Their older son, Robin, had been put in the custody of the Queen's favorite, Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester. Dudley, however, had used his office to rape Skye, and when she had complained to the Queen, Elizabeth had bluntly told her that if she made Dudley happy, then that was that. Outraged, Skye had decided to wage her own private war on Elizabeth Tudor, to pirate the ships and the cargoes that England needed so badly to enrich its coffers. She had enlisted, for a share of the profits, the pirate lord of Lundy Island. Adam de Marisco had fallen in love with her, but believing that she could never fall in love with him, he had setded for being her friend. She had, for a brief time, been his mistress.

When, after her marriage to Niall Burke, she had been arrested by Elizabeth Tudor for piracy, it was Adam de Marisco who had come up with the plan to free her from the Tower. She knew, despite his denials, that he still loved her. Perhaps now it was unfair of her to seek him out. Although she frequendy wrote to him, it had. been well over a year since they had met, and so much had happened during their separation; but he would understand why she came. She did need him so much! She needed to hear his deep, booming voice calling her "little girl"; to feel his lean hardness against her. If only she might love him the way he had always loved her-but no. It was better that she didn't. She had been widowed four times. She was bad luck to the men who wed her. "I will never marry again," she said drowsily to herself.

She had not realized how tired she actually was. Padraic's birth followed by Niall's murder; the MacWilliam's death; her breakneck race across Ireland to the sea. It had all taken its toll. She fell into a deep sleep; her last thoughts were of Eibhlin and whether she had breached the walls of St. Mary's.

***

Eibhlin had, and now stood quietly before the Reverend Mother Aidan, born Aigneis O'Brien. The Reverend Mother was a short, plump woman with a plain, expressionless face. "It is very good of you to see me, Reverend Mother," she said smoothly. She could see that she was not very welcome at St. Mary's.