Entering her apartments, Skye said grimly, "I’m not in the Queen's good graces at all, Daisy, and I’d not be in England except that she stole our daughter. Oh, Daisy, wait until you see Velvet de Marisco! She is the most perfect little girl!"
"But why would she steal your child, m'lady?" Daisy began to undress her mistress.
"She seems to want my help in some matter, Daisy, and felt I would not give it to her unless she had some sort of strong hold over me. She will not recognize my marriage to Lord de Marisco because we did not ask her permission, but it has mattered not to us. We have a beautiful home, Belle Fleur, in France. I did not think the Queen could touch us."
Daisy frowned. "I wonder," she mused aloud.
"What do you wonder?" Skye replied, climbing into the perfumed tub and settling down into the water.
"I’m wondering if it's about your brothers."
"Tell me what you know, Daisy."
“They're wild, m'lady, every one of them. I've heard Bran say it a dozen times a day. When you ran your family the O'Malleys prospered, and kept the peace; but your brothers have almost run through everything you built up for them, and they harry the English each chance they get. They deliberately bait them, m'lady, and taunt them something fierce, and you know the difficulties in Ireland are bad enough without that. Their mother, the lady Anne, has tried to control them, but she hasn't the strength. They laugh at her advice, and then gift her with things they've stolen from their raids and tell her not to worry, but she does fret and she'll not keep a thing they give her. Still, there is naught that she can do about them. They are too strong for her."
Skye nodded with understanding. Her brothers were proud and stubborn Irishmen with hot heads and no sense. She had left their raising to their mother, for it was indeed Anne's responsibility after Dubhdara O'Malley died, but Anne O'Malley was a gentle woman with a kind heart who had no real strength of her own.
"What have the O'Malleys been doing to irritate the Queen, Daisy? It can't simply be that my fool half-brothers have reverted to the piracies of my father."
"Bran says they've joined with your kinswoman, Grace O'Malley, to fight the English," came the reply.
"Fools!" Skye muttered.
"She's a fascinating woman, Bran says."
"She is indeed," Skye said. "She's from the nobler and more powerful branch of my family, the O'Malleys of Clare Island. She's even married to a Burke, as I was. Her husband is a distant cousin of Niall's. She's a dangerous woman, though, Daisy. She believes herself a patriot. She's fought the English since her youth, and I’ve no doubt she'll fight them right to the moment of her death. In one sense I admire her courage and her determination; but I have a cooler head than Grace, and she cannot win over England no matter the right of her cause. She does not see this, however, and if she were only responsible for her own life I should not argue how she live it; but she drags others into her schemes. If Elizabeth Tudor wants my aid in preventing my brothers from joining with Grace O'Malley then she shall have it, Daisy. I will not allow them to destroy everything I have worked and sacrificed for since our father, may God assoil him, left the responsibility of the O'Malleys of Innisfana to me!"
Daisy said nothing, but she saw the gleam of battle in her mistress's eyes. With a hidden smile she washed Skye's hair, thinking that it was good to be back here with her lady. She loved her bairns, but wiping their runny noses and wet bottoms was dull stuff compared to serving Skye O'Malley.
There was a knock at the door, and a housemaid appeared to say, "Sir Christopher Hatton awaits you, m'lady."
“Tell Sir Christopher that I am in my bath," Skye said mischievously, "and that I shall attend him eventually. Then see that he and his men have plenty of wine, beef, and bread."
"Yes, m'lady!" The housemaid bobbed a curtsey, and was gone.
"It will be at least two hours before you're ready," Daisy said.
"I make it closer to three," Skye said calmly, and the tiring woman giggled.
"You'll want to eat while your hair is drying."
"Aye, but sparingly. Enough to take the edge off my appetite so that my stomach doesn't grumble while I'm with the Queen, but not enough to spoil my appetite should we be asked to stay for the evening meal."
"Bread, cheese, and some good Devon cider, m'lady?"
"Aye, and a bit of ham too, Daisy. Bring enough for two, for my lord will be hungry also."
Daisy helped Skye from the tub, and carefully and thoroughly dried her mistress off before wrapping her in a long quilted velvet gown to ward off the chill of the autumn afternoon. Next she toweled all the water from Skye's hair, and settled her mistress by the fireplace to brush her own locks dry while she hurried downstairs to the kitchens to fetch the food. When Adam came through the connecting door between their rooms, Skye never even looked up as she continued brushing her hair by the fire.
"You're glad to be back in England, aren't you," she said, hearing his soft, happy humming.
"Aye, sweetheart," he admitted, coming to sit across from her. He loved watching her do simple feminine things.
"I’ve sent Daisy for food. Hatton and his men already wait below, but I’ll not come down until I'm clean and fed. If I have to deal with the Queen I'd best do it from a position of strength. Daisy thinks it's my brothers. The four of them have managed to run through the wealth I spent years building up for the O'Malleys, and now they've joined forces with my hotheaded kinswoman, Grace O'Malley, to harry the English."
“They've not their older sister's wisdom," he said quietly.
"Ah, Adam," she answered, "I would have the English out of Ireland too, but I know that it will take more than the O'Malleys to do it. That is the problem with the Irish. They cannot unite, and as long as they can't, the English will hold Ireland whether the Irish desire it or not. It is our weakness, my love, for Ireland is a land where every man is a king. I am not the stuff of which martyrs or heroines are made, and I'll not sacrifice everything I've fought for and built up for that elusive will-o'-the-wisp called Irish independence. Even if they got it there's not one man they could all agree on to make king. Right now the Irish aren't even serious in what they do. 'Tis the fighting they enjoy. No matter the widows and orphans they make. No matter the misery they cause, the famine, the children dying from lack of decent shelter. All that counts for naught in the face of glorious battle with those who sporadically lead the rebellions. They switch sides with the regularity of a whore entertaining her customers; each of them always seeking a better position over his neighbor, and joining with his neighbor's enemies if he can't maintain his own superiority alone. 'Tis a wicked game, Adam, and I'll have none of it!"
"But if you openly join with the English, Skye, your own people will consider you a traitor. They are too simple to understand the complexities of the situation. Do you understand that, sweetheart?"
"I have no intention of joining the English, Adam. I am the O'Malley of Innisfana, no matter my half-brothers. They cannot take from me that which our father gave me. They must obey me or be outlawed among their own, and I do not believe that they have the stomach for being cast out by their own people. What I shall do will have nothing to do with politics, be they English or Irish. What I do I will do for the survival of my family, and that is all."
"Will you tell the Queen that?" he asked, amused.
Skye laughed softly. "Let Bess Tudor think what she will, for I shall not let her know that I intend to stop my brothers no matter what. If she thinks I do her a service, so much the better for us, Adam."
"You don't intend to be one bit repentant about us, do you?" Adam's dark eyebrows waggled with amusement.
"What difference should our marriage have made to her?" Skye demanded irritably. "Neither you nor I are of any importance to the English Crown dynastically. We have never been permanent members of the court. The only time I followed the court was when Geoffrey was alive. She may say whatever she will, but she has no excuse for denying our marriage or calling our daughter a bastard. We were married by a priest of the Holy Catholic Church, and though the Queen may deny the Church dominion in England before her own authority, she has never denied the right of the Mother Church in spiritual matters, no matter the Protestants and their clamor."