village. He came home only to die! That she and four of her girls perished as well is only God’s judgment. Then it was touch and go with the three youngest. I stayed on until they were well. I am not entirely heartless, Skye. They’re but four and five.”
“You might have written me!”
“Frankly it did not occur to me. I am not a man of words, Skye. The pox swept through my estates like wildfire, and I was kept damned busy. My bailiff died, among others, and until I could replace him I did his work.”
“You’ve been back at Court for a while, my lord! You might have sent me a message. A posy of flowers. Something! But you were too busy finding an heiress to replace your dead wife! I hate you, Geoffrey! I will never forgive you! You used me like a common trollop! You lied to me!” Angrily she turned away so he might not see the tears springing into her eyes. “I was warned that you were the biggest bastard in London, but God help me I would not believe it!”
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