Lord of the Isle (27 page)

The most splendid of all was the glistening patch of red curls crowning her womanhood. He lowered his head to kiss them and taste her, and was driven to seek out the delicate
nubbin of her sex. It firmed and played hide-and-seek with his tongue, driving Morgana wild and wanton.

She cried out, trying to stop him from sending her over the edge, to the next plateau of pleasure, without him. When her whole body began to throb and pulse with the rising undulations of deepest need, he lifted his head, releasing the hardened bud from his tongue and teeth.

He kissed his pathway up her body, tonguing the depression of her navel, laving each of her swollen breasts. Her sweat was pungent musk to his senses, drowning him in the throbbing desire to be seated deeply inside her.

Her mouth bloomed under his, lips parted, sweet and open. Her knees gripped his hips and her ankles crossed behind his back, drawing him down to her. “Do you love me, Morgana of Kildare?”

“Yes, Hugh of Tyrone. With all my heart and soul, I love you.”

“Prove it,” Hugh commanded. Morgana threaded her fingers into the dark waves behind his head and pulled his mouth down to hers. Her tongue played the mating game with his.

She gasped with shocking delight when his shaft intruded into her, then shivered as he sought her depths, thrusting deep, till he was seated to the hilt.

“My lord—” she blinked both eyes wide as though his invasion had come a complete surprise “—I fail to see where there is anything left for me to prove. You have conquered me completely. I surrender.”

Hugh kissed her brow, and the soft shell of her ear. The kissing and the touching were for her pleasure. What came next was for him. Her surrender wasn’t the issue. It was only a signal on the journey to complete union, and the sublime emotion of peace that was sure to come after..

“M
organa! Morgana!” Sean stuck his head inside another door and shouted his sister’s name again. When no answer came from within the empty rooms of Dunluce, he scurried to the next door, opened it and repeated her name.

He was out of breath and exhausted when he came back to the gallery stairs overlooking the great hall. He sank onto a riser, panting, wiping the freely running sweat from his brow. “I can’t find her,” he confessed. “She’s not anywhere on this floor. If you’ll wait here, I’ll run and fetch some of the servants to help us look.”

“No, son, we won’t do that,” James Fitzgerald said. “They’re all working. Tsk, so many dead to be buried. We’ll find Morgana, you and I. Let’s go up to the third floor.”

Sean wiped his sleeve across his face and stood up. He thought that wasn’t such a good idea, that they look together, he and his father. God only knew where Morgana was or what she was up to. Sean had given up trying to figure his sister out.

He trudged up Dunluce’s main stairwell to the third floor of the confusing castle. One wing took a dogleg to the left of the stairs. Another went straight ahead through a hallway of chambers, each private and closed off from the other.

“Which way first, sir?” Sean jerked at his doublet and tried to pull down the cuff of his left sleeve at the same time.

The earl of Kildare observed his heir and thought the boy looked like a ruffian. His feet were bare and dirty as a kern’s. His hair hadn’t been cut in months. Otherwise, the boy appeared as healthy as a stoat, sturdy of limb and apple-cheeked.

In contrast, the earl’s ermine-lined cape, satin doublet and immaculate hose felt completely out of place in this environment, and they were. Dunluce was nothing more than a decrepit, crumbling fortress on the verge of sinking into the sea where it belonged.

James Fitzgerald looked to the straightaway hall. “This way. You take the doors on the left. I’ll look in those on my right.”

“Yes, sir.” Sean stiffly nodded his assent. He squared his shoulders and started walking forward. The first room was as empty as all the ones on the lower floors. That was to be expected.

Everyone, simply everyone at Dunluce, except for the earl and Sean, was outside attending the mass for the dead.

Grace O’Malley’s black-sailed ship had arrived in the harbor after the very last body was recovered. Twenty sailors wrapped in shrouds had been laid on the ground beside the chapel, to be buried at the completion of the mass. Sean had almost fainted dead away when he saw his father and Grace O’Malley walk up from the sea gate and into the chapel yard.

Grace had immediately taken Maurice to the ship. Sean had offered to find Morgana. He hadn’t expected his father to insist on coming with him. The earl had said there wasn’t any time to waste. Drake could come back. O’Malley had no intention of becoming a sitting duck in Sorely’s harbor.

The third door came up empty. Sean turned around to tell his father that news and found him standing in the wide-open door opposite, his ruddy fists on his hips and murder roaring out of his throat.

“Get off my daughter, you rutting Irish pig! Morgana!”

“Uh-oh…” Sean ducked underneath the earl’s arm as he reached for his sword and withdrew it. He ran into the room
and put himself between the bed and the earl. “Father! I beg you. Listen to me. It isn’t what it seems. I hadn’t had time to tell you. Morgana got married.”

Blood lust, rage and fury were hard emotions to get under control. Somehow, as Morgana and Hugh grabbed the sheets off the bed, Sean’s father came to a stop. The blade of the earl of Kildare’s steel sword wagged dangerously close to Sean’s head, but Sean didn’t flinch.

Sean stood his ground, praying his father’s bulging eyes would focus on him, not on the naked people in the bed.

They didn’t. At least not for a while. They dropped to scan the garments strewn across the floor at Sean’s bare feet. A length of Irish plaid, a leather belt, and a bleached muslin night rail.

Sean took another deep breath. The bed ropes creaked. Morgana squeaked. Hugh O’Neill’s knees popped as his bare feet hit the floor. “Father, please. I beg you, let me explain,” the boy said.

“Married, you say, do you, boy?” The full thunder of his father’s voice nearly knocked Sean to his knees. “Explain!” James Fitzgerald shouted. “So what’s the bounder’s name, what church posted the banns, and when did this blessed event take place? This morning, before the funerals?”

“He’s the O’Neill, sir. Hugh, the earl of Tyrone.”

“Thank you, lad, but I can introduce myself.” Hugh stepped forward with a sheet wrapped around his middle. Sean ducked under his father’s blade again and grabbed Hugh’s plaid and belt from the floor and boldly handed both to him. “I take it, sir, that you are James Fitzgerald, the earl of Kildare.”

“I am.”

Hugh snapped the tartan around his waist and fitted it to his hips with his belt. The tail crossed his left shoulder when he strode forward, relieved of the sheet, and extended his hand to the earl. “I am Hugh O’Neill. Your future son-in-law, sir. Sean is stretching the truth to protect his sister.”

Fitzgerald’s droopy eyelids narrowed. The young man extended his hand as though this were a casual meeting on the streets of London. Kildare had heard Hugh O’Neill’s named bandied about in Paris. Rumor had it he was Bess’s latest favorite.

There had been a point in Fitzgerald’s life when he stood in the same high regard and the queen of England looked upon him as more than just a favorite. Today, older and wiser, he understood what Elizabeth’s fleeting regard was actually worth—nothing.

Fickle Elizabeth Tudor, her father’s daughter in all things, was infatuated with the chase. Criminally vicious to those she cast aside in her rush to gain the affections of her newest love. Worst, Elizabeth feared aging, hence she perpetually surrounded herself with young, attentive and virile males. The “Virgin Queen” was the laughingstock of the courts of Europe.

Her policies in Ireland were diabolical. James Fitzgerald saw her as the most evil woman alive. His one goal in life was to wrest Ireland from English control. The rebellion he lead in 1569 had caused his banishment, and the proscription of his race. But the battles were not over. Armageddon for Elizabeth Tudor would commence soon.

To that end, James Fitzgerald stood and evaluated this brazen hulk of O’Neill manhood, ripe from the audacious act of swiving Fitzgerald’s own daughter. Were he any less than the very man every wagging tongue at Henry’s court in Paris claimed was the current paramour of Queen Elizabeth, Fitzgerald would have cut off the man’s balls and thrown both him and his cods out the bloody window. Then he would have horsewhipped his daughter and cast her onto the same rocks where her lover lay and waited for the carrion crows to pick their bones clean.

Instead, Fitzgerald had the presence of mind to see a man he could use to get to Elizabeth. Morgana meant nothing to him.

Calmly Fitzgerald lowered the blade of his sword and re-sheathed it. Tempered steel clicked into its guard as the earl
of Kildare slowly put out his hand. As he grasped the earl of Tyrone’s hand, Fitzgerald said, “I accept your hand in peace.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that,” Hugh replied. He saw the dead space behind Kildare’s blue gaze. “May I suggest we step out and give Morgana an opportunity to dress?”

“An excellent idea. Morgana, bring your packs with you when you come out. Grace is anxious to sail immediately. Sean, go and wash your feet and put on stockings and shoes. You will not insult me further by being dressed like a savage.”

The door shut behind the two men’s backs. An urge to vomit caused Sean to nearly double in half.

“Sean!” Morgana gasped. “Why didn’t you come and tell me he was here?” Morgana sank onto the far edge of the bed. “How could you have brought him up here?”

Sean’s jaw sagged. He stared at Morgana in all her terrible
dishabille
and gulped down the lump in his throat. “There wasn’t time,” he explained. “We were at mass when the ship came. Just he and Grace came up from the
Avenger.
She took Maury to the ship. I had to come with Father. Get dressed, Morgana.”

It took Morgana long moments to recover her dignity, but she did. She rose to her feet, wound in a trailing sheet and said coldly, “Do you leave, my lord Offaly, I will.”

“Aw, Morgana, it wasn’t my fault. I swear. I tried to warn you by shouting your name in every room on the floor below. Father told me to stop shouting and just look for you. He knew what he was looking for, Morgana. I just know he knew. Somehow. Maybe they saw Hugh climb the ivy to your window. Everyone else did.”

Morgana didn’t need more mortification. She forced a breath to compose herself and let her emotions go, casting all of them out with the expiration of her next breath.
Accept it,
she told herself.
This is the morning you saw coming. Accept it.

“You’re right, Sean. None of this is any fault of yours. Go now. Get cleaned up. I’ll be down to the sea gate directly.”

Sean stood for a long time staring back at her, a little lordling who didn’t know which way to turn at this moment in his life. Then he made up his mind abruptly and ran to Morgana, embracing her, kissing her cheek. “I love you, Morgana. No matter what happens, know that I love you with all my heart. I wasn’t trying to compromise you or force the O’Neill’s hand. Forgive me.”

He turned and ran before Morgana gathered her wits and remembered that neither Sean or Maury knew about her agreement with Hugh. They had just come to the conclusion that they could marry, in this very room.

That put her father’s intrusion into her and Hugh’s privacy onto a completely different level. He’d known what he was going to find when he threw open the door. What he might not have known was the political value of the man Morgana was bedding. But Sean had given all that away, and Morgana had clearly seen the light of calculation glinting in her father’s eyes. He thought he’d found another tool, another ally in his war against the crown.

Morgana caught up her clothes and hurried behind the folding screen to complete her ablutions and dress. She prayed she could get to Hugh and explain before her father ruined everything.

High tide churned up the smoke-blackened cliffs around Sorely Mac Donnell’s wharf. It lapped at the lowest door of Dunluce Castle, the sea gate. If it would surge another four feet, the stench of smoke and charcoal might be washed from the rocks. The acrid stink stung Morgana’s nose and throat anew.

She emerged from the dark tunnel into harsh daylight.
The Avenger
was moored directly to the wharf. A wooden gangplank stretched across the chasm between ship and cliff.

Morgana walked to the edge, where the mooring ropes stretched from the ship to iron rings hammered into stone.
The pier and its pylons were gone. She didn’t look down into the water to see the carcasses of the sunken ships. A sheen of oil, garbage and flotsam floated like a crust on the waves.

Her father and Hugh stood on the bow, engaged in conversation. They both saw her at the same time. Hugh began walking toward her. Her father hollered, “Come on aboard, Morgana. Grace, she’s here. Let’s get under way.”

Grace O’Malley ran up the gangway from her galley. A huge smile lighted her face the moment she spied Morgana standing at the end of the gangplank. “You look wonderful! Come on! Don’t tell me you still don’t trust your sea legs.”

“You should know better.” Morgana folded her hands together and stayed where she was, on solid ground.

Grace’s black hair streamed into her face as she nimbly crossed the wobbling board. Not one to stand on cere mony, she threw her arms around Morgana and embraced her in a hearty, soul-felt hug. “Look at you, Lady Mor gana. Do you know, I’ve never seen you with your hair hanging loose down your back…”

“Well—” Morgana kissed her friend and hugged her in return “—there’s a story to that. You might notice there was one hell of a fire here last night.”

“Notice? Dear heavens, Morgana, I fear I started it. I sank two of Drake’s caravels just outside the harbor there. Then we doused the ship’s lights and ran for cover between Skirres Portrush and Band Haven. We saw the holocaust blazing from there. God’s truth, we thought everyone at Dunluce blown to kingdom come.”

“Ten caravels were. My only casualty was half my hair. It was singed so badly, I had to cut it just now, when I was dressing.”

Hugh joined them, and as Morgana spoke, his hand reached out to touch the curly, silken mass of red that the wind played havoc with. “When did you do this?”

“Just now,” Morgana turned to him. “When I realized I had great clumps of it missing. It’s symbolic. I’ve cut all bonds from the past. I hope you understand.”

Hugh tilted his head, and a quizzical frown touched his brow. He thought he understood what she was telling him. He spread a handful of the red curls in the sun, before her eyes. “It’s lovely. I won’t complain.” Then he tipped his head and kissed the curls in his fingers.

“Oh, my,” Grace scolded. “What’s this about, then? A new love, Morgana?”

“Yes. Mhóre than that, Grace. Hugh and I are to be married soon.”

“You are!” Grace squealed and grabbed her again, hugging her tight. “Congratulations! He’s such a fine figure of a man. Why, I was hoping to steal the man for myself. Your father said nothing when he and Sean came aboard. Does he know?”

“He knows.” Morgana and Hugh said in unison.

“Well, this is splendid. Come on, then, come aboard, Morgana. Hugh, you may have to give her a hand. Morgana doesn’t like the water much.”

“I know.” Hugh slipped his arm around Morgana’s waist and stood beside her, ready and willing to assist.

“I’m not coming aboard, Grace,” Morgana said.

“Och, now!” Grace laughed, waving that comment aside with a flip of her hand. “Don’t be absurd. Your father’s waiting.”

“I’m not coming aboard, Grace,” Morgana said, more firmly. “Not today. Not tomorrow. I don’t think I’ll ever set foot on a ship again. Hugh’s going to take me home to Dungannon with him. We’ll be married soon. I’m staying in Ireland with him.”