“Still, he pines for her,” Skye said. “It is sad. I will be glad when my granddaughter has delivered of her child so we may return to England.” She laughed, almost bitterly. “This is my native land, and I have been denied it for so long, yet here I am longing for England. Do you ever long for India, Adali?”
“Only rarely, my lady. You see, I believe that wherever one
is at a particular moment is exactly where they are supposed to be at that moment. So, if I am in Ireland now, or in England tomorrow, it would be a great waste of my emotion to long for India, would it not?”
Skye laughed. “You remind me of an old friend, Osman, the astrologer, but he is long dead. He would have said something similar to me if I had asked him such a question, Adali. Your wisdom gives me comfort in a tragic time.”
The winter passed, and with the coming of spring the mares in the pastures of Maguire’s Ford dropped their foals. The sight of the mothers running with their babies in the meadows brought a smile to Jasmine’s face for the first time in months. Of the four foals, three were fillies and one a fine black colt with but one white stocking.
“
Mine!
” Lady India Lindley said, pointing at the little colt from the vantage point of her great-grandfather’s arms. “Mine, Anpa!”
“Hah!” chuckled Skye, who was holding the young Lord Lindley, who had just celebrated his first birthday. “What think you, my little marquess, shall we let your sister have the colt?”
Henry put his thumb in his mouth and stared at her with large blue eyes. He appeared to be actually considering the matter.
“They are all so healthy, thank God,” Jasmine said. “I wish Rowan had lived to see the success of our experiment. This is a good land for raising horses, Grandmama. Maguire should do well for us after we’ve gone. I shall, of course, come back at some point, but Cadby must be our home from now on. Perhaps when Henry is older he will want to spend some time here, or mayhap I shall give the land to India one day. What do you think?” It was now June, and Jasmine was large with child. Still, she had recovered both her health and her strength, and seemed to bloom with an inner beauty.
“I think India will grasp anything she can lay her hands on, darling girl. There is a great deal of the Mughal in her temperament, I suspect,” and Skye laughed. “There is plenty of time to decide who is to receive what, Jasmine. For now Henry has his father’s holdings, and India will one day have yours. Perhaps you should give Maguire’s Ford to this new baby. Lad or lassie, it will need something of its own for either an inheritance or a dowry. Then, too, one day you will remarry and there will be other children to provide for as well.”
That Jasmine did not deny a possible third marriage, Skye
found interesting, but then, perhaps, her granddaughter simply did not wish to argue with her.
Jasmine went into labor with her third child on the eighth day of July.
“Exactly nine months to the day of his lordship’s death,” Adali said fatalistically.
But unlike her first two children, this child was difficult to deliver. Skye had wisely sent to the convent of St. Bride’s of the Cliffs for her elder sister, Eibhlin, who was a doctor. Eibhlin was well past seventy, but still practicing her beloved medicine. She had arrived on the first day of July and declared, “ ’Tis not right, Skye. I am a bent old lady, and you still look like a woman half your age!”
Skye had laughed and embraced Eibhlin. “I will be seventy before Christmas, Eibhlin. If you do not remember how old I am, I do.” The two sisters had not seen each other in many years.
Now, with Jasmine in apparent difficulty, Skye was relieved that she had had the foresight to fetch Eibhlin.
“ ’Tis like it was with your Deirdre,” Eibhlin declared. “The child is turned about. I can feel its little toes.”
Jasmine winced as another sharp pain tore into her. “Damn!” she gasped. “It was not so terrible with India and Henry. They were born so quickly, Grandmama, and with little hurt.”
“There, my darling girl,” Skye soothed her granddaughter. “The little one is not in correct position, and your great-aunt must turn it about. Your aunt Deirdre gave me the same difficulty.” Skye took up a cloth and wrung it out in a basin of cool, perfumed water. Then she smoothed it across Jasmine’s hot brow. “Each child is different. I should know, having had eight myself.”
Carefully, Eibhlin turned the infant about, but Skye saw her sister’s brow furrow in concentration as she worked, and when their eyes met, Skye knew that something else was wrong.
“What is it?” she asked low.
“The cord may be about the baby’s neck,” Eibhlin replied softly.
Another pain washed over Jasmine, and she shrieked aloud. Tiny beads of perspiration dappled her forehead, and she gasped as if seeking breath. “I cannot bear it,” she sobbed.
“I can see the baby’s head quite clearly,” Eibhlin said
calmly. “If you will just push a bit harder, niece, this business of birthing will be over for you quite quickly.” She almost sounded cheerful.
Jasmine sent her a fierce look, but she stopped feeling sorry for herself almost immediately. “This baby is a boy,” she declared. “Only a lad would be so insensitive of his mother.”
Skye laughed. “More than likely ’tis a girl. Girls are always quarreling with their mothers, are they not, my darling?” She chuckled once more. “I will wager a gold piece with you, Jasmine, that I shall shortly have another great-granddaughter.”
Jasmine’s turquoise-blue eyes twinkled. “Done, Grandmama!” she said, and then she paled and gasped once more.
“Push, child!” Eibhlin demanded. “
Push!
”
Jasmine glared at her, but screwing up her face, she did as she was bid, pushing with every bit of strength that she possessed. To her great relief, she could feel the baby begin to slip from her body as the spasm subsided.
“Good lass!” Eibhlin said. “We’ll have it with the next push, my dear.” She carefully turned the child, who was now born to its shoulders, gently untangling the umbilical cord from the little neck about which it had been loosely wrapped. “Nothing serious,” she said low to her sister. “ ’Twas not tight, but I knew it was there. I felt it.”
“Ahhhhhhhhhh!” Jasmine cried out, and pushed again.
The infant slid from her body, and almost immediately began to wail. Eibhlin worked with an efficiency and swiftness that amazed Skye; wiping the child free of birthing blood, clearing its little mouth of mucus, handing the infant over to its great-grandmother, then snipping and tying off the cord neatly.
“You owe me a gold piece, darling girl,” Skye informed her granddaughter as she wrapped the baby in its swaddling clothes.
“Let me see her,” Jasmine demanded. “Does she look like Rowan? Both India and Henry do.”
“I think she looks like you,” Skye said, handing the baby to her. “What do you intend to call her?”
“Fortune,” Jasmine replied. “I lost her father through a turn of bad luck, but by good fortune we had made love the night before, and ’twas then I must have conceived her. So she shall be Fortune Lindley, I think. Since I know that cousin Cullen will want to baptize her himself, even though I shall raise her in England’s church, I will add Mary to her name, which
should please him. Lady Fortune Mary Lindley. What think you Grandmama? Aunt Eibhlin?”
“ ’Tis a good name,” Skye said, and turning away, wiped her eyes. “I am becoming a sentimental old woman,” she grumbled, “but seeing a child born never fails to fill me with amazement and awe.”
“I have brought more children into this world than I can even remember, and I, too, feel the same way, sister,” Eibhlin admitted.
Jasmine gazed down at her daughter. She had to agree with her grandmother. There seemed to be nothing of Rowan in the baby, but then Fortune was so newborn that it was difficult to tell. The child had stopped howling now and was sleepily observing its mother. Jasmine smiled at her. “Welcome, Lady Fortune Mary Lindley,” she said softly. “I’m sorry you won’t know your papa, for he was a wonderful man, but I shall love you with all my heart, as will the rest of your family.”
“Give her to me,” Skye said, reaching out for the baby. “Rohana and Toramalli are desperate to see this child, as is the rest of the household. You’ve been in labor all of yesterday and the whole night past with Fortune, but ’tis morning now. I can hear already India outside the door to these rooms. She will want to see her new sister.”
Rohana and Toramalli, who although they had been in their mistress’s bedchamber during the birth, had had little to do with it, crowded in to see Fortune.
“She has the Mughal’s mole, as you do,” Toramalli remarked to Jasmine.
“And your blue eyes, my lady,” Rohana said. “Your lady grandmother is correct. She looks like you, but for her tawny hair, which I think is a small inheritance from her father.”
“Her hair is more red than tawny,” Toramalli remarked.
“Her grandmother, Velvet, has auburn hair,” Skye said. “Aye, she’s more de Marisco, I think, than anything else.” She gathered the infant up and hurried from the room to display it to its great-grandfather, its siblings, and Adali, all of whom were waiting eagerly for news of the newest member of the family.
“I think Jasmine must have looked like this as an infant,” Adam said, cradling the baby in his arms. He gently touched the tiny beauty mark Fortune carried between her nostril and her upper lip.
“See! See!” Lady India Lindley demanded, and her nurse-maid
lifted the little girl up to inspect her new sister. “Baby,” India said, sounding a bit disappointed. “Dia wanted a pony, Anpa.”
“And so you shall have one when we return home to England, Mistress India,” Adam promised. “What color pony do you want?”
“Black!” India said without hesitation,
“A fine, fat black pony, my pet!” he promised her, and then turned to his wife. “Fortune seems a healthy lass. Can we travel within the month, Skye? Ireland is a fair land, but I long for Queen’s Malvern.”
“Jasmine must gather her strength before we can travel, Adam,” Skye told her husband. “I think six weeks, if she and Fortune remain healthy, and then we may begin the journey back to England.”
Eibhlin visited with her sister for a few days following Fortune’s birth, and then she prepared to return to St. Bride’s.
“Be careful,” her younger sister cautioned her just before her departure. “The English have an iron grip on Ireland now, and ’tis not likely they will let go. I thank God St. Bride’s is off the beaten path, but what happened in England to the monasteries and the convents all those years ago could just as easily happen in Ireland. Religious houses have been burned before. King James is a nice enough fellow, and given the choice, he would allow full freedom of religion. Those around him, though, for whatever their reasons—greed, fanaticism, or ignorance—prefer the chaos that religious dissent brings. Be watchful, and I will send you whatever news I can.”
“I will be dead long before there is any change, and I praise God for an easy deliverance,” Eibhlin said. “There is a canker growing in my breast, Skye. I will live a year or two at the most.”
“
Eibhlin!
” Skye was horrified by her sister’s blunt words.
Eibhlin, however, smiled serenely. “You and I, of all our sisters, have lived our lives as we chose to live them, Skye. We let no man tell us what we might do or not do. I am one of only three women physicians in Ireland today. My life has been filled full aiding the ill, bringing new souls into this world, easing the burden for the dying, seeing my skills heal the sick. Life has been a joy for me, and I praise God with every bit of my being that he allowed me such total happiness and complete fulfillment. Now I am dying. Have I the right to complain over it? I am seventy-four years old, sister. It is a
venerable age. Why, neither our sisters Moire, Peigi, or Bride lived to such an age!”
Eibhlin patted her sister’s hand comfortingly. “Do not grieve hard for me, Skye. When God wills my time at an end, I go gladly, serving Him with my obedience, as I have ever tried to serve Him. Mourn me a little in your heart, Skye, for I know you will do it even if I forbid you, but do not mourn me too long, little sister. There is nothing to weep over. I have had it all my way, and how many of us can say that? Not even you, Skye O’Malley. Not even you!”
Watching her sister ride off down the road upon her small brown mare, Skye knew that she would never again see Eibhlin O’Malley in this life.
“Where the hell have all the years gone?” Skye muttered irritably to herself. “How can Eibhlin be dying? How can I be facing my seventieth birthday? And God’s nightshirt! Adam will be eighty next month! I am beginning to have an aversion to mirrors, as did old Bess Tudor. Admittedly I look better for my age than I should, but already I am beginning to feel the hot breath of old age in my aches and pains. Yet inside my head I am yet young, and filled with the juices of life and living! I am not, damnit, ready to be old!” She grimaced. “I will
never
be old,” she decided firmly. Looking back to the road where Eibhlin and her horse were even now disappearing out of sight, Skye whispered softly, “Godspeed, Eibhlin O’Malley, until we meet again.” Then she stamped back into the castle, her step firm, her skirts swinging about her.
Fortune Lindley was baptized in the village church of Maguire’s Ford by Cullen Butler. The baby’s godparents were a particularly clever choice on the part of her mother, Skye thought. Bride Duffy, in her absolute best, and only, gown, was Fortune’s godmother. Rory Maguire was her godfather. They stood proudly by the ancient stone baptismal font as the child was welcomed into the Christian community. A shaft of sunlight came through the narrow little stained-glass windows that were the church’s pride and touched the infant’s head.
Skye looked hard. Fortune’s hair, which was generous for a girl, was a rich red-gold. Velvet had never had hair like
that
, Skye thought. Velvet had been dark-haired, in fact, when she had been born. It was only when she was about six months of age that her black hair had fallen out and regrown a rich auburn. Fortune Lindley’s hair was not auburn, nor anything like
it. I must be getting old, Skye thought. Why did I not notice before that my great-granddaughter’s hair is red-gold? Why, ’tis the same color as Rory Maguire’s.