"You are still a child, Nicolas! A selfish little boy! Do you hear what you are saying? You are saying that you will abandon your wife and your heir for me. Where is your sense of responsibility, Nicolas? Did I teach you nothing?! Your duty is to Beaumont de Jaspre, and then to your people. You also now owe a duty to your wife, and the child that will soon be born. I do not want you. I want no man ever again. All I ask of you is that you allow me to bury my husband here. If you are not of a mind to grant me that request, then tell me now, and I will be on my way."

"Doucette, I implore you," he said, and she felt a certain pity for him.

"Nicolas," Skye said in a sad, yet patient voice, "I implore you. I implore you to give up this fantasy you seem to have about me. I loved you. I will not deny that fact, but now I question the quality of that love. I felt no reluctance in leaving you, Nicolas. I was only sad to go because I disliked hurting you.

"I would have never returned to Beaumont de Jaspre were it not for Niall. Even if I had not found him, Nicolas, I would have gone home to Ireland, or perhaps back to Elizabeth Tudor's court; but I would not have come back to you. Instinctively you must have sensed that, and you did what you should have done. You married and begat an heir." She reached out and touched his face gently. "I left the Gull this afternoon, and walked about the market by the harbor, a hood about my head so I might not be recognized. The talk is all of the little Duchesse Madelaine and her coming child, Nicolas. They say she is a madonna; and that God blessed them greatly when Duc Fabron made you his heir and you took Madelaine di Monaco to wife.

"You have done the right thing, Nicolas. Why can you not see it? Why do you seek to destroy that which has brought you the most happiness? Can you tell me truthfully that you do not love your wife?"

"Of course I love her!" he exclaimed. "One cannot know Madelaine and not love her. She is sweetness itself, but with you it was different. She is honey, but you are fire, doucette! How I crave your warmth!"

Skye allowed herself a little smile. Nicolas would ever be the romantic Frenchman. He was irrepressible. "Fire, mon brave, can destroy you," she said. "Hear me well, Nicolas. When Niall Burke died, I died. Oh, I realize that my mind and my body still function, but believe me when I tell you that I am a dead woman. There is naught left inside me but a wasteland. Go home to your wife, Nicolas, and leave me be."

He stood staring dumbly at her, and Skye would have sworn that there were tears in his forest-green eyes. Then, suddenly, from the comer of the cabin a shadow arose, and Nicolas was stunned to see a giant of a man with raven-black hair and smoky blue eyes come forth. "You have heard Lady Burke, lad. Go now."

Pure unreasoning anger swept over Nicolas, and blindly he drew his sword. "Who is this man?" he shouted at Skye. "He is your lover! I know he is your lover!" He lunged murderously at Adam.

Adam de Marisco stepped easily aside, and with a quick movement disarmed the younger man. "I am Adam de Marisco, the lord of Lundy Island, M'sieur le Duc. My own holding is larger than this tiny bit of land you call a duchy. I have known Skye for many years. I intend to marry Skye when she is over her grief. It is an honest offer which I can make her, but you cannot, monseigneur. Now you may leave this ship under your own power, as Lady Burke has asked, or I shall toss you from the upper deck if you so choose, M'sieur le Duc." He smiled affably down into Nicolas's surprised face.

"Adam!" Skye gently admonished him. Then she turned to Nicolas. "Please go, Nicolas. What was once between us is but a memory."

"Yet a sweet memory, doucette, and one I will remember all of my life." The anger had drained from him as Adam's sensible speech penetrated his brain. Gallantly he took her hand and raised it to his lips to kiss it ardently. "You are welcome in Beaumont de Jaspre as long as you choose to stay, and I shall not disturb your mourning again, Skye. Forgive the impetuosity of my behavior, doucette. I have really tried to be as you advised me to be, and I believed I was succeeding until I learned of your arrival."

Skye gently disengaged her hand from his. "You are strong of will, Nicolas. You will not backslide again. Now go home to your wife. After Niall's funeral, I do not want to see you again."

He nodded and, sending a warning look at Adam, said, "I will know if you are not good to her, Monseigneur de Marisco." Then he turned, and was quickly gone from the cabin.

"If you laugh I shall never forgive you!" Skye snapped at Adam, whose whole face was collapsing with mirth.

"I cannot help but wonder what revenge your little French cock would take on me were I to mistreat you."

"You had no right to tell him that I will marry you," she said with more spirit than he had seen her show in the last few hours.

"But you are going to marry me, Skye. I have no intention of allowing you to be used by anyone ever again."

"Even you, Adam?" she asked cruelly.

"Even me, little girl," he said affably, and Skye found herself totally nonplussed by his attitude.


***

Niall, Lord Burke, was placed in a wooden coffin, and the coffin put into a marble vault in the chapel of St. Anne in the duchy's cathedral. Père Henri, now Bishop of Beaumont de Jaspre, blessed the tomb and then said a mass over the remains. He had hoped to comfort Skye, and so that he might not be hurt she told him that he had; but the truth was that she felt empty. Niall was dead, and she was haunted by the thought that it had all been for nothing.

She bid Robbie and Bran Kelly a hasty farewell. "I can't go back," she told Robert Small. "Not yet. I am not ready to face either my family or my children or the Queen. Especially not the Queen, and Lord Burghley. God only knows what plan they have for me this time, Robbie, and I am not strong enough to deal with them."

"Where will you be?" he questioned her.

"With Adam. He will make no demands on me, Robbie. He is taking me to visit his mother at Archambault in the Loire Valley."

Robert Small nodded. He had never seen her so low. She would be safe with Adam de Marisco, and for now that was all that mattered. "Shall I tell the Queen if she asks where you are?"

"Can you deny Elizabeth Tudor, Robbie?"

"Yes," he said without hesitation, "I can for you, Skye lass. If asked, I shall say you are in France, but I know not where."

"Thank you, Robbie," she replied, hugging him hard.

Nicolas St. Adrian had insisted on outfitting them for their journey. "You are, whether you remember it or not, the dowager duchesse of this little kingdom of mine," he told her firmly. "I would be remiss in my duties to my late brother if I did not see that you had a coach, outriders, and your own saddle horses."

She thanked him there in the cathedral, where she had been making her good-byes. "You are generous, Nicolas."

"You will also find all your clothes packed and stored in the coach, doucette. Your Daisy would not bring them back with her to England, saying that you would have no use there for 'French feathers,' as she so tardy put it. Those feathers, however, will stand you in good stead now as you travel across France."

"You once more have my thanks," she told him.

He nodded briefly. "Go with God, doucette," he said, lifting her hand to his lips and placing a tender kiss upon it.

“Thank you, Nicolas," she said softly, "and I hope that it is a healthy son your petite duchesse carries." Then Skye turned away from the young duc and, slipping her arm through Adam's, left the cathedral.

At the foot of the steps was a fine, dark blue traveling coach with the coat of arms of Beaumont de Jaspre emblazoned on its sides. Upon the box sat a coachman and his assistant. There were a dozen armed outriders, four of whom would ride before the coach, four behind, and two on either side. There were two mounted grooms, each leading a pedigreed horse. The coachman's assistant was quickly down to open the door of the vehicle and help Skye into it. The interior was as elegant and as luxurious as the exterior, the walls padded in fine, soft, cream-colored leather, the seats done in pale-blue velvet. The windows, which could be raised or lowered, were Venetian glass edged in bright brass. On each side of the coach were delicate crystal vases filled with fragrant arrangements of dried lavender and lemon thyme, and small, carefully mounted crystal lamps, their gold holders fitted with pure beeswax tapers.

"You will find that the back of the seat facing you pulls down, madame," the coachman's assistant said. "Should you need it, there is a lap robe, as well as a basket with fruit, cheese, bread, and wine."

She nodded her thanks, and the assistant withdrew to climb back onto the box while Adam pulled himself up into the coach. The door securely shut, the vehicle rumbled slowly off across the cathedral square, through the narrow streets, and finally onto the north road that led to France and into the Loire Valley. Skye never looked back. She had done what her instinct had told her to do with Niall's body. He had not been lost to the sea, and in this she had cheated Mannanan MacLir. One day Niall Burke would come home to Ireland and be buried in Irish soil next to his father, where he belonged. She could almost feel the old MacWilliam's approval of her deed.

They rode in silence the entire day, and when evening came the coach stopped at a comfortable-looking inn. Despite the elegance of their equipage, only one room could be given them, for the inn was crowded. Adam offered to sleep in the stables with the outriders, but Skye would not hear of it.

"I think that we can share a bed platonically," she said, and he nodded.

"I think you only agree to let me in your room so you will have someone to maid you," he teased her gently. Skye had refused to take a girl from Beaumont to be her servant. She was not so helpless, she had declared, that she could not care for herself the relatively short time of their journey. Once they were at Archambault, Adam's mother would see she had someone to care for her.

They ate a simple country meal of roasted duck, artichokes with olive oil and tarragon vinegar, new bread, a soft cheese, and a bowl of early cherries. The innkeeper served them a smooth, rich Burgundy wine with their meal. Afterward they watched as a troupe of gypsies played and danced in the courtyard for the guests' coins.

When the gypsies had finally disappeared back to their encampment, Adam and Skye climbed the stairs to the inn's second floor where their room was situated. It was a cheerful, airy chamber overlooking the moonlit fields. There was a fireplace in which a small fire burned to ward off the evening's chill, a chair, and a big, comfortable bed with blue and white linen hangings. The bed had been opened by a maid, and beckoned them enticingly. Their coachman had brought Skye a small trunk that he told her contained the things she would need on her journey. 'The Duchesse Madelaine packed them herself for you, madame."

"You know the duchesse?" Skye queried him, curious.

"Ah, yes, madame. My wife is her tiring woman. We came with her from Monaco."

"Your mistress knew that I was the last Duchesse of Beaumont?"

"Yes, madame."

"You will thank her for me when you return to Beaumont de Jaspre. Her kindness is appreciated."

Skye thought about Nicolas's young wife as she opened the tiny trunk and lifted out a simple white silk nightgown. She was far wiser and more mature than Nicolas suspected. Skye smiled. Nicolas, although he didn't know it, was in very good hands, and Beaumont de Jaspre was going to prosper.

"What are you smiling about, little girl?"

She looked up at him. "Nothing, Adam. Just a woman's thoughts. Will you unhook my gown?" She felt his big hands gently undoing the fastenings.

“There," he said when he had finally undone the last of them. Adam hadn't realized the effort it would take on his part not to touch her. Am I a ravening beast, he questioned himself, that I cannot undo her gown for her without wanting to make love to her? Dear God, he loved her so very much! He wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her. He wanted to drive away all the bad times in her life, and make her remember only the good. Slowly he turned away and began to undress himself, pulling from his saddlebags a white silk nightshirt that he rarely wore. Tonight, however, it would be best to have as much as he could put between himself and Skye. When he turned back to her she was seated on the edge of the bed brushing her long black hair with a gold brush. "Would you rather I slept on the floor, little girl?" he asked in what he hoped passed for an impersonal voice. "I could easily wrap myself in the coverlet, and with a pillow for my head I should be quite comfortable."