This Heart of Mine Read Online Free PDF Page B

William Cecil and the queen are a clever pair. But then Skye probably knew their motives but cared not as long as she could feel a deck beneath her feet again and smell the salt breeze in her nostrils. Besides, my sister always loved a good adventure, O’Malley that she is.”
    “Her absence, however,” noted Lady Bliss, “leaves us with the problem of her wayward daughter. What are we to do, Conn?”
    “Go after Velvet, my love, while I think this thing out,” Conn said, pouring himself a healthy dollop of good Archambault Burgundy, then lowering himself into a large comfortable chair by the fire so that he might consider this thorny new development. He didn’t even hear Aiden close the door behind her as she hurried off to find Velvet.
    Lord Bliss ran a big hand through his hair and sighed. When his sister, Skye, and her husband, Adam de Marisco, had asked him to keep an eye on their only beloved child more than two years ago, it had seemed a simple enough thing. He knew that although Velvet was spoilt and headstrong she would be safe here on her parents’ estate. She had, in fact, spent most of her life at Queen’s Malvern , except for several long summers in France at her father’s chateau, Belle Fleurs. It hadn’t even been necessary for Conn to bring Velvet into his own home, the lands of which bordered those of Queen’s Malvern. The child had stayed on in her own house with Dame Cecily, Robbie Small’s sister, her nursemaid, and all the servantswho had known her since babyhood. Everything had run smoothly until that blasted letter had arrived!
    Conn swallowed the remaining wine in his goblet, then absently twirled the bejeweled gilt cup in his hands as he puzzled out what to do next. He was a big, bluff man with midnight black hair and gray-green eyes. Born an O’Malley of Innisfana, he had come to England with his sister almost fifteen years ago. As the youngest O’Malley of them all, he had been wise enough to realize that there was nothing for him in Ireland. So with no more than his extraordinary good looks, his charm, and a quick wit to recommend him, he had arrived at Elizabeth Tudor’s court. These small assets had been enough, however, to earn him the queen’s favor, for Bess Tudor appreciated a handsome man with a silvery tongue. Conn had been appointed to the queen’s own personal guard, the Gentlemen Pensioners , and from there he had begun his climb up the social ladder. The little share of gold he received from his elder brothers’ privateering ventures was invested in his clever sister Skye’s trading company. Soon he was a wealthy man.
    Money and his position in the Gentlemen Pensioners overcame the drawback of his Irish heritage in the minds of the members of court. Conn held the queen’s favor so strongly that even when he addressed her as “Bess” he was never reprimanded. He was charming and roguish without being unscrupulous. He was considered a very eligible fellow and actually had his pick of any number of lovely young ladies and restive matrons. But Conn, rather like a large bumblebee, spent a great deal of his time flitting from flower to flower rather than settling down.
    Overconfidence, however, has brought many a man down, and suddenly Conn O’Malley found himself in the center of a rather naughty scandal involving a noble lady, her twin daughters, and an ambassador’s wife. With the injured gentlemen involved both demanding the queen’s justice, Elizabeth Tudor had no choice but to send “the handsomest man at court,” as Conn was known, from her charmed circle. Before she did so, however, she tempered her judgment with a final kindness. She married Conn to a royal ward, Mistress Aiden St. Michael.
    Aiden was at court as a maid of honor, having been placed in the queen’s custody at her father’s death. When Elizabeth Tudor wanted a bride for her favorite, she had remembered that Aiden’s lands bordered those of Queen’s Malvern , theestate to which she had