Lord of the Isle (7 page)

“Such as?” Mrs. Carrick demanded, distrusting anything that came of England’s court out of hand.

“Why…” Hugh paused, thinking for a moment of Dee’s most outlandish trick—sawing people in half, which was pure fakery and illusion, not magic. “I saw him levitate a yeoman guard in full armor in the bailey at the Tower of London.”

“You don’t say?” Mrs. Carrick inhaled deeply. “There must be many a sorry prisoner that wished for the same skill and craft to escape that hellhole.”

Reminded of the true nature of the Tower, Hugh agreed. “I expect their grieving womenfolk were of the same mind, and would have gladly paid for any bit of magic that would have enabled their men to escape the queen’s clutches.”

“That reminds me, your Morgana of Kildare wants to be woken at first light on the morrow, so she can continue her pilgrimage to Dunluce.” Mrs. Carrick fixed Hugh with her steady eyes.

“I’m not surprised.” Hugh replied, easily enough.

“Do you ken why she would want to make a pilgrimage specifically to Dunluce?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea, though she did mention that as her destination, once in passing.”

“It doesn’t seem right.” Mrs. Carrick went on. “What with Drake harrying all of Antrim, bombarding the coast and laying siege to Glenarm by sea. I’ve advised her not to go, but I don’t think she cares for my wisdom. Perhaps you should talk to her about that. Surely you’ll not let her leave Dungannon to travel north without suitable escort.”

Hugh knew very well what roving factions of soldiers could do to a woman traveling alone and unprotected. Today had been a prime example of that folly at its worst.

“Morgana of Kildare will not be leaving at dawn or noon or at any time alone,” Hugh said firmly. “I’ll see to that. Did she tell you why she wants to go Dunluce?”

“No, milord. I was hoping she’d told you.”

“Humph.” Hugh considered Mrs. Carrick’s words carefully. “I’ll tackle that tomorrow. She’s exhausted by her…uh… ordeal. So we can assume she’ll sleep long and deep. The best way round about detaining her is to just let her sleep in. Don’t let anyone go to the solar to wake her.”

“But you said she shouldn’t sleep, and I left Brigit chattering to her to keep her awake.”

“Ah, but Mrs. Carrick, you don’t know a woman can be perverse? She’ll sleep, just because I told her not to.”

“And aren’t you sure of yourself?” Mrs. Carrick teased. “Oh, and by the way, milord—Her hair’s as red as holly berries.”

“Is that so?” Hugh chuckled softly under his breath. “No wonder she fights with such passion. A redhead, then?”

Mrs. Carrick left him to his thoughts. On her way out the door, Hugh detained her with another question. “Did you send a tray to her yet?”

“No, but I will.”

“I’ll fetch it to the solar. Say, in a quarter hour.”

Mrs. Carrick glanced at the standing clockwork next to the bank of oaken bookshelves that covered one interior wall. “A quarter hour it is, milord.”

S
leep was the last thing Morgana intended to do in Dungannon Castle. The bath restored her as nothing else could have. Once she had something substantial to eat, she was certain, she’d have the energy to get on her way.

The chattery maid Mrs. Carrick left to watch over Morgana was no citadel against Morgana’s inborn ability to dominate and influence. First she requested that Brigit find her something more substantial than a night rail to wear. Brigit didn’t hesitate for a moment to open two trunks and a wardrobe in the spacious chamber and let Morgana take her pick from the carefully stored-in-tissue gowns.

“Everything in these trunks belonged to Sir Hugh’s mother,” Brigit explained. “They’ve gone to waste these many years. No one ever uses these rooms, you see.”

“Why’s that?” Morgana gingerly eased one knee down onto the hard floor, examining a trunk’s contents.

Brigit shrugged. It wasn’t her place to tell the girl the solar was haunted. She’d know that soon enough, if she actually had to sleep here. “I expect that if His Lordship gave you these rooms to sleep in, he won’t mind you making use of the clothes, too.”

“Well, I’ll just have to see if there’s anything that I can use. Could you go and fetch me something to eat? I hate to be an outright bother, but I’m fair starved. It’s been a very long and exhausting day.”

“You won’t go to sleep if I leave you, will you?” Brigit asked. “Lord Hugh said you were to stay awake. He’ll have my head if I don’t do my work right.”

Morgana answered that question with the absolute truth. “I couldn’t sleep here if you gave me ten sleeping potions.”

“Are you certain? A little while ago, you looked as if you would drop right off in the tub.”

“Oh…” Morgana stalled while she looked around the room for a suitable answer to that question. “Shall we say, I feel the presence of ghosts?”

“You do?” Brigit’s eyes rounded. She gulped and crossed herself, hurrying out, saying, “Och, then, I’ll get yer food.”

Morgana held on to the urge to laugh. Claiming she felt ghosts lingering in Dungannon Castle wasn’t stretching the truth all that much. Her great-aunt Catherine Fitzgerald had died within a week of arriving at Dungannon Castle.

Morgana knew from reading all of Gerait Og Fitzgerald’s journals that he’d done everything in his power to unite all of Ireland’s powerful clans. The one mistake he’d never gotten over was the unexplained death of his favorite sister after she was forced to wed Conn O’Neill.

Prior to her death, Catherine had been mentioned often in her grandfather’s journals. Very little had been written about her following his terse words regarding her death. He blamed himself for forcing a loveless marriage on a young and precious sister. After that, he never mentioned the O’Neills again, except to damn them and their portion of Ireland forever.

All the other political marriages Gerait arranged between his numerous siblings, nephews and nieces had worked to his benefit, uniting by blood nearly all of Ireland’s most powerful families and separate counties.

Morgana removed a suitable gown from the trunk and stood up, holding the gown to her shoulders to judge its possible fit. She was tall for a woman. The skirts of the gray silk were long enough that without a farthingale or too many petticoats, it would sweep the floor at her feet.

One of the maids had taken charge of Morgana’s boots, cleaning and drying them. She found silk stockings aplenty in the other trunk, and kirtles galore, though she did have to exert some care in choosing from the other trunk. Most of its wools had been ravaged by moths. Samites, linen and silks were apparently less palatable to marauding insects.

Morgana dressed with practiced efficiency, making do with an old-fashioned short-waisted stomacher to lace over the shapeless gown, giving it some form. It accomplished what she wanted it to accomplish, lifting her breasts enough to support them against the uncomfortable and sometimes painful jarring that a woman’s unbound breasts suffered when she rode horseback. The only trouble with it came from the fact that it was designed to lace up the back. As her right hand was somewhat impaired, she couldn’t pull the laces as tight as she was used to wearing them.

Her hair had dried sufficiently that she could braid it and turn the coils into neat order. She was seated at Lady Dungannon’s vanity, doing that task, when the chamber door opened without a knock.

Hugh O’Neill arrived bearing an ample supper tray for his guest, and was greatly surprised to find the lady seated at his mother’s vanity, vainly tucking an unruly plait into a curious coil over her right ear.

“You’re not asleep?” he asked, rather foolishly. Not for his life would he have admitted that finding her awake had just contradicted every assumption he’d made about her. English women were perverse. That was a given. Why she’d chosen to confound him would be revealed soon enough.

Morgana came to her feet, and the coil unkinked and slid down her shoulder. She most certainly hadn’t expected the O’Neill to walk through the chamber door. “No. I’m not.”

Morgana kept her answer bland. She knew she couldn’t have said as much for her face. Her surprise showed as much as his did. She blushed at the intensity of his inspection of her bosom. The silk gown was cut for a larger-breasted woman, revealing a great deal of decolletage. Morgana
would have covered that with some kind of cloth insert once she finished with her hair.

Hugh grinned wolfishly as he set the heavy tray on a gateleg table beside his mother’s fainting couch.

“Come, Morgana of Kildare. I’ve brought you sustenance for your belly and wine to soothe your soul. Sit you down and eat, while I feast my eyes on your loveliness. That gown suits you.”

Morgana managed to keep both hands at her sides, resisting the urge to let them flutter to her throat to hide what was already obvious and exposed. She did wet her lips with her tongue and swallow twice before stepping forward to meet him at the small table.

He placed a candle branch on the table and brought a high-backed chair away from the fireplace. Setting the chair opposite the couch, he waited until she sat before taking his seat. His hands flew over the tray, removing steam covers from hot dishes and linen cozies from a woven basket full of bread. “There, a feast for your eyes, as well as your belly, is it not?”

Morgana’s mouth watered instantly at the sight of waferthin slices of peppered salmon, lentils swimming in a rich, creamy sauce and an appetizing thick vegetable soup. She leaned over the table, inhaling deeply of the aromas rising on the steam, admitting, “I’m famished.”

“I thought you would be.” Her expression pleased him greatly, making him proud of Mrs. Carrick’s efforts in the kitchens. “Don’t be shy,” he said, coaxing her to eat. “I was fed some time ago, so I’ll join you in polishing off the wine. It’s imported from Burgundy, a favorite of mine, and quite good.”

Morgana gave him credit for knowing his own stomach as well as she knew hers. She took up the spoon and tucked into the soup, too hungry to argue about polite sharing. That gave Hugh another reason to smile as he uncorked the wine and filled two chased goblets to the rim. She was too consumed by hunger to notice his intense inspection.

Morgana of Kildare had washed up very, very well. Her hair appeared dark in the bedchamber’s limiting shadows, but he’d have had to be blind not to see the red highlights shimmering in the candlelight. Unlike the beauties of Queen Elizabeth’s court, she did not shave her eyebrows, and it didn’t appear to him that she even went so far as to pluck them. They were thick enough to make him want to smooth his fingers over their naturally high arches.

Her skin was clear. Her nose as straight and neatly formed as an arrow. Her mouth, well, he could have wasted his time composing poetry to those lips that deftly opened to take in spoonful after spoonful of hearty soup. They were red and full, a touch swollen on one side, where Kelly had struck her hard. A small bruise marred a corner, but they were not mangled so badly that she couldn’t be gently kissed.

He brought his goblet to his mouth, putting a mental brake on his wildly rampant, lusty thoughts. Hugh found himself unable to take his mind away from the idea of savoring the taste of her mouth with his own tongue.

“How’s the soup?” he asked gruffly, taking hold of the basket of breads and extending that to her.

“Delicious.” Morgana looked up from her soup to the basket his hand held so close to her. The five different breads all appealed to her. She choose the nearest, a plump rye loaf no bigger than her fist. Now that the edge was off her hunger, she remembered her manners, asking, “What made you bring the tray to me?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m checking on you,” Hugh replied easily. He set the basket down and raised his hand to her chin, turning her face toward the lighted candles.

“Even with a black eye, you are pretty to behold.” Oblivious of her hunger, he held on to her chin as his right hand took the supreme pleasure of tracing and smoothing her eyebrow, where the worst bruising remained.

Unlike the grand ladies of the queen’s court he’d bedded and never regretted leaving, Hugh knew he could never be
immune to her eyes, were they ever to fix upon him with even the slightest trace of heat or desire.

He gently traced the boundary of the bruise across her cheekbone. “Does this hurt?”

Morgana frowned. “No, of course not. I have black eyes all the time. I’m used to them.”

“Tsk.” Hugh clicked his tongue, releasing her chin so that she could resume consuming her meal. “Such waspish sarcasm is not very becoming, Lady Morgana. I feel rather certain you’ve been trained to do better.”

“When did I get the promotion? I was plain Morgana when you introduced me to your sisters.” His scold didn’t stop Morgana from taking another shot.

“No, you were never plain Morgana. I’ve had time to look up a few references lying about my study. You are Lady Morgana Fitzgerald, oldest daughter of the exiled earl of Kildare, James FitzMaurice Fitzgerald. By some curious twists of fate, I also know you entered the Arroasian novitiate at Saint Mary de Hogges’s Abbey in March of 1569. Four months later, your father fled Ireland for France.”

He was right, but Morgana wanted to know how he had learned those facts. “What makes you so certain of that?”

“I have copies of all the convent rosters, from Sussex’s articles of dissolution, through 1574. In fact, I have rosters of all the monasteries and abbeys in Ireland, including the justicar’s official valuation of the properties seized for the crown.” Hugh took his time forming his next words. “I also know that you have two brothers that your father was also forced to leave behind. It’s very dangerous to be a boy named Fitzgerald in this clime, isn’t it, Morgana?”

She sat very straight, her marvelous blue eyes so cold with suspicion that Hugh feared he’d done more than upset her digestion. He was very glad he’d disarmed her, and doubly glad he’d insisted there be no knife of any kind put on the tray.

“What is the price of your silence?” she asked.

“My silence?” Hugh frowned, distracted and not following her reasoning.

Her chest rose and fell deeply three times before he picked up his goblet and drank from it. Hugh withstood the temptation to look again at the lovely white mounds of her breasts swelling over the gray gown’s neckline. It would be better if he kept firm control over his passions—at least for the moment. She’d been brutalized this very night, and he wasn’t such a scoundrel that he’d take advantage of her now. His body responded otherwise, reacting like a randy goat’s to her abundant physical attributes.

“I said, what’s your point? Or should I say, what is your price for silence?”

“Ah, you think I would stoop that low, milady? Blackmail you? I am not an unconscionable bastard.”

“Aren’t you? You are the O’Neill, aren’t you?”

“The O’Neill?”
Hugh laughed.

“Your men claimed you are he.”

Hugh laughed bluntly. “That is wishful thinking on their part. I am most certainly not
the O’Neill.
If I were, I’d have run my sword through James Kelly’s belly and left him staked out for the carrion crows to pick the meat off his bones. I am no more than Hugh O’Neill, lately the good-conduct hostage of clan O’Neill at Her Majesty’s court in London.

“Thanks to interference from the powers across the water, there will never be another revered as
the O’Neill.
As I, might add, there will never be another Fitzgerald earl of Kildare. A right pity it is, too.”

Digging into the soup, Morgana asked, “How so?”

“It took the English five hundred years to establish a toehold on our island. But it has taken we Irish only two generations to destroy ourselves. Lift your goblet, Morgana of Kildare, and drink with me to a dying land. Erin’s death throes surround us. Yet no one sees what is as plain as the noses on each other’s faces.”

Morgana swallowed and carefully laid the silver spoon down on the table. “I don’t follow you.”

“I think you do.” Hugh picked up her full goblet and put it in her hand. “Tell me, Morgana, late of Kildare, when someone asks you what country you claim allegiance to, what do you say? ‘I’m Irish’? Is that your answer?”

“No. Of course not,” Morgana answered immediately. “I’m not Irish, I’m English.”

“Yet you were born in Maynooth castle in county Kildare, Ireland. Your father was also born at Maynooth, and his father and his father going back twelve generations, to the year 1069. How much more Irish do you have to be?”

Morgana broke the small loaf of bread in her hands and bit into it, chewing on the tough bread as if it were dried meat. “You Irish don’t accept us.”

“And the English do?” Hugh lifted a skeptical brow. “You told my housekeeper that you’ve never been to England. Is that true?”

“And if it isn’t, am I to be cast out into the night? Will you take the food from my mouth and the clothes from my back?”

Hugh brought his fist down on the table, making candles jump and goblets totter. “Woman, don’t you dare sit there accusing me of cruelties to you! It was not by my hand that you were stripped of your dignity and raped this day. I have given you nothing less than fairness, generosity, and the hospitality of my home. When in truth I owe you nothing, for your kind are the usurpers of all that was and is good in Ireland.