Lord of the Isle (22 page)

Morgana took a deep breath. “Hugh, there’s things about me you don’t know.”

“What? That you can fight as well as a man? That you are the softest woman that ever scuttled a ship or slit a throat? That you are terrified of drowning, and fear the wind will rip you down from the heights? Which truth don’t I know about you, Morgana of Kildare?”

“I don’t have a choice about the life I must live, Hugh O’Neill.”

“You do,” he solemnly said. “You could choose to live with me.”

“No, that is not one of my options, Tyrone.” She called him by his title purposely, to remind him of who and what he was. Laying her hand upon his cheek, Morgana drew one finger across his mouth. “I can’t stay. Neither, my lord, can you.”

“So it is goodbye when we go down to the ship.” It wasn’t a question, so Morgana didn’t attempt to answer it. Instead, she lifted her mouth to his and kissed him, giving what she could give him for this moment.

Knowing exactly what her kiss meant, Hugh lifted his mouth from hers. After a minute of solemn study, he smoothed a damp, fiery curl from her cheek. “I won’t let you go without a fight, Morgana.”

“And I wouldn’t stay without the biggest fight you’d ever think to join in, my lord.”

“Are you challenging me? You don’t know how I fight. No holds are barred. No tactic is too underhanded. Have you given any thought to the fact that you may at this very moment be carrying my child?”

“That argument doesn’t bear talking about, Hugh. I’m barren.”

His brow lowered. “You don’t know that.”

“I was married for three years, Hugh. It’s true. Don’t try to tell me Greg may have been the barren one. He fathered three bastard sons. The fault lies in me.”

“No.” Hugh refused to accept that, and shook his head vehemently in denial of it. “Pray tell me, how old were you
when Fitzgerald gave you over to a privateer twenty years your senior?”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“Just answer my question.” he demanded impatiently.

Morgana sighed, reluctant to give him the answer he wanted to hear. “Four-and-ten.”

Hugh closed his eyes briefly, seeing red beneath the shut lids. Would that the earl of Kildare stood before him. Hugh’s hands would be around the man’s throat. How could he have sacrificed so young a daughter, simply to further his ends? He did not ask his questions aloud, because he knew that Morgana would refuse to put any blame on her father’s head. She did not see herself as the rebellious old earl’s pawn, and would deny it to Hugh most vehemently.

Around them, the gale battering Dunluce’s stout walls seemed insignificant in comparison to the temper Hugh felt brooding inside him. The injustices done to Morgana blinded him to all else. As he gazed down upon Morgana’s set expression, his own jaw set, stubborn and intractable.

“Then you weren’t married three years, lady. It was a little over two. You forget, I have those convent rolls to study and consider. I never forget a date. Two years is no test, when a man is gone away to sea more than he is to home and hearth.”

“Oh?” Morgana answered. “Have you thought that perhaps I did not sit at home sewing when my husband went to sea, sir? Haps I went with him on his many voyages.”

“Why do you argue with me, when you know as well as I that the truth is something else? You did not go to sea with Greg O’Malley. You lived at his estate in the Pale, and when and if he visited you, it was not for the purpose of getting you with child. I know, Morgana. I know, because I have made love to you and your body tells me a different story than this one you make up to convince yourself. Your marriage was for political reasons alone, the same as mine. The security of O’Malley’s name was all you got out of the union.
I want you to stay in Ireland with me, Morgana, as my wife.”

“What you suggest is impossible, Hugh. You know it can never be. Desist, I beg you.”

“I’m a cautious man, Morgana. I don’t scatter bastards wherever I go. I don’t leave their mothers scratching for sustenance wherever they can find it. Stay with me.”

“Hugh, you know I can’t. It is only a matter of time before some false charge laid against me in Dublin reaches London and a writ is issued for my arrest.”

“Then stop the madness. Do not continue it,” he reasoned. “Don’t go back to sea with Grace O’Malley. For God’s sake, Morgana, what can be in that for you?”

“How can I not? Do you understand what it is like to be exiled, an outcast, banished? I am here in Ireland for one purpose only. To bring Sean out.”

“What if I tell you the true reason you came to Ireland was to meet me?”

“You live in a fool’s paradise. Hugh, I was born a Fitzgerald. I will always be a Fitzgerald.”

He brought two fingers to her brow and tapped her temple. “Here, inside here, you will be a Fitzgerald, until the day your submit your will to mine. Then, my love, you become an O’Neill, my wife, the O’Neill’s lady. Whatever you were before will be lost to history and the past. You have a future, Morgana. I can give that to you.”

For a long, long moment, Morgana stared at him in dumbfounded silence. He was talking about marriage…as if her agreement were the sole ingredient necessary. Morgana found her thoughts flying instantly to embrace such a fantasy. To be Hugh of the O’Neills’ wife and woman, mother of his sons… Then she shook her head, denying the possibility.

“You can’t think of such a thing,” she told him.

“I cannot think of anything less.” Hugh drew her against him and kissed her deeply. “We belong to one another, Morgana. Why else have the Fates brought us together?”

She laid her fingers on his lips when he raised his head from hers. She would not allow the noblest man she’d ever known to become an outlaw. “No, Hugh. I will not let you sacrifice your future. I’m not worthy of you.”

“Morgana.” His tone changed, becoming stern and autocratic. The air about them became heavier, laden with thunder rumbling across the water and reverberating against the cliff. “Do not play games with my words. I have planted my seed inside you. I have marked you for all time as my woman. I won’t let you go.”

“Then we are truly at an impasse, Lord Hugh. Like it or not, when Captain O’Malley embarks from Mac Donnell’s dock, I will be on her ship.
The Avenger
is the only place on this earth where I truly belong.”

“This is utter madness! Why I am standing here in the rain, discussing something so ridiculous with a woman?” Hugh’s exasperation got the better of him. “Is it that you think that I am a weak man? That I don’t know my own mind, or cannot act to prevent a mere woman from defying me?”

“Tyrone, don’t ask more than I am at liberty to give.”

“I can. I will. I do,” he asserted with grim determination. “I ask no less from myself—the best each of us has to give. I’ll find a way, Morgana. Resolve yourself to that. I’m intractable, driven, and harder than any man you’ll ever know. I won’t be thwarted. So fight with me all you like. Say no at every turn. But know you this, I will have my way in the end. If not today, then tomorrow.”

The storm passed quickly. So did Hugh’s somber mood. Still there was no sign of Loghran or Shamus Fitz riding across the barren hills toward Dunluce. The moment the sun escaped its prison of heavy clouds, Hugh insisted they go out and explore the beach down below Chimney Tops to see what the storm had washed ashore.

That activity promised to fill the last hours of daylight, when the wait for Grace O’Malley’s
Avenger
would become
agonizingly tiresome. Morgana needed the distraction of a walk, needed to expend her energies on something positive. So, too, did her younger brothers. And if it did nothing else, the walk might distract Hugh O’Neill from his determined effort to convince her to stay in Ireland with him.

The sea remained choppy and rough, even as the tide ebbed. A hard wind came out of the north and roared through Dunluce’s sea gate in the hours preceding sunset.

A fair collection of merchantmen had taken safe harbor from the storm at Sorely’s sheltered dock. Morgana seemed to be the only one surprised to find ten seaworthy ships moored in the lee between the rocks. Every ship belonged to the Mac Donnell. The old man of Dunluce proudly invited his guests to take a closer look at his well-built caravels. Morgana declined that invitation. She wouldn’t board any ship one minute sooner than she absolutely had to.

Sean and Maurice weren’t so easily put off. They thought the Mac Donnell’s suggestion a grand idea, and said so. Nothing could be done to satisfy the two of them except to give them permission to go with Sorely when he boarded his longboat to go out and inspect each ship for storm damage.

Little Cara Mulvaine tried to get on the long boat, but she was turned away. Sorely told her to “get,” and she scuttled out of sight before the old man wagged his cane at her.

Morgana scowled as the longboat’s crew put their backs to the oars. The more she was around the Mac Donnell, the less she liked him. She didn’t care for the idea of her brothers being on board a ship of any sort when she wasn’t there to watch over them and protect them. Accidents happened on ships—too frequently, to her mind.

Consequently, Morgana’s mood took a dark turn. This time, she couldn’t attribute it only to her proximity to water. She stood on the rocky shore, glaring at the longboat, watching the oars stroke through rough water. Hugh took
hold of her arm. “Come, Morgana, let’s take that walk down to Chimney Tops.”

“I’d best remain here till the boys return.”

“And worry yourself into a high dudgeon? No,” Hugh insisted, with a firmness that brooked no argument. “We’re walking, just you and I.”

So Hugh thought, until they reached a lower level on the winding steps carved out of the cliff. Cara Mulvaine popped out from behind a tumble of fallen rocks.

“I kin show ye the short way to Chimney Tops.” Cara cast a brilliant, almost adoring smile at Hugh.

“I think I know the way, girl,” Hugh answered. The curious stone was visible, a mile or so down the curving beach.

“My lord, don’t be rude.” Morgana immediately latched on to the child’s offer. She didn’t want to be alone with Hugh now. She was tired of defending her decision. He wanted to wear down her resolve, and continue to raise arguments for which she had no answers. “Why, that’s just where we were going, Hugh and I. Lead the way and we’ll follow you, Cara.”

The child skipped ahead, taking a quicker path down to the black sand beach. Hugh grumbled under his breath. Cara’s path narrowed so much he had to fall behind Morgana and let her squeeze through the rocks on her own.

The shorter path proved to be worth it when they stood on the beach, at eye level with the sinking sun. It blazed like a red fireball, reflected a thousand times off the glistening, choppy water. The black basalt cliffs all along the shore from Dunluce to Ballintoy glowed crimson.

“Isn’t this magnificent?” Morgana said with candid admiration. The surf roared. The wind ruffled her ears. She could taste salt on her lips and feel the steady drum of the sea in her chest.

“Splendid,” Hugh said tersely. A string of redheaded boys from Colraine and four O’Neill kerns had claimed the beach before them.

The three boys convinced Cara Mulvaine to show them the best places to catch crabs and squid. Hugh and Morgana walked hand in hand on the black sand shelf exposed by the receding tide. The children scattered ahead of them, whooping and shouting over each crab they scared up out of hiding.

On the farthermost outcropping of sand below Chimney Tops, Morgana found a beautiful conch shell as large as both of Hugh’s hands.

“Look, Cara,” she called to the little girl, trying to entice her into conversation. “Isn’t this the most beautiful shell you’ve ever seen?”

Cara Mulvaine came close enough to look at the large seashell as Morgana rinsed the sand from inside it in the water pools about the basalt tower of rock. Cara stuck out a dirty finger to touch one of the spines. She said, “It’s dead.”

“Well, yes, the animal that made the shell is gone now, I hope.” Morgana tilted the shell, exposing its glossy pink interior. “I mean, I wouldn’t want something awful to pop out when I put it to my ear to listen to sea.”

“It’s no good ta anyone dead. I ken where the best mussels are. They’re good eating. Jus’ crack the shells and swallow ’em.”

“Well, I think the shell is pretty. My mother collects pretty things, like seashells and—”

“My mother’s dead,” Cara said, interrupting her.

“Oh, I know, dear,” Morgana said gently. “Your aunt Inghinn told me that. I’m very sorry you lost your mother.”

Cara lifted her hand to her face, touching one finger to her nose. Her eyes glazed over. She turned a full circle and wound up facing west, staring hard at the castle at the top of the cliff. “There’s a fire coming.”

“What did you say?” Morgana asked as she got up from her knees.

Cara pointed at Dunluce. “Fire storm,” she prophesied. Her plain English bore no hint of her Celtic roots. “This night, Dunluce will burn.”

“What?” Morgana said, disturbed by the child’s words and the trancelike quality of her stance. Morgana grasped Cara’s shoulder, to give the girl a little shake. Cara jerked out of the trance like a dreamer being woken.

That startled Morgana more than girl’s odd behavior did. A forbidding voice echoed inside Morgana’s head, repeatedly whispering,
Wake not the dreamer.
Shaken, Morgana felt a shiver whip down her spine as she realized dusk was upon them. The sun was completely gone from sight.

Cara blinked twice, then regarded Morgana with a normal, childish expression indicative of nothing. “Say that again, Cara. What do you mean?”

“Dunno.” Morgana’s request for clarification went unanswered.

Cara Mulvaine spied a ship on the water west of Sorely’s cove. She ran that way, climbing over rocks and jumping into shallow pools of seawater, oblivious to her clothes.

She climbed onto the last stone, pointed at the ship and yelled in Irish.

One of the Colraine boys had to translate Cara’s words for Morgana. “She says a whole fleet of fire ships are coming and the
Revenge
is leading them to Dunluce, mum.” He scratched at his head, confused, then slapped his cap back in place over red curls and a sunburned nose. “Cara’s got the sight, you know. Sure hope she’s not right. Drake captains the
Revenge.
”