This Heart of Mine Read Free

him.
    He laughed. “Adventuring is it, little girl? And here I thought you had grown up. Tis a staid and proper wife you’ve been to me since we came to live at Queen’s Malvern.”
    “Not too proper, I hope, my darling.” She chuckled. “Oh, Adam, do you mind? I could not really refuse the queen, could I?”
    He sighed deeply. “Nay, we couldn’t refuse her though I would to God that we might have. I do not like the idea of leaving Velvet, Skye. She is overyoung yet.”
    “We might bring her with us,” Skye suggested. “After all, she is half O’Malley.”
    “Nay, sweetheart, we should not do that. ’Tis a dangerous voyage that we plan for all you make light of it. We have kept her safe all these years, and by the time we return her marriage to the son of my old friend, the Earl of BrocCairn, will be nearly due. Let her remain here in England in our good Dame Cecily’s care, learning all the things she must know to be a good wife to young Alexander Gordon, who will one day be the Earl of BrocCairn himself.”
    Skye chuckled. “All those duties that I’ve neglected to teach her myself, you mean. But I’ve taught her other things, Adam. She’s a well-educated child and will be no shame to her husband when he takes her to Scotland’s court.”
    Adam smiled. He knew how much value Skye put upon knowledge even for her daughters. Had Dame Cecily not been a part of their household all these years, he wondered if the girls would have ever learned how to manage a household. That skill was the lowest on Skye’s list of priorities.
    “Nay, Velvet will be no shame to BrocCairn, sweetheart,” he agreed, “but in the time we are away she will learn how to care for a large estate and all of its people. Though you dislike that duty, even you can perform it, but Velvet cannot, and in just a few short years she will be wed.”
    Skye sighed. “I know, and that is one reason I am so loath to leave her. We shall miss at least two years of our daughter’s life, Adam. There is nothing Elizabeth Tudor can give us to compensate us for that loss.” She looked up at him and touched his cheek. “We have been so happy, haven’t we, my darling? As much as I long for this adventure, I am reluctant to break the spell that Queen’s Malvern has woven about all our lives. There is so much happiness to come. We shall not be here to help Robin and Alison celebrate little Elsbeth’s first birthday, and there is the new baby Alison carries that will be born soon. Ewan and Gwyneth promised to bring the children from Ireland this coming summer, and we’ve not yet seen their new child, Ualtar. Murrough will want to come with us, and I promised Joan I would not send him off upon another long voyage so soon. Do you realize that when the twins were born last summer it was the first time he was home for the birth of any of his children? He has been off so much that the twins are their first babies in five years.”
    “You’re becoming a matriarch, sweetheart,” he teased her.
    “I became a matriarch at seventeen when my father thrust the title of “The O’Malley” upon me. Thank God I have been relieved of that burden these past years! Oh, Adam! I want to go to India, and I don’t!”
    “But go we must, Skye. The family will survive without us though I will allow they will miss you.”
    “And you also, my darling! Though Velvet is your only child of my body, all my other children love you as they would their own fathers. If I am the matriarch of this family, then you are its patriarch, and we shall celebrate our fourteenth anniversary in the Indies come September.”
    He laughed happily. “I can always trust you to see the bright side, sweetheart. So it is settled then. Velvet will remain safely with Dame Cecily at Queen’s Malvern , the rest of our children shall go on as usual, and we, my sweet Skye, shall go off on a final adventure in the queen’s name before we settle into a rather comfortable and quiet old