A Love for All Time

Table of Contents

New American Library
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Published by New American Library, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.

First Signet Trade Paperback Printing, July 1986
First Signet Mass Market Printing, January 1987
First New American Library Trade Paperback Printing, September 2001

Copyright © Bertrice Small, 1986

All rights reserved

REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:

Small, Bertrice.
A love for all time / Bertrice Small.
p. cm.

ISBN : 978-1-101-54962-9

I. Title.
PS3569.M28 L677 2001
813’.54—dc21
2001030887

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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A Love for All Time
is dedicated to my past, to the future,
and to my here and now

Aidan St. Michael
—The heiress of
Pearroc Royal

Payton St. Michael
—Her father, the third Lord Bliss

Conn O’Malley
, later
Conn St. Michael, Lord Bliss
—The youngest brother of Skye O’Malley, and a favorite of the queen

Elizabeth Tudor
—Queen of England, 1558 to 1603

William Cecil, Lord Burghley
—The queen’s Secretary of State, and her greatest confidant

Elizabeth Clinton
—Aidan’s cousin, the Countess of Lincoln

Edward Clinton
—Her husband, the queen’s Lord Admiral

Robert Southwood
—The Earl of Lynmouth, a son of Lady de Marisco, the queen’s favorite page

Robert Dudley
—The Earl of Leicester, the queen’s favorite

Lettice Knollys
—The queen’s cousin

Skye O’Malley de Marisco
—Conn’s famous elder sister

Adam de Marisco
—Her husband

Sir Robert Small
—Their business partner in a trading house

Dame Cecily
—His elder sister

Mag Feeney and Cluny
—The servants of Aidan and Conn

Wenda and Nan
—Nurse maids

Lady Glytha Holden
—A lady of the court

Grace and Faith
—Her twin daughters

Master Norton
—The queen’s chief dungeon master

Peter
—His assistant

Miguel de Guaras
—A Spanish agent

Brian, Shane & Shamus O’Malley
—Conn’s elder brothers, buccaneer captains

Rogan FitzGerald
—Aidan’s grandfather

Cavan FitzGerald
—His bastard nephew

Eamon FitzGerald
—His son and heir

Henry Sturminster
—Lord Glin of Glinshannon

Murad III
—The Turkish sultan

Nur-U-Banu
—His mother, the sultan valideh

Safiye Kadin
—His first wife, the mother of his heir

Ilban Bey
—The agha kislar

Osman Bey
—A famed Algerian astrologer

The Dey of Algiers
—The sultan’s governor in Algiers

William Harborne
—First English ambassador to the Sublime Porte

Prince Javid Khan
—The Crimean ambassador to the Sublime Porte

Esther Kira
—The head of the House of Kira, a family of bankers and merchants

Jinji
—Aidan’s eunuch

Marta
—Aidan’s waiting woman

Iris & Fern
—Her daughters

Sadira
—English favorite of the dey

Zora
—An ikbal of the sultan

Rosamund & Pipere
—Captive English sisters

Tulip
—Aidan’s cat

L
ord Bliss was dying. It had been a slow though painless process, but now as the summer was waning in a burst of apple-scented air and Michaelmas daisies he knew he had not much time left. If he had any regrets at all it was that he was leaving behind but one descendant, his daughter, Aidan. Even now she sat by his bedside, her fingers busy with her needle, his dear and dutiful daughter, a silent reproach to the selfishness of his deep love for her, for Aidan should have been married long ago. He, however, had been unable to part with her, the child he loved above all people.

He had waited so long for her birth. She had been everything that he could have hoped for in a child, and more. It was easy to forgive Aidan her female gender for her mother would give him other children, strong sons to match the healthy daughter. When she did not, it didn’t matter, for he had already given that part of his heart that wasn’t his wife’s to his daughter. Now she would be alone, and what would become of her? he fretted to himself.

Would the queen to whom he was entrusting the wardship of his precious child really see to Aidan’s happiness? When he had been able to clearly face his fate he had written to the sovereign placing Aidan’s keeping in her charge, asking that Elizabeth Tudor see his daughter safely married to a good man of at least equal rank. He had only recently received a reply that impersonally agreed to his dying requests. Nonetheless, he had been enormously relieved.

He was leaving his daughter an heiress of great wealth both in lands and in monies. That wealth, however, had not been able to overcome the stigma of his less-than-noble name. Most good matches were made in the cradle, and he found to his regret that great names married great names. Then there was his daughter herself. Aidan was no great beauty. Oh, she was pretty enough when she worked at it, but most of the time her hair flew about in a hoydenish manner, and more often than not her face was dirty. When he remonstrated with her about it she always laughed, and replied, “I cannot oversee these vast tracts of lands that you and my grandfather persisted in amassing without riding about them, and riding is a dusty business, father.”

He protested more often than not. “Leave it to the bailiff, my child. It is his duty to see to such things, and his family was on these lands before we were.”

“The bailiff,” replied Lord Bliss’ daughter wisely, “responds best to a light rein, father, but nonetheless he must feel that rein. Besides, it does our people good to see me riding about. I know them all. Their names, their children, their problems, their aches and pains.” She smiled at him. “They can only be loyal to the master they see, father.”