All the Sweet Tomorrows Read Online Free PDF

me. She sucked and bit my poor breasts until they were sore, and she put her long fingers inside of me, pushing them back and forth just like
he
used to put his big weapon within me when I was forced to be his wife. God! How I hated it when he climbed atop me! I couldn’t let him do that to me again!
Not again!
” She shuddered her revulsion.
    Darragh was trembling now, and Eibhlin, angry as she was, hid her anger for fear of frightening the unfortunate creature any further. “How could you believe her, Sister Mary Penitent?” she asked. “Lord Burke has a beautiful wife, and two fine children. Why would he want other women? In the time in which you lived at Burke Castle did he ever mistreat the servant women or the peasants? He has never been a man to abuse women. What made you believe the woman who called herself Sister Mary Claire?”
    “Lord Burke’s wife is dead,” Darragh said. “Sister Mary Claire told me that Skye O’Malley is dead in childbirth.”
    “My sister is very much alive,” Eibhlin replied.
    Darragh shook her head in the negative. “No,” she said firmly. “Skye O’Malley is dead, and Lord Burke was a wicked and lustful man. I could not let him force me back into carnal bondage. I could not!”
    Darragh O’Neil was quickly sliding away again into her mindless and mad world. “Why did you throw his body into the sea?” Eibhlin asked quickly. “What has happened to Sister Mary Claire? Please tell me.”
    For a brief moment Darragh’s reason returned, pricked by the urgency in Eibhlin’s voice. “We lay his body on the beach for the incoming tide. There was so much blood. So much blood. The sea was lapping at his feet the last time I turned to look at him. He’ll not come back to get me now, that wicked lustful man!”
    “Sister Mary Claire?” persisted Eibhlin.
    “Is she not still here?” was the reply. “We returned from the beach together. She was my friend.” Darragh’s eyes grew vacant again, and she arose from the bed, knelt before the crucifix upon the wall, her rosary clutched tightly in her hands. “I must pray that the Devil will not be too harsh on Lord Burke,” she said in a suddenly prim voice. “It is my duty to pray for him despite his many sins.”
    Eibhlin could see that she had lost the unfortunate woman’s attention. She knew now what she needed to know. The half-madDarragh O’Neil had been used by the vengeful Claire O’Flaherty to murder Niall Burke. It was a pity that Niall hadn’t killed the woman himself the last time they had locked horns in London. He had had the Queen’s blessing to dispose of her, but instead he had simply driven her from the city and, he had supposed, from his life. It had never occurred to Niall, for he was simply not that kind of man, that Claire would seek to harm him further.
    Claire O’Flaherty!
Eibhlin arose from the pallet bed where she had been sitting with Darragh O’Neil, and walked from the tiny cell.
Claire O’Flaherty!
Skye’s sister-in-law from her first marriage, whose incestuous relationship with her brother, Dom, had driven Skye to leave her husband.
Claire O’Flaherty!
She was the most evil, the most wicked, the most venal woman Eibhlin had ever known. If the Devil had truly fathered a daughter, then Claire O’Flaherty was that daughter.
    “M’lady!” Daisy shook Skye’s shoulder firmly. “M’lady, you will have to awaken.”
    Slowly Skye opened her marvelous blue-green eyes and, turning over onto her back, gazed up at her servant. “How long have I slept?”
    “Almost a full two days, m’lady, and Captain Kelly says we’ll be at Lundy shortly before sunset. I thought you might want to freshen yourself.”
    Looking down at her travel-stained garments, Skye grimaced. The edges of her doubled-legged skirt and her sturdy woollen hose were filthy. How could her hose be so dirty when she wore boots over them? She shook her head. The boots, she noted, stood cleaned by her bed. She swung her legs over