The clock on the mantel ticked off the long minutes, its little bell clanging the passing hours in a bright, cheerful fashion that marked a direct contrast to the somber vigil. Then in that darkest and loneliest time of the night, between the hours of three and four, Constanza opened her violet eyes and gazed about her. Her glance lingered lovingly on the three people she cared for the most, her husband, her father, and Ana. They moved to her side instantly. With great effort Constanza reached out a pale hand to touch her old duenna’s wet cheek. Ana’s plump shoulders shook, but she swallowed the grief that threatened to explode in her throat. Next Constanza looked to the Conde and smiled sweetly. Francisco Cuidadela felt suddenly old and lonely. With Constanza went his last link with her mother, the love of his life. He felt that a part of him was dying too.

Lastly Constanza turned her head toward Niall. “I am so sorry about all of it, Niall,” she said. “Remember that I truly loved you.” “I know, Constanzita,” he said soothingly. “It was the illness, not deliberate.”

She looked vastly relieved then, as if he’d lifted a weight from her. “Then I am forgiven?”

“You are forgiven, Constanzita.” He bent down and lightly kissed her mouth. She sighed deeply and was gone. For a moment he stared down at her, remembering the lithe and lovely girl with the exquisite golden body and hair who had offered him her innocence in a flower field. What had happened? Gently he kissed her eyelids one final time and, turning, left the room.

Behind her he could hear Ana, finally free to vent her grief, wailing pathetically. He stood in the anteroom of his wife’s apartment for a moment, not quite sure what to do next. Then, quickly, he came to a decision. “I am going to sign over Constanza’s Mallorcan holdings to you, Francisco, all except a small house and vineyard, which I think Ana deserves. She should also be paid a pension of twelve gold pieces yearly. We will have the lawyers arrange that. Polly wants to return to England. I want her to have a dowery of ten gold pieces, her passage, and that little string of seed pearls that was Constanza’s. I want the London town house for myself. But the rest is yours.”

“Please, Niall, my daughter is not yet cold, and you callously speak of dividing her possessions as the soldiers spoke at the foot of Christ’s cross.”

“Francisco, I have been living in Hell for two years now. I will do my final duty by Constanza and see to her burial, but I want to go home. Now. You will mourn in your fashion for a full year, but you have a wife and two sons by your side. I have no wife, no sons, and no time for Spanish conventions. I will see to the details of all arrangements today, for I intend sailing home as soon as I can.” Niall Burke was true to his word. Constanza’s body was moved to the governor’s palace where it lay in state for two days. She had been dressed in her wedding gown, and the bier was banked by white gardenias with their shiny green leaves. Pure wax tapers had been placed at both her head and her feet. On the morning of the third day the funeral mass was sung in the Palma cathedral, where they had been wed. Constanza was buried with a minimum of fanfare on a hillside overlooking the sea, and that same afternoon a ship sailed from Las Palmas to London. Lord Burke and a mistress Polly Flanders were on it. On Mallorca, except for the few who had known them, it was as if Constanza Maria Alcudia Cuidadela and Niall, Lord Burke, had never existed.

Several weeks later, after an uneventful voyage, Niall saw Polly safely placed with a good family as a ladies’ maid, her precious dowry with a reputable banker. He longed to go south to Devon to see Skye, but after a drinking bout with some old friends at Court he knew he would probably not be welcome. The Southwoods, he learned, had not returned to Court but preferred the country. Only once a year did they come to London, after the New Year, in order to give their famous Twelfth Night masque. The beautiful Countess had presented her husband with a second son, John Michael, Lord Lynton. They were divinely happy, a most perfect couple. Niall Burke left London for the west coast of England and sailed home to Ireland. Delighted to have his son back, but anxious for his happiness, the MacWilliam paraded before Niall every suitable available woman between the ages of twelve and twenty-five. He was thoroughly rebuffed.

“You’ve got to take a wife,” the old man argued. “If you won’t think of yourself, think of me. I need another heir!” “Then you marry again! Twice I’ve wed because it was my duty and both marriages were disastrous. The next time I marry it will be for love and for no other reason!” shouted Niall. “You’re talking like a child!” the MacWilliam yelled back. “Love indeed! Christ bear me witness, I’ve spawned me a fool for a son! No wonder Skye O’Malley married her fine English lord!”

“Go to Hell, old man!” snarled the heir to the Burke fortunes. And he slammed from the hall and spent himself riding his great red stallion at breakneck speed across the hills. Later he rested the foamflecked animal on a cliff above the sea, and stood staring west across the blue waters. He knew the old man was right, damn him. But right or wrong, he’d not wed again except for love. Niall sighed. It was Skye he loved. He would always love her. He did not believe he could take another wife to his heart and his bed, not while Skye lived. Once he had tried to fool himself, and the result had been the destruction of an innocent girl. Poor Constanza, asking his forgiveness on her deathbed. “It was I who should have asked your forgiveness, my poor Constanza,” he said aloud. Then, mounting the stallion, he rode off to get gloriously drunk and dream futile dreams of a woman with hair like a dark night cloud and eyes the blue of the seas off the Kerry coast.

Skye was living a waking nightmare. After a sunny, warm March had come a cold, wet April. The disease had begun in the village of Lynmouth, the dreaded white throat sickness. It struck at children in particular, attacking one child, skipping its brother. Before she could isolate the children in the castle, Murrough O’Flaherty and Joan Southwood were ill.

Skye put the two children in the same room, the better to tend them. Having had the sickness as a child, she was not afraid of nursing the little ones, but she would allow none of the others near them. Geoffrey and the rest of the children were isolated in another part of the castle. Daisy volunteered to help her mistress. “I ain’t never caught the white throat,” she said, “though I’ve nursed its victims aplenty with my ma. She never caught it neither.” “They have a natural immunity,” said Skye to her husband.

“What’s that?”

“The Moorish doctors believe that some people have a special defense against certain diseases while others survive a disease and never get it again even though exposed. They call this an immunity. Obviously Daisy and her mother are immune, though they have never had white throat.”

“And you are immune just because you did have white throat!” he said triumphantly.

“Yes,” she answered. “That is why Daisy and I will nurse Murrough and Joan.”

“What will you need?”

“Plenty of water, clean clothes, and oil of camphor.”

“I’ll see to it, my love.”

“How many have we lost in the village?”

“Nine, so far.”

“Jesu assoil their poor souls,” she said.

It was a long and frightening procedure, but fortunately neither child was stricken severely. They were weak and feverish and cranky. The dreaded dirty white patches appeared first on their tonsils, and then spread to the rest of the throat, but though they coughed constantly, that was the worst of it. Nevertheless Skye and Daisy were totally exhausted, and neither spared herself in the care of the children. The crisis was surmounted after a period of twenty hours during which the two women spent all their time placing and replacing hot camphor cloths on their little patients’ throats and chests. Finally the fever broke, the coughing eased, the white patches began to fade. The two women watched over the children for another day and night before they would admit they had beaten the disease. At last Skye and Daisy allowed two of the other servants into the sickroom to take over. The children needed rest and light food to rebuild their strength while their two devoted nurses needed sleep before they dropped of exhaustion. Daisy sought her own room and fell, fully clothed, across her bed. Skye stumbled into her chamber to find a steaming tub awaiting her.

“I can’t,” she said. “I must sleep.”

Geoffrey Southwood led his wife to a chair and sat her down.

“You’ll sleep better for being clean, my darling,” and he gently undressed her, drawing off her gown and petticoats, slipping off her shoes and rolling down her silk stockings. Placing her in the tub, he smiled at her sigh of bliss and gently washed her. He dried her off, slid a nightgown over her, and carried her to their bed and tucked her in. Bending, he dropped a kiss on her forehead. “Sleep well, my dearest,” she heard him say before blackness reached up to claim her.

Skye slept for almost two days, and awoke to find her world in shambles. Daisy had awakened first, and was standing over her mistress’s bed. One look at Daisy’s open country face caused Skye’s heart to accelerate.

“What is it?”

“The young master, little Lord John! White throat! The Earl is nursing him.”

Skye tumbled from the bed, reaching for her velvet dressing gown, struggling into it as she ran. “Where are they?” “The floor above the nursery, m’lady.”

Skye’s first instinct was to rail at Geoffrey. How dare he keep Johnny’s illness from her? Why had he not awakened her? Then she realized he had tried to spare her for a few brief hours so she might regain some strength. She sped down the corridors of the castle, climbing the stairs to the wing above the nursery floor, and pushed into the room.