Daisy couldn't resist a mischievous grin. "I can't say I mind, m'lady. It was getting a bit quiet for me around here."
"God ha' mercy!" Eibhlin cried. "She's surely become one of us!"
"And not a bad thing either," Skye replied as Daisy hurried off. "A tiring woman who can keep up with me on a horse is a valuable asset, sister." Then she sobered. "Will you see to the servants for me, Eibhlin? I will need time to gather my wits before I speak to Connor."
“I’ll see to it," was the quick reply, and then Skye found herself alone once more.
She rose and walked over to the windows to look down across the darkened countryside. A waning moon cast its pale, weak light across the soft, shadowed hills. Somehow, she thought, it should have been a wild and stormy night that Rory Burke took his leave of this earth, not this calm and windless time. For all of Ireland's rich mystical heritage, there hadn't been a sign or sound of the ghostly death coach come to take Rory Burke's soul away. Neither had there been the faintest wail of a banshee. She pushed the casement open and heard the frantic scream of a rabbit as a hunting owl found his prey; and then all was silent again. Life went on, she noted. No matter the changes, life went on. Skye O'Malley sighed deeply. There was no more time for mourning.
PART 1
Chapter 1
It was the strong sense of family that the O'Malleys possessed that brought Seamus CMalley to his niece before her hurried departure for England. In his fine stone bishop's house a few miles down the road from Burke Castle, he had awakened suddenly in the middle of the night and known that she needed him. The old man had gotten up from his warm bed, dressed himself, and ridden off up the hill to aid her.