Читать книгу Lord Of The Isle - Elizabeth Mayne - Страница 14

Sleep 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.

“Well, by God’s grace, I’m Irish. Since the dawning of all memory on this island—from the great battle between the Firbolgs and the Tuatha de Danann—an O’Neill king has ruled over the rocks of this lake and the hills that surround it. We’ve been overrun by Vikings, Scotchmen, Normans, Englishmen. We Irish savages have been converted by saints to Christianity, saved from eternal damnation by kings who proclaim they rule by divine right and lesser kings who rule only by the might of their own hand. But, by God, I’m Irish. I know exactly who and what I am. Can you say the same?”

Morgana picked up a slice of salmon with her fingers and laid it between the bread in her hand, folding it into a convenient bite-size morsel. “Obviously, I can’t speak with the same eloquence and passion to answer your question. But, yes, I do know exactly who I am and what I am.”

She shoved the whole bite into her mouth and chewed hard, as though his bread were made of gravel, not milled grain. Hugh sat back in his chair, drinking his wine, his eyes glittering as they assessed her.

“Then tell me, Morgana of Kildare. Who are you, really? What are you doing here in Ulster, where you are not welcome and not wanted? For what reason do you travel to my liege man in Dunluce?

“If you are an English spy hired by Walsingham, sent here deliberately to tempt and compromise me, I have the right to know the truth.”

Morgana almost choked. The bread stuck in her dry throat and wouldn’t budge past her windpipe. She raised one hand to her throat and reached for the goblet with the other.

Hugh made no move to assist her. In fact, he didn’t even blink as he stared at her, watching her gulp down swallows of wine as she tried to dislodge the wedged bread and salmon. Her color was quite high when she set the goblet aside and finally brought her pale eyes back to his.

“You think I’m an English spy?” she whispered, her voice barely a croak. “Sent here by Walsingham?”

“Circumspectly, I believe that what I witnessed today was just a little too patent to be real. I find it curious that in the heat of his passions James Kelly would confess his crimes to you. Forgive me if I tell you it doesn’t ring true. I won’t be set up to fall victim to Walsingham’s treacheries.” Not this O’Neill.

“Now, young woman…” Hugh reached forward and took the hourglass on the table in hand and turned it over.

“You have exactly ten minutes to tell all and convince me that every word you utter is the Gospel according to Mark, or else you will find yourself locked away in the same pit in the earth that James Kelly occupies this very moment. Begin at the beginning.”

Morgana sat back, staring at him blank-faced, appalled. Every word he’d uttered rang as a true and dangerous threat, to her ears. She closed her lips, which had parted with dismay, and folded her hands into her lap, saying nothing.

The fine sand trickled through the glass, making a minuscule white hill on the bottom. Morgana looked once at the hourglass, then back at the O’Neill’s cold and heartless face. She wasn’t going to engage in a test of wills with him. There was no purpose in doing that. She’d lose.

In fact, she realized belatedly, she’d already lost.

She would rather die than spend one minute in the same space as James Kelly. Morgana rose to her feet and crossed the room to the fireplace, picked up her boots and yanked out the crumpled tissue Brigit had stuffed inside them.

Hugh watched her jerk each boot onto her bare feet and deliberately tie the laces. He did not bother telling her she could not leave the room.

Loghran O’Toole guarded one door, Kermit Blackbeard the other. Did she try to run, she’d not live to regret it. Either would cut her throat before she had the chance to let out a single scream.

Bored with watching her fumble with the laces of her boots, Hugh looked at the hourglass, counting the time that remained. “Your ten minutes are rapidly running out, lady. Personally, I find your silence at this critical moment appalling.”

“Go to hell, O’Neill!” Morgana muttered as she got to her feet again. She barely retained control of her rage.

“Do you play the game to suit me, my rewards to you will prove more generous than Walsingham’s ever would be. I might be amenable to allowing you to remain at Dungannon as my mistress for a time. Do you serve me well, you’ll be adequately pensioned after.”

Morgana paused at the mullioned windows to take a deep, calming breath. She glanced back over her shoulder as she twisted the lock on the window and pushed it open. A cold breeze caressed her cheek. Hugh O’Neill sat on his chaise as if it were a throne, watching her with the dispassionate eye of a Roman emperor.

Oh, his cold black eyes moved coveteously over her person, cataloging each movement that she made; but he was as blind to what she really was as the stones of his castle. Morgana swung her head and stared out the open window. The sky had cleared from the north to the east. A pale moon hung like a battered pewter cup in the dark, starless sky.

Beyond the window frame a soft, formless shape floated on the rising mist. Two hands stretched out opened palms of welcome to Morgana. The shade’s soft, keening voice brushed across Morgana’s eardrum, not registering any audible sound.

Don’t trust him, cried Catherine Fitzgerald. He is the O’Neill. All his people think it so. I have waited long years for a kinsman to come. You must help me, Morgana. Blood must stand for blood.

Morgana’s heart made a fierce racket under her ribs, banging against her breastbone. She swallowed and stared straight through the ghostly shape between the window frame and the distant hills. She refused to look down at the water in the lake. Water frightened her so. It always had and always would. If she was lucky, she’d hit the rocks and she wouldn’t have to suffer the agonizing death of suffocating by drowning.

You must help me, sweetling, Catherine wailed, her lament sadder than the keen of little Maoveen when she had mourned the passing of Shane O’Neill. I’m so lonely and lost.

Agitated by the unaccountable rising of the wind, Hugh unclasped his hands, which had been deliberately laced to passive stillness over his flat belly.

He raised his voice to gain the woman’s immediate attention. “Shall I point out to you now, woman, that your silence serves only as an admission of guilt to all the charges I’ve laid on you?”

He baits you. Don’t listen to him! Catherine swirled in through the open window, circling her great niece as she spun on angry heels to confront the man. Listen to me!

“You are free to point out anything you like to a lowly creature such as I, O’Neill,” Morgana said. “Count yourself right about one thing. There will never be a thirteenth Fitzgerald earl of Kildare. Without me, Sean’s life is forfeit. I pray God you are right about one more thing. May there never be another O’Neill of Tyrone to strike terror into the hearts of the women and children of Ireland.

“Now I understand why Aunt Catherine chose to take her own life rather than live in this castle, married to an O’Neill!”

No! Catherine wailed. I didn’t! Stop! You foolish girl! Stop her, Hugh O’Neill!

Morgana bounded onto the window ledge, crying out, “Goodbye, O’Neill! Till we meet each other in hell, sir, I bid you farewell!”

Hugh uncoiled from his chair. “What in God’s name do you think you are doing?”

His shout reverberated off the coffered ceiling. Loghran and Kermit burst through opposite doors of the chamber instantly, dirks drawn and ready, expecting to find Hugh in a struggle for his life.

They ran past each other in the center and spun round, back-to-back, visually sweeping each dark corner.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” O’Toole sprang to the open window and threw his long body across Hugh’s kicking legs to anchor him inside the room.

“What?” Kermit bellowed. “Have you lost your mind, O’Neill?”

“Don’t stand there jawing!” hollered O’Toole. “Help me pull him back in! The bloody woman jumped out the window!”

“Is she mad?” Kermit wasted words and breath, but no time, as he threw his own crushing weight over Hugh’s hips, pinning them to the window ledge.

“Christ Almighty, are you trying to emasculate me?” Hugh thundered. “Get off my bloody cods and give me a hand out the bloody window, you fool. I’ve got her. I just can’t pull her back.”

Dumbfounded, Kermit pulled back enough to yank open the other window. He bent halfway out over the sill, stretching, trying to reach Hugh’s hand. The woman spun by one arm, twisting back and forth, her wild feet kicking her skirts in the wind. Hugh’s fingers were as white as Dover chalk where they clenched the bones of her wrist.

“Cut her loose,” Loghran ordered, telling Kermit exactly how to wield the long knife he still clasped in one hand. “Chop off her hand. Save the O’Neill!”

“You do, and so help me God, I’ll throw both of you down on top of what’s left of her body,” Hugh growled ferociously. A mighty shout followed as he jerked the woman up, catching hold of her clothing with his other hand. The laces on her vest held. “Morgana! Give me your left hand!”

Kermit groped down Hugh’s sleeve, feeling for his wrist, stretching as far as he dared. His eyes bulged like the tendons in Hugh’s forearm. Just beyond his fingertips, a clump of bunched cloth tore audibly.

The woman’s fingernails scraped and clawed at Hugh’s hand. The bloody-minded creature tried to pry his fingers from her wrist.

Kermit closed his eyes and clamped his fist on that talonlike hand of vicious, clawing fingers. The fingers crushed under his. He slapped his other hand over her wrist and grunted, hauling what resisted up to him. She felt like ten hundredweight of stone.

“I’ve got her.” Hugh gasped. “Loghran, for the love of God, give me some help. I can’t hold her much longer.”

“Don’t! Let me go!” Morgana snarled. She kicked her feet and spun around, only to twist violently back to where she’d begun.

Taller than either Hugh or Kermit, Loghran shifted his weight no more than necessary to keep Hugh from following the stupid woman to her death on the rocks. He unhooked his belt and positioned himself carefully, never taking most of his body weight from O’Neill’s legs.

“All right,” he said as he leaned over Hugh’s straining body. “When I give the signal, the two of you hoist her as high as you can.”

“Just do it! Now!” Hugh gave the signal. Both he and Kermit grunted deeply, jerking Morgana upward. Loghran snapped the leather around her body and caught the whipping tail, pulling both ends taut over her back.

“Got her!” He grunted. They pulled. She fought like a hooked marlin, cursing, raining blasphemies on the wet air and the castle walls.

Loghran got hold of her hair. Hugh found a leg. Kermit got an eye gouged by somebody’s elbow. She shrieked more viciously than the banshee Maoveen when they hauled her over the ledge.

All four of them hit the floor—a heap of sweating, shaking tangle of arms and legs.

“God the Father Almighty, forgive us,” Loghran croaked.

Panting as hard as a winded horse, Hugh clutched the woman to his chest and fought to catch his breath. Sweat ran freely down his cheeks and onto his neck. He swallowed twice, then put out his hand when Loghran moved to untwist his belt from its tight constriction beneath Morgana’s ribs.

“Leave it,” Hugh commanded raggedly. “I’m going to beat her to death, when and if I can ever move my arms again.”

Kermit, who could not move his brawny arms at all, said, “When you finish, O’Neill, I want to murder what’s left. She could have killed us, one and all.”

Loghran raised his fingers over the woman’s heaving back and made the sign of the cross. He found his voice and used it to beseech God to forgive all of them.

As the priest raised his hand in a sign of forgiveness and blessing, Catherine Fitzgerald put her hands to her face and faded into the tower’s stone walls, weeping, as lost as she had been since the night of her death.

Morgana listened to the litany in Latin, numb with shock, unable to tell her tears from the sweat that coursed down Hugh’s neck and throat onto her brow and cheek. His hand gripped her head, tightly holding her head flattened against his chest. His heart pumped erratically.

At some point, the cadence evened. Hugh’s voice rumbled like distant thunder, repeating the same order twice. “Leave us.”

Loghran got up and extended a hand to Kermit, hauling the soldier to his feet.

“Thank you.” As Hugh gave vent to his gratitude, Loghran grunted and closed the windows, twisting the brass hasps so tightly the metal screeched.

The soft swish of their boots retreated across the wooden floor. Morgana tried to use her hands to wipe her face. The right one felt as if it were never going to work again. Hugh caught hold of her fingers and tucked them down between their bodies.