Morgana asked as she fastened the belt buckle at her waist.

Hugh swung his eyes back to the woman. Her intense gaze was leveled at his waist, where her blade rested in the same sheath as his dirk.

“Until I know you better, Morgana of Kildare, I think the blade best rest where it is. I applaud your skill with it. One man of six dispatched to his Maker, three others wounded. You are a dangerous woman.”

“A desperate woman, sir,” she challenged him without compunction. “I would feel far safer if the blade rested in my own sheath.”

Hugh leaned over her, deliberately sliding his hand under her skirt to find the sheath neatly buckled below her left knee. His eyes met hers. “You will be safe in my care without it.”

The rhythm of Morgana’s heart arrested. She knew exactly what he was telling her—he was the one in control….

Elizabeth Mayne’s first book, All That Matters, was released during our annual March Madness promotion in 1995, and recently won a RITA Award nomination from the Romance Writers of America. This month’s Lord of the Isle is a classic Elizabethan tale about an Irish nobleman who unwittingly falls in love with an Irish rebel from an outlawed family. We hope you enjoy it.

The Return of Chase Cordell is a Western from Linda Castle, who is fast becoming one of our most popular authors. It’s a poignant love story about a war hero with amnesia who rediscovers a forgotten passion for his young bride. Gayle Wilson, who is also a RITA Award nominee, is back with Raven’s Vow, a haunting Regency novel about a marriage of convenience between an American investor and an English heiress.

Our fourth title for the month is Ana Seymour’s sequel to Gabriel’s Lady, Lucky Bride, the delightful story of a ranch hand who joins forces with his beautiful boss to save her land from a dangerous con man.

Whatever your taste in reading, we hope you’ll enjoy all of these terrific stories. Please keep a lookout for all four titles.

Sincerely,

Tracy Farrell

Senior Editor

Please address questions and book requests to:

Harlequin Reader Service

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

is a native San Antonian, who knew by the age of eleven how to spin a good yarn according to every teacher she ever faced. She’s spent the past twenty years making up for all her transgressions on the opposite side of the teacher’s desk, and the past five working exclusively with troubled children. She particularly loves an ethnic hero, and married one of her own twenty years ago. But it wasn’t until their youngest, a daughter, was two years old that life calmed down enough for this writer to fulfill the dream she’d always had of becoming a novelist.

Emma Frances Merritt

1940 - 1995

The mentor every young writer should have.

“Old Days! The wild geese are flighting, Head to the storm as they faced it before!

For where there are Irish there’s loving and fighting, And when we stop either, it’s Ireland no more!”

“The Irish Guards” Rudyard Kipling

Ireland May 1575

Finn mac Cool named the moodiest river in Ireland Abhainn Mor, the great dark water. The subtle nuance of meaning inherent in Gaelic was lost in the translation to its English equivalent—Blackwater. To Queen Elizabeth and all the lackey governors, generals and deputies she sent to rule Ireland, the name Blackwater meant border.

Beyond its treacherous currents lay the heart of Ulster. That fierce, clannish northern frontier of deep glens, forest-covered mountains and impregnable sea cliffs had withstood English subjugation since the Norman Conquest. Ulster’s marly earth had spawned generations of heroic men; giants of yore, saints of mystic faith, warriors of lasting renown and women of great heart.

Legend linked the Abhainn Mor’s ravines, currents and swift rapids to the humor of the ri ruirech Ui Neill, the king of kings of the clan O’Neill. As night fell on the fifth day of May in the year of our Lord 1575, the deluge of a cold spring downpour exposed the river at its most dangerous.

Rushing waters scourged the ravine at Benburg so ferociously, the Abhainn Mor broke free of its ancient bed, and threatened to score a new path across Ireland. The angry crash of the flood deafened all near it to the crack of thunder and the whiptail shriek of a banshee wind.

Were legend to be taken as truth, the black temper of the river matched the mood of the heir of Dungannon. Mounted on his favorite charger, Boru, a dun beast eighteen hands tall, Her Majesty’s favorite earl, Hugh O’Neill, watched as seven English soldiers rode out of Benburg, hot on the trail of another victim.

Queen Elizabeth would have been sorely distressed by the earl of Tyrone’s raiment. Lord Hugh wore not the elegant clothes of an English courtier. Instead, her man dressed as the elements decreed any Irishman should dress, in plaid and leathers that were oblivious of the rain pouring down upon him and his horse.

Hugh’s young face reflected displeasure with the scene in the glen before him. By private agreement between him and Elizabeth, all of Ulster was his to administer, and included in his right of pit and gallows. Redcoats had no business entering or patroling the razed wilderness of the late martyr Shane O’Neill.

Clan O’Neill had laid barren every scrap of fertile earth within two leagues of the bridge and Shane’s empty castle atop nearby Owen Maugh. Such was their tribute to Shane following his murder on the Benburg bridge seven years ago. Most O’Neill kinsmen swore that Shane’s headless spirit haunted the bridge, seeking revenge. Hugh knew of no facts proving or disproving their opinion.

Hugh took out his telescope, twisting the brass tubes into focus on the winding road leading from the village to the bridge.

The soldiers’ prey outdistanced them, on a swift and surefooted palfrey Hugh did not recognize. The rider’s cloak billowed out, obscuring most of the lead horse’s markings and flying tail. Hugh trained his glass on the soldiers instead, seeking to identify one particular man.

Night closed her hands over the flooding Abhainn Mor, concealing a dozen kerns of clan O’Neill. The clansmen blended into their lofty perches in the wych elms above the rushing water. Wrapped in green-and-brown plaids, they awaited a decision from young Hugh to proceed or retreat back to Dungannon.

From the oldest, whose age was counted by the score, down to the youngest, a boy just past his ninth winter, all kept their ears open, listening intently for the keening wail of the O’Neill’s banshee, Maoveen. As every clan had its hereditary officials, marshall of forces, master of horse, keeper of treasure, poets, inaugurator and deposer, so too they had a banshee, a spirit whose dreadful scream portended death. Hence Maoveen’s cry would warn each kinsman of the imminent approach of Shane O’Neill, were he to appear on the bridge seeking ghostly vengeance.

Their silence spoke more loudly in Hugh’s ears than the rumbling thunder. His kerns—or more rightly, Matthew, the baron of Dungannon’s kerns—waited to see if the heir to Dungannon could come up to scratch. Not a man among them trusted a kinsman raised and educated in England.

Hugh believed his position as leader of this patrol served as a test. Hugh’s avowed interest in taking revenge upon the man who had murdered Shane O’Neill conveniently matched each kern’s desire to spill English blood.

“It’s Kelly,” Hugh announced after some study.

“Aye. It’s him.” Loghran O’Toole sounded more like a wintering bear snoring than a man speaking. “I hear Maoveen whispering the traitor’s name behind the wind.”

Hugh cut his mentor a cold glance, saying, “Don’t feed me that nonsense about banshees. Where’s Rory? That’s not his horse the soldiers are after. Do you stop squinting your eyes against the rain and listening for bloody hungry banshees, you will realize that.”

Loghran took exception to that criticism, but said nothing to rebut it. Despite a score and ten years’ span between their ages, his eyes were as sharp as young Hugh’s.

Down at the crossroad, a musket exploded. A cloud of smoke rose briefly from behind Saint Patrick’s high cross. It dissipated quickly, driven to earth by the pouring rain. A lagging redcoat crashed to the ground, unseated by the accuracy of an O’Neill musketeer. Loghran had found Brian. With increasing satisfaction, he assumed Rory had reived the mount, leading the merry chase into Hugh’s well-planned trap.

Rory was to lure the soldiers to Tyrone. Brian’s task at the high cross was to pick off any stragglers, any who attempted to turn back to Benburg once the trap was sprung.

“Perfect shot!” Hugh praised Brian’s skill. “I couldn’t have done better myself.”

The carefully crafted brass tubes snapped closed between Hugh’s broad, blunt fingered hands. He put two to his mouth, emitting a sharp, short whistle, alerting the kerns in the wych elms to get ready.

The kerns knew what to do once the English crossed the river. Hugh had been over his plan time and again before they settled like kestrels high in the trees. Even Hugh’s discerning eyes had trouble locating each man amid the camouflaging foliage. It remained to be seen if the kerns would do as Hugh had ordered and wait till the exact moment the redcoats rode underneath them before dropping onto the unsuspecting soldiers’ heads.

Shortly, Hugh surmised with grim satisfaction, this simple altercation would be over. Then Hugh O’Neill would detain as his prisoner one Irish traitor, James Kelly, captain of Her Majesty’s musketeers.

Hugh planned to take James Kelly to the stone of clan O’Neill and sit in judgment over his trial by ordeal. A coward’s death was a fitting end for the man whom all said beheaded the last leader of the O’Neills, Shane the Proud.

Compounding his sins, the Judas named Kelly had sold Shane O’Neill’s head to the crown’s lord deputy for a paltry bag of silver coin. The degradation of Shane’s tarred head, staked on a pole outside Dublin Castle’s northwest gate for all to see, had sealed Kelly’s fate.

When James Kelly’s own head stood on a pike above the sacred stone of clan O’Neill, young Hugh, heir of Matthew, the baron of Dungannon, and hostage of Her Majesty Elizabeth Tudor of England for fifteen long and lost years, would finally be vindicated.

When he had avenged the murder of his uncle, Hugh’s honor would be restored and all that was due to him by birth returned. Blood for blood, and an eye for an eye. Then, and only then, could Hugh claim his birthright and assume the righteous and honorable title the O’Neill.

His carefully planned ambush at Benburg bridge awaited one last event; the English soldiers must all cross the bridge. Hugh raised his right hand as the foremost rider charged out of the woods and into view on the flood-swept verge below the bridge. Two redcoats bore down hard on the lone rider, to prevent him reaching the bridge and escaping into wild Tyrone. It was going to be close.

Hugh urged the rider to more speed and followed with a curse on Kelly’s wily ways. Well-mounted Englishmen knew how to ride. Kelly’s red-coated soldiers were no exception to that rule.

“Damn my eyes,” Hugh cursed out loud. “That’s not Rory, O’Toole! I told you that wasn’t his horse. What’s going on here?”

Hugh knew horses as well as any man in Ireland. That fleet-legged mare in the lead was an Arabian palfrey. No other breed ran with such nimble grace and speed. When the rider’s cloak caught on the wind again, Hugh spied something he didn’t like seeing at this moment in his life at all.

A woman’s petticoats fluttered over gartered knees.

The mounted soldiers bore down on the palfrey, shortening the gap. Neither man was Hugh’s quarry, Kelly. Hugh delayed his last signal, his hand clenched, but raised and visible to his men. The English must cross the bridge. His gut tightened. His simple plan to capture Kelly was about to be compromised.

Rory was supposed to lead the English into the trap. But Rory wasn’t on the Arabian galloping toward the bridge.

Hugh spied the man he wanted in the second pack of redcoats, fifty yards behind the leaders.

At the same instant he saw his quarry, the gap closed. One lout sprang from his saddle and took the woman to ground on the muddy verge below the river. The palfrey bolted onto the bridge, then reared, frightened by the turbulent, raging, muddy water flooding over the structure.

Hugh ground his teeth. A curse issued from his throat. His breath locked inside his chest. This was not what he’d planned. A woman’s scream pierced the wet air, matched by a shriek from the terrified horse.

Without a rider guiding it, the palfrey toppled off the bridge, into the flood, and careened downstream. It fought mightily to regain its footing and swim across the Abhainn Mor.

Kelly reined in his mount, ten feet shy of the bridge. His evil laugh echoed across the water as he dismounted. Redcoats and brown horses surrounded the unlucky woman. Hugh didn’t need to see inside the closing circle to know the woman’s immediate fate. The sounds of imminent rape were testament enough.

The valuable Arabian struggled to gain footing on the west bank. Art Macmurrough darted out of hiding and plunged into the river, snaring the trailing reins and taking charge of the beast. Hugh growled a shout, enraged that the man had dared break his given orders. His shout died between grinding teeth as he told himself not to be surprised.

That impulsive act by a battle-tested Irish soldier spoke to all that was wrong with Ireland and to why Hugh’s homeland remained in a perpetual state of domination by English overlords. Celtic soldiers, unlike their English counterparts, followed their commander’s orders to the letter only when the whim suited them.

Incensed, Hugh reached for his sword. Something dark and dangerous pushed him perilously close to slicing his own man in half.

Damning his Irish for their fatal caprices, Hugh dug gold spurs into Boru’s sides, galloping out from under the shelter of the wych elms on the bluff above the ravine. His purpose was obvious. He was going after Kelly alone.

Loghran O’Toole immediately rode forward, physically barring Hugh’s path with his war-horse. “‘Tis not our quarrel. Bide a while yet, my lord. Give Rory and Brian a chance to make up ground. All is not yet lost.”

“Get out of my way, O’Toole,” Hugh growled, his voice laden with malice. “Had my orders been followed to the letter, that woman wouldn’t be there. I’ll not stand idle while Kelly takes his sport before my very eyes.”

“You will,” Loghran said, challengingly. “It’s my sacred duty, sworn on the deathbed of your grandfather, Conn O’Neill, to see that no English blade carelessly takes your life. Give our men time to recover. Brian and Rory won’t let you down. Think of the woman as—” Loghran injected a twist of gallows humor into his voice “—a minor diversion.”

Hugh was not amused. He unsheathed his sword.

“My lord, I didn’t bring you safely through fifteen years of English hell so you could risk all for a skirt. Stay, else I’ll call the men and order you returned to Dungannon. Trussed if necessary.”

“Get out of my way.” Hugh’s sword cut through the rain. Another wretched scream pierced the tumultuous dusk. The point of Hugh’s steel pressed into the boiled leather carapace molded to Loghran’s chest. The younger man’s voice softened to a dangerous snarl. “You know what Kelly’s men will do to a woman. We’ve seen their handiwork before.”

“Aye. More than that, I know what he will do to you, should he be lucky enough to get his hands on another O’Neill. Heed my words. Stay to this side of the Abhainn Mor.”

“To the devil with your counsel. I’m in command here.” Hugh drew back on the reins. Boru reared, flashing mighty hooves at the horse and warrior that blocked the worn path to the bridge. “Listen to me, old friend—cross me and you lose your head. Move! That’s an order. Defy me at your own peril.”

“My lord.” Loghran tried one more time, unwilling to let Hugh face unnecessary danger. “The fate of one lone woman cannot alter Ireland’s destiny in the same way that your fate does. She is not your quarrel. Think you of the united Ireland of our dreams. You know as well as I that the wench is likely naught more than an abbess who cut and ran with a soldier’s purse.”

“She may be Mary Magdalene, herself. On Tyrone land, we will bloody well protect all women from English abuse.”

Hugh O’Neill touched his gold spurs to Boru’s sides once more. The stallion charged.

O’Toole yielded ground, wheeling his horse around full circle. With deep regret, he unsheathed his sword and followed, hard on the young earl of Tyrone’s heels, down the cliffside, to the flooded bridge crossing the Abhainn Mor.

Morgana Fitzgerald drove one strong knee into the groin of the soldier attacking her. By the time his womanish howl split the drenched air, she had her blade in hand. With well-practiced efficiency, she slashed the dagger across his throat. He fell to his knees, clutching his throat and his cods, his scream now a dying gurgle.

Morgana bounded to her feet, balanced and ready. She was winded from the fall from her horse, but not terrified, as Kelly wanted her to be. The cut man’s death rattle proved that English soldiers were not made of the steel Lord Deputy Sidney, the governor of Ireland, and his cruel and bloodthirsty adjutant, James Kelly, would have all Ireland believe they were.

She regretted her one reflexive scream, which might have made these soldiers think she were frightened. She knew from experience to act as though she were the one in control. To do anything less would give away her only chance to keep the upper hand.

Unfortunately, she had screamed. Any woman would, when being rudely and deliberately tumbled her off her horse.

Morgana Fitzgerald didn’t have the luxury of pretending she was any woman. If that were the case, Sidney’s soldiers wouldn’t be following her. The second soldier stalked her as she circled the fallen man, edging her way to the bridge.

When she tried to run for it, he darted in front of her, blocking her path. Her knife was no match for the sword in his hand. He feinted at her with it, driving her back as the rest of the English arrived. James Kelly laughed as he dismounted.

In two heartbeats, four men surrounded Morgana, boxing her in, the river at her back. Morgana made a quick search of their crude circle, reading their true purpose in their eyes. Cold-blooded and deadly Geraldine anger calmed and fueled her now. She’d not be raped by a pack of English whoresons without killing two or three of them first.

The one with the drawn sword danced slightly away from the bridge, opening a wider gap in the circle, as he sheathed his weapon. He eyed her nine inches of razor-sharp steel caustically. “Here, now, Lady Morgan, there’s no call for that. We only wanted a little sport.”

“You’ll not take it with me, cur,” Morgana fired back, maddened far beyond mere insult at their game of cat and mouse. These men all knew who she was and why Kelly was after her. They were lower than the scum beneath London sewer rats.

One of them was responsible for poisoning Morgana’s six-year-old brother Maurice. For that, she would gladly kill all five of them. She had arrived in Benburg innocently unaware of the trap that waited there for her. Kelly and his men had been swilling whiskey at the only inn in Benburg all afternoon, idly waiting for Morgana to arrive. The men she’d hired to protect her on her journey north had been slaughtered in a matter of minutes.

She had been so caught up in her secret negotiations with Bishop Moye she hadn’t noticed there was a traitor in her midst. She had also mistakenly thought that Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in Armagh had been untouched by the English order to seize and close all of Ireland’s churches. There was no sanctuary to be gained by fleeing to a church. She’d not make that mistake again, either. From here out, Morgana would trust no one, only herself.

The traitor in Morgana’s escort no longer mattered. The carriage yard at the Kittie Waicke Inn was littered with the bodies of every man Morgana had hired to protect her on her dangerous mission north to Dunluce. Their throats were slit as wide as the dying soldier at John Kelly’s feet.

Kelly bent to revive his man and drew back, appalled. “Sweet suffering Jesus,” he groaned, shocked so deeply he crossed himself. “The bitch has killed Rayburn!”

“You expected less of me, Kelly?” Morgana snarled. “You know perfectly well that anything you do to a Fitzgerald will come back to haunt you. Shall I repeat for these fools the curse Eleanor Fitzgerald laid on your head?”

Captain James Kelly’s mouth twisted cruelly as he straightened. “Save your witch’s curses, and your breath, Lady Morgan. You’ll come with us quietly now. No more of your games and escapades.”

A cold laugh slipped from Morgana’s throat as she brandished her blade. “Don’t count on it.”

“Ah, Morgan, Morgan, don’t tempt me to teach you the lesson I’ve got in mind. Lord Grey cares little about what condition you arrive in when I return you to Dublin.” Kelly wagged his exceedingly dark eyebrows, which stood out in stark contrast against his distinguished head of silver. “Fight me, Morgan O’Malley, and I’ll allow my men to take their pleasure of you, after I’ve taught you a woman’s proper submission to English authority. Now, give me that damned knife. Prove that you’ve had some upbringing, by bending your knee properly to me.”

“I’d kiss the devil’s arse first, you whoreson. We’re in Ulster now. I have it on good authority that the only law here is that enforced by the man called the O’Neill. Begone, John Kelly.”

“Nice try.” He sneered. “But wrong, very, very wrong. There is no man called the O’Neill these days, my dear.”

At Morgana’s look of suspicion, he continued, relishing taunting her in return for her stinging insults. “I personally saw to the destruction of Shane O’Neill several years back. Believe me, clan O’Neill rues the day James Kelly came home to Ireland for good.”

“No.” Morgana shook her head, refusing to believe him.

“Why, my dear Morgan, who do you think it was that severed Shane O’Neill’s head from his body? Or presented it to Lord Grey to display on a stake outside Dublin’s castle walls?”

“Truly—” Morgana shuddered “—I have no interest in knowing the answer to that question.”

“Ah…” Kelly sighed elaborately. “So you would profess no interest in politics beyond the Pale, hmm? But we both know differently, don’t we? I’m the only man alive with the balls to confront an O’Neill. Just as I’m the one who will bring you to heel.” His head twisted on bull-like shoulders, and his eyes beaded inside narrowed lids.

He spun around so quickly for such a big and heavy man that Morgana failed to see the blow coming. His fist struck her in the face, knocking her to the ground. Her head reeled with a vile explosion of pain. Blood filled her nose and mouth.

While she was down, Kelly stamped his left boot at her right arm, trying to kick her knife from her hand.

But she was faster than him, and trained well enough in hand-to-hand combat to wield a knife with either hand. He jumped clumsily back, not quick enough to avoid the cutting path of her blade. She cut his red coat to the hem and gouged a cut in his thigh before he stumbled out of her range. Morgana bounded back to her feet, dazed but in control of her knife.

One of his men came at her from behind. A pair of crushing, heavy arms swept around her waist, dragging her off her feet. That man, too, paid the price of getting too close.

The soldier screamed as he clutched at his face, his eye bloody and bulging from its socket. Kelly kicked at her again. Morgana caught his heel and jerked his foot with all the force she had, toppling him onto his backside in the mud.

“Bitch!” Kelly shouted, grabbing her skirts. “I’ll teach you to raise your filthy Irish hands against an Englishman!”

“Bugger yourself. I’m more English than you’ll ever be. My Norman ancestors conquered Ireland while yours were filthy, naked Celtic peasants rutting in peat bogs.”

“Augh!” Kelly grunted as he got back on his clumsy feet. He charged her like a raging bull, then caught himself up short, dodging another vicious swipe from her dagger. Morgana swept the blade back and forth with both hands, daring any of them to come close again.

Kelly caught the hem of his coat, briefly examining the gash underneath it and the trickle of blood running down to his knee. “Oh, you’re going to pay for that, bitch.”

“Come, you murdering whoreson,” Morgana taunted him. “Come, let my steel kiss you again.”

He motioned to the other men to get closer to her, but none seemed inclined to be cut. The fool who had lost his eye shouted like a castrated bull and charged her. She slapped her wet cloak into his injured face and let him go rushing past. Wet wool shrouded and blinded him as he slipped and crashed to the muddy ground.

Morgana saw her chance to escape then, and bolted for the bridge. She hiked her skirts clear of her strong feet. She slashed the hand of a soldier trying to catch her, and leaped over the man struggling to unwind his head from her cloak.

Despite Morgana’s deep-seated fear of water, she ran for the bridge, praying the water rushing over its sunken planks wasn’t as deep and treacherous as it looked.

At the brink of the raging flood, she choked, unable to plunge into what her mind perceived as certain death—water, deep and bottomlessly malevolent water. Morgana’s terror at being captured by Kelly paled against her fear of drowning.

A third blow drove Morgana to her knees. Kelly hammered the hilt of his drawn sword into her neck. He fell upon her, flattening her, wrenching her blade from her fist.

She fought to breathe, crushed by Kelly’s weight. Cruel fingers dug into her hair, lifting her face from the mud, bending her neck against the agonizing pains still rippling across her shoulders. Astraddle her back, he stuck her own blade against her throat and rubbed the knuckle of his thumb against the soft flesh under her jaw.

His breath fanned her ear as he clucked his tongue. “Now then, my little fighting Amazon, I have you at my mercy.”

A large knuckle raked across the path the blade would take slitting her throat. He thrust his wet tongue inside her ear and ground his hips suggestively across her bottom. His fingers tightened on her hair, pulling harder to make her bow up from the ground. He laughed cruelly as he licked the sensitive flesh behind her ear. Then he slowly brought the point of the blade against her throat and turned it down. The dagger slipped between her breasts, severing the lacing of the embroidered stomacher covering her gown.

Taut linen was no match for well-honed steel. Powerless, Morgana pressed her hands into the mud, arched way back by his painful pull on her hair. She grit her teeth as he cut her gown and kirtle down to where her belly made contact with the earth.

“Well, well, well, boys, look at this,” Kelly called. “Who would think an Amazon would have such big and pretty titties? Look at them well now, my good.men, because they’re going to get all soiled and dirty. Are you listening, Lady Morgan? I’m going to take you first on your face. An animal like you will probably like that.”

Morgana clawed desperate fingers in the mud, searching for a rock or a stone that could be wrenched free, anything to use as a weapon. The mud rendered nothing. She twisted, balancing precariously on one hand, using her fingernails to scratch at him. He jerked his face out of range, tipping her blade under her right breast.

“Ah, ah, ah, Morgana. Mind those claws of yours. Else my hand slips and severs this lovely mound clean away from your ribs. Think what a curiosity you’ll be in your cage outside Dublin Castle then, hmm?

“Why, you’ll be the governor’s prize attraction, the Irish savage with one tit—another Celtic freak of nature, rivaling the cyclopes of ancient Greece.”

Morgana stiffened, sickened by the touch of his filthy fingers. His two uninjured men dared to come close. Spittle was clotted on their panting lips.

Kelly jerked Morgana’s face toward them, commanding, “Look, Morgan le Fay. They all want to shove their pricks in you. And they will, soon, my little Irish witch. Soon. Then I’ll have the pleasure of watching you grunt and heave to satisfy their lust. Think you I won’t have my revenge for the merry chase you’ve led me from Dublin?”

Morgana’s fingers itched to snatch her grandfather’s Celtic dagger from Kelly’s hand and skewer him with it. Soured whiskey breath fanned her face. White rage at his effrontery in threatening her with her own blade flooded through her. She would show Kelly no mercy when the tables turned.

He twisted her head more, bringing his foul-smelling mouth closer to her lips. She jerked her head away. “No!”

“Good, Lady Morgan, fight me.” His fingers tightened, painfully ripping hair from her head, forcing her head far enough back that she could see his gray eyes darken with cruel pleasure.

“There’s nothing I like better than a woman who struggles as hard as she can against being taken.”

Bent as she was, she couldn’t see where he poked the point of her blade. But she felt it. And she felt the knife score her flesh as he drew it between her breasts. It came to rest pressed into the hollow of her throat.

“Come on, my sweet, fight me.” He taunted her with cold-blooded malice. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of crying out, so he ran his thumb back down the line he’d cut, smearing her blood. His eyes gleamed diabolically as he put his thumb in his mouth and sucked it. “Ah, but I do like the taste of a woman’s blood.”

“Whoreson!” Morgana grabbed a fistful of mud and threw it in his face.

Blinded, Kelly screamed, stabbed at her. She was ready, driving her fist backward, smashing his nose, using his momentum to topple him off her. He swore viciously, blinded by the mud in his eyes, losing control. “Grab her!”

Morgana wrested her blade from his slackened hand, rolling free as she stabbed at him with all her might.

“You bitch! Get her, damn you cowards!”

“You’re the coward, Kelly!” Morgana sank her blade into his neck with all the force she could muster. His men fell on her then, wrestling to get control of the knife.

Kelly knelt in the mud, clutching his shoulder, chest heaving. He recovered enough to make a fist and strike her in the face.

“Hold her down, you damned whoresons! She’ll think twice about fighting more when I get done with her.”

This time, Morgana’s struggles achieved nothing. Her knife was pried from her fingers and cast aside. Waves of nauseating pain in her temples met up with the horrible ache radiating from her neck into her shoulders and arms. None of that was going to abate very quickly.

She had to think, to calm, to hold back the panic rising inside her. The last and final rule of Grace O’Malley’s thorough training in the rigorous art of self-defense swam in Morgana’s desperate brain. According to Ireland’s famed female pirate when rape was inevitable, one must submit. Accept the pain. Retreat. Think only to the future. Plan your revenge. Convince yourself to live, just to taste that revenge.

Morgana Fitzgerald had no choice but to live. Sudden death was not an option. Sean Fitzgerald’s life depended upon her finishing her journey to Dunluce. She had to live through this. Sean depended upon her! She clung to that thought as James Kelly straddled her. She clung to Grace O’Malley’s rules of survival, but she could not accept rape, not at any price.

She bucked and twisted, nearly freeing her muddy hands from the grips of the soldier who held them. Kelly drew back his fist. She jerked her head to the side, taking the blow intended for her face on her ear instead. That was a blessing.

Her ears rang so fiercely from the blow, she couldn’t decipher the crudities spoken as Kelly yanked on her skirts, trying to free the cloth from under his own weight. She nearly gave vent to her outrage when his coarse hands groped at her knees.

“God damn it all, help me spread her legs,” Kelly commanded. “Orson, keep her damned hands out of my way.”

Rain beat a steady drum on the earth. The chill of it striking her face made Morgana lift her cheek from the mud. There was daylight enough that she could see the trees on the other side of the Abhainn Mor.

Severing all connection with her body, she looked for Ariel, willing her horse to come back for her. Her heart thudded hard, bringing her back to the gruesome present. Kelly’s harsh hands pawed at her breasts. The one called Orson twisted her wrists, nearly breaking her arms.

She bit down hard on her lips, vowing not to scream. She wouldn’t beg or cry. They were all talking fast, collective hands on her body, twisting and crushing her limbs, laughing at their rude jests. She shuddered when she heard the leather of Kelly’s belt whip free of his buckle. Every man crowed over the size of Kelly’s manhood, praising its hardness and envying him the right to be the first to abuse her.

Morgana shut out their voices by chanting an ancient prayer, invoking the spirit of Gerait Og Fitzgerald. She occluded Kelly’s face from her sight by staring into the haunted wych elms engulfed by that fearful raging river.

Not a one of them saw what she did.

A warrior swathed in green and brown rode out from the wych elms on the opposite bank. Morgana blinked, clearing her vision. Surely the preternatural creature was no more real than the Little People. Oh, but she wanted him to be real!

Desperately she chanted the ancient prayer invoking the phantom. She inveigled him with the spirit of her grandfather, Gerait Og Fitzgerald, the greatest and most powerful wizard to ever draw breath in Ireland.

Amid the rocks, trees and rain, Morgana’s savior galloped forth, imbued with her thirst for vengeance and her soul-deep hatred. A warrior at one with the spectacular panorama of wind-torn branches, storm-filled sky and spuming white water breaking free of the river bed.

Save me, Gerait Og, she prayed with all her heart and soul. Stop Kelly!

She could bear all that had happened thus far, but not rape. Her spirit would surely die if such a repulsive, evil man made his body one with hers.

Her warrior pressed through the flood riding a dun horse. A fiendish war cry reverberated from his throat, mingling with Erin’s howling wind. The specter’s tartan molded around his torso, detailing his size and exposing brawny, hard-hewn banded arms. Lightning flashed off his upraised sword. War plaits streamed from his temples, as if to flee from the fierce visage under his helm.

Morgana lifted her head from the mud and spat in James Kelly’s face. She let free a high, wild laugh of triumph.

“You are dead, James Kelly!” she shouted, believing in the magic of the witchcraft handed down to her from generations of ancestors more powerful than she. “Look to the river, cur! See you the revenge of the Fitzgeralds!”

“God and Saint George,” whispered a soldier.

“J-J-Jesus Mariah! It’s Shane O’Neill! The ghost that haunts the bridge!” Orson bawled.

Her attackers released their grip at once.

Kelly scrambled off her on all fours, crawling and clawing at the ground for the sword belt that he’d cast beyond Morgana’s reach to torment and break her. He shouted frantic curses and babbled frenetic orders. His cowardly soldiers bolted, howling as they ran for horses. “Jesus save us! It’s the ghost of Shane O’Neill!”

Shane O’Neill, indeed! Delighted, Morgana pushed herself up from the mud, snatching Gerait Og’s blade back into her hands. She brought it to her lips and kissed the amber jewel embedded in the hilt, then staggered painfully onto her feet.

A wild notion made her kick James Kelly viciously in his pimpled arse. He slipped and sprawled facedown in the mud, his belly covering his sword. That made her choke with glee. She tried to find the strength to kick him in his ugly dangling cods. Much as she wanted to deliver that last indignity before he died, she hadn’t the strength to do it. Her weakened energy went into fueling her mad, ecstatic laughter.

Morgana sobered the instant her gaze returned to the warrior. Burning eyes were fixed on her, not Kelly. Her gown hung loose from her shoulders, rent from throat to hem.

Her brain locked on to a truth. Her grandfather’s supernatural powers summoned only demons. Years of strict convent teachings had drummed that fact into Morgana’s head. This bloodthirsty, berserk Irish war god running circles around her with lust in his terrible eyes wasn’t coming for Kelly. He was coming for her.

The conundrum of those thoughts brought more mad laughter surging from her lips. All demons, spirits, powers and dominions demanded a high price for their aid. A supreme irony struck her. What could she possibly offer her war god for a sacrifice? Her virginity? Hardly. She was a widowed woman.

At that ludicrous thought, Morgana laughed. She was truly a witch, as all in Dublin called her—Morgan le Fay! Tears squeezed from her eyes as she threw her arms wide and spun in a slow dance, chanting, “Kill them, kill them! Slay them all for me and I am yours!”

A soldier screamed, “Shane O’Neill!” as the warrior’s sword cleaved his head from his body. Morgana stopped dancing. Could her vision-god be the ghost of the murdered Shane O’Neill?

And why not? She laughed again. Shane O’Neill had died on the bridge at Benburg. How very Irish of him to haunt the very spot where he’d died!

Her humor left her then.

Another warrior—a giant of the ilk of the legendary Finn mac Cool—appeared. The giant’s hair gleamed curiously white. Adorned with Pictish blue war paint, he bore no other trace of humanity.

Lightning bolts flashed from their gleaming swords. Mud churned up from the hooves of their charging war-horses.

The Abhainn Mor erupted. Warrior after warrior spewed forth from the bridge.

Each was more ferocious than the last. Heads sprouted helms and horns. Targes grew spikes. All bore swords and dangerous dirks on their belts, while brandishing halberds, pikes, lochaber axes, tridents or wicked spiked maces.

James Kelly staggered to his feet, hitching his breeches to his waist to cover himself. His sword hung limp in his hand. He turned tail, and spying Morgana, ran behind her to hide himself while he fastened his breeches.

Morgana dragged her ruined gown onto her shoulders and clutched its pieces closed over her breasts. Past that, she had lost all ability to move or breathe. Every muscle in her body was locked rigid. Rape at the hands of the English was the least of her worries now.

Her dabblings in her grandfather’s witchcraft had come full circle. As the good nuns at Saint Mary de Hogges’s Abbey had predicted, the devils had come for Morgana’s wicked, unrepentant soul. She lacked the ability to dredge up the words of confession or the sense to list her many varied and too-often-repeated wicked sins.

“Sweet Saint Brigit, save me!” she whispered.

For the first time in Morgana’s tumultuous life, the sights before her overwhelmed her mind. She fainted dead away at James Kelly’s feet.

No redcoat escaped Hugh O’Neill’s retribution. In short order, five curs fell under the stroke of Hugh’s sword. Only Kelly remained alive, his heart still beating, as Hugh dismounted from Boru and tossed the war-horse’s reins to his young nephew, Owen Roe.

“What farce be this, O’Neill?” Kelly demanded. He hid his fear behind a mask of sarcasm—that of a bureaucrat accustomed to wielding threats against lesser men than he. “Think you this some London stage, and you a hero of some play, wherein you ravish the maiden yourself?”

Hugh’s cold smile sent Kelly staggering backward. He came up short, pinned to the point of Kermit Blackbeard’s sword.

“Your sarcasm ill suits you, Kelly,” Hugh crooned. He handed Loghran his sword to clean the blood from it. James Kelly and Hugh O’Neill went way back, fifteen long years, to Hugh’s first days at the court of Elizabeth Regina. Kelly had been the bully of the queen’s court then, just as he was the bully of Ireland now.

The soldiers were dead, but not the traitor. Hugh stepped around the broken body of the woman, drew back his fist and let it fly into James Kelly’s face, dropping him like a stone at the feet of Shamus Fitz and Donald the Fair.

“Truss him and tie a rope around his neck. If he doesn’t wake up, I’ll drag him by his throat to the stone of O’Neill.”

Hugh turned his back to the traitorous Kelly as he stripped off his gauntlets. He flicked a cold glance to the kerns milling all over the vale, examining the soldiers Hugh had dispatched. Before a one of them had so much as lifted a finger, Hugh had lopped off three heads and gutted a fourth.

Stoic Loghran O’Toole’s only participation in the melée had been to make certain Kelly remained Hugh’s prisoner.

A deep silence settled over the kerns as young Hugh O’Neill turned to face them.

“Macmurrough!” Hugh shouted. “Present yourself!”

At one time, Art Macmurrough had been a general under Shane the Proud, in command of a division of five hundred foot soldiers. He commanded no one now. Bereft of the heart of their leadership, the army of O’Neills had not marched anywhere since Shane’s death. The old soldier came forward reluctantly.

“So your admiration for fine horseflesh exceeds your attention to duty, does it, Art?” Hugh asked in a controlled voice, though the angry edge was there. Every living soul near Benburg bridge heard it.

“My lord,” Macmurrough answered in a voice as aged by the years as Loghran’s, “’twas a fine mare. I couldn’t let it drown in the river. Not a horse like that.”

“So you gave my position away, then, for a piece of horseflesh? Good thinking, man. What if this had been the justiciar, Lord Grey’s, vanguard, bringing siege to Dungannon’s abbey? Did you turn your back on Shane as you just turned your back on me? Did you leave Shane vulnerable? Here at this bridge? Send him alone to his slaughter the last time the English tried to bring Tyrone to its knees?”

“Nay, Lord Hugh. I didn’t.” Macmurrough’s grizzled face broke out in sweat. “It was winter then. You were in England. I was at Tullaghoge. Shane ordered all of us to stand down for Epiphany.”

Seeing that Lord Hugh did not believe him, Macmurrough fell to his knees, his empty hands up, beseeching Hugh’s forgiveness. “My lord, I swear to you on the souls of my five sons, we knew nothing of the attack before it happened. I loved Shane. He was my heart, my blood brother. I’d have given my life for his, if I could have done. I swear on my sainted mother’s soul, I’ll never fail you again, O’Neill. I’ll carry out every command you give me, trusting you as Abraham trusted God. Hail, Hugh O’Neill!”

The kern’s hands clasped Hugh’s. He kissed Hugh’s battered knuckles and the signet ring of his earldom. Donald the Fair strode forward and extended his sword to Hugh, hilt first, as he, also, dropped to his knee in salute.

“I, too, am your man, O’Neill. My soul and my sword lie in your hand, to command as you will.”

Loghran O’Toole’s eyes misted as he watched sword after sword being placed in Hugh’s strong hand as each kern knelt before Hugh O’Neill, giving him a solemn oath of fealty. Loghran had gone to England, gillie to the baron of Dungannon’s son, the only Irish influence in Hugh’s long sojourn at the queen’s court. It was abundantly clear to O’Toole that the queen of England’s court had failed to breed the Irish out of Hugh O’Neill.

Loghran’s heart swelled with pride, loving Hugh O’Neill as the son he would never have. Now, at five-and-twenty, his charge had all the qualities necessary to become the next O’Neill—leadership, intelligence, compassion, courage and fierce loyalty.

One by one, they all came, twelve men and one boy, pledging their lives and souls to Hugh’s hand. Hugh was stunned and humbled. Before tonight, not a one of them had trusted a kinsman raised in England as far as he could throw him.

These twelve were not all O’Neills. Numerous and varied kinsman, cadres and families made up Tyrone. The trust and loyalty of all the others remained to be gained by Hugh at some future date. But these twelve were Hugh’s men now, and Hugh belonged to them. It was a start.

Hugh turned to Macmurrough and bade him run down the soldiers’ scattered horses and transport all seven, and the Arabian mare, to Dungannon. He ordered Kermit to gather the dead soldiers’ weapons, and any wealth or valuables they carried on their persons. Bounty was forever the tribute of war. Whatever was gathered would be divided fairly, each to his own needs.

Donald the Fair and Shamus Fitz volunteered to bury the remains. Loghran O’Toole handed Hugh back his sword, cleaned. He took out his breviary, stole and rosary, saying he would recite the Te Deum over the bodies and consign their souls to God’s eternal judgment.

Satisfied that all was done that should be done, Hugh O’Neill unfastened his plaid from his shoulder and went to the woman’s body. As he opened the cloth to spread it over her and cover the gaps in her gown, it occurred to him that he might never know who she was.

That, he thought, would be a great pity. A woman with her courage should be remembered, immortalized in the bards’ songs and revered in the ages to come. Hugh closed his eyes, remembering the sight of her kicking Kelly in his naked arse, sending him sprawling facedown in the mud. She might have been murdered, but her spirit hadn’t been broken.

Bending his knee to the ground, Hugh gently pried her swollen, cold fingers from the handle of her knife. He tucked it inside the sheath holding his dirk for safe transport. Then Hugh gave her other hand and her neck a cursory examination for identifying jewels or ornaments. She wore none.

Rain had washed some dirt and blood from her damaged face. Matted curls clung to her cheek and clumped in the mud underneath her. He could not help looking at her full breasts. They were exquisitely shaped, heavy and firm, the kind of flesh that filled a man’s hands with pleasure and joy in the touching. Her soft white belly gleamed like fine porcelain beneath the mud smeared across it.

Before he covered her with the plaid, he thought to close her gown and return some dignity to her.

Her flesh was still very warm to the touch, resilient and supple as his knuckles passed over it to draw the rent cloth closed. She’d been wearing a stomacher over a rather finely woven linen kirtle. The laces of that close-fitted outer garment had been cut, though the buckramed garment itself was whole and could be relaced. He loosened the lacing of his doublet and pulled it free, thinking to thread the stomacher at least partway closed.

He had no sooner begun that difficult task than he felt that soft, malleable, womanly flesh move against the backs of his knuckles. Hugh jerked his hand back, stunned by the sensation of feeling a nipple pucker.

Her kirtle slid back off that plump mound of flesh. It was full dark. There was no moon. His sight was good. She’d looked dead to his eye from the distance, even this close a moment ago. He laid his palm over that breast, certain that a woman’s nipples should have no reaction to any touch after death occurred.

As he gently formed her pebbling nipple between his fingers, definitely feeling it react to his touch, he brought his right ear close to her open lips, cocked to catch any sound of actual breathing.

“My lord Hugh!” Owen Roe shouted. His bare feet made squishy sounds as he ran down from the river. “Shamus Fitz says we best cross the Abhainn Mor with all due haste. It will crest any moment now.”

“Be quiet!” Hugh scolded him. “I think the woman may be alive. Stand still and let me listen.”

He dropped his ear to her breastbone, listening for sound inside her throat. Positive that he heard something, Hugh slid his arm under the woman’s shoulders and lifted her. Her head dropped back on his arm, moist lips flexed open and parted. Both breasts spilled out of the kirtle, full and luscious and splendidly beautiful, lifting quite high as her lungs inflated with air.

“Splendor of God!” Owen gasped. He dropped to his knees, his eyes as perfectly round as the gold sovereigns minted at the Tower of London. “Please God, make her alive.”

Hugh shot the boy a quelling look and hastily spread his plaid where he should have some time ago. He felt the woman’s ribs contract, completing the cycle of breathing. Hugh spread his fingers across her exposed throat, easily finding a steady and even pulse. “She is alive.”

“What are we going to do with her?” Owen Roe wanted to know.

Hugh’s mouth twitched over the boy’s inclusive and decidedly possessive pronoun. “We are going to take her to Dungannon, do you fetch my horse to me.”

“But, my lord Hugh,” the boy said, confused, “do you dare to take her there? Doesn’t she have to be cast out by all the clans, now that she’s a whore for the English?”

Hugh blinked, so stunned by the nine-year-old’s assessment of Irish custom that he didn’t notice the woman had roused. His tone was severely reprimanding when he did speak. “She is the victim of a crime, nothing more. That doesn’t make a woman a whore, Owen Roe.”

“Shall I sing hallelujah that you’ve said that?” Morgana asked, her voice a rasp, as she took a firm hold upon the sodden cloth laid up to her throat.

Startled, Hugh jerked. The woman regained her strength all at once, twisting away from his supporting arm. “Milady,” Hugh sputtered, reflexively tightening his arm across her back, “Be careful.”

“Oh, I intend to be,” Morgana said with assurance. She tried to scoot away from him, seeking safety in distance, but failed to gain that advantage. Her head turned slowly right, then left as she tried to gain her bearings. Her last conscious thought returned—of fainting from the fear that she’d called forth a phalanx of demon warriors from the beyond.

Her eyes returned to Hugh, and her hand came up to stroke his cheek. “Are you real?”

“Real?” Hugh asked, confused by that question. Trembling fingers traced his jaw and splayed across his cheek. “Aye, I am real.”

“You’re not a ghost?” Morgana whispered. She swallowed hard. “Not the spirit of Shane O’Neill?”

“Nay, lady. Shane is dead. I am Hugh of the O’Neills.”

Morgana exhaled unsteadily. A touch of the mad irony that had gripped her before she fainted returned. Wryly she said, “Hugh of the O’Neills, then. Has anyone told you you look just like Shane?”

“Not that I can recall, they haven’t. Who are you?”

Morgana wet her lips. She took time to count the crumpled bodies of the queen’s soldiers and the number of Irish kerns milling around in the night shadows. She took a second deep breath, this one shuddering inside her lungs.

Shock was beginning to set in. Her mind wasn’t anywhere near as clear as it should be. Her fingers on his shaved cheek proved he was a man of flesh and blood, not an apparition. She swallowed, then said, “My name is Morgan.”

Hugh repeated her word. “Morgan?”

“Aye, Morgana,” she repeated, stopping herself from saying anything more clarifying.

“Morgana, then.” He grasped a trailing corner of his plaid and wiped at the mud on her face. “What great error on your part made you the prey of an English patrol this stormy night?”

He saw the whites of her eyes flash, but she made no move to stop his hand.

Morgana wasn’t looking at her savior so much as she was looking to see where her attackers were before she answered that loaded question. She noted that there was no one standing to contradict her.

“Truly, sir, I have no idea what their intentions were. Savagery, I suppose.” Her voice shook on her last words, and that much was no act on her part. “Are you certain we are not dead? Is this the afterlife?”

“No, I assure you it is not. You have not gone on to your reward.” A pair of distrustful and confused eyes looked everywhere but at Hugh O’Neill. She drew back from the casual, servicing touch of his hand as he mopped up her face. “By your language, I assume you are not of Tyrone.”

Morgana grimaced, recognizing her first mistake. “You’re right. I don’t speak Irish.”

“Then you are from the Pale, from Dublin, possibly?”

“Kildare,” Morgana corrected. She could not afford to say more.

“And what brings you to Ulster, Morgana of Kildare?”

“I am on pilgrimage to Dunluce.” Again, Morgana looked to the river, seeking Ariel. She exhaled a deep and tired sigh. “Now that I’ve lost my horse, I shall have to go back to Dublin and start all over.”

Hugh could see her distress. He stroked his fingers over her throat, soothing her as he would a frightened animal. “Nay, you haven’t lost your horse. It is safe on the other side of the Abhainn Mor. One of my men took pity on the beast and rescued it from the flood.”

“One did?” Morgana turned her face back to the man, her eyes wary. “Are you certain?”

“As certain as I am of my own name.”

“God and Mary be praised,” she whispered reverently. A great gush of relief over that news nearly caused Morgana to burst into tears. If Ariel had made it across the river, her saddle and bags intact, then all was not lost. Morgana could continue to Dunluce with nothing lost beyond the cost of her escort. Given any luck, she could hire more men. She could use some of her ready coins to have masses said for those she’d lost.

Hugh did not urge her to quiet. A woman’s tears after an ordeal were a good thing. He embraced her gently, waiting for the calm that would come soon enough.

“Tell me,” Hugh asked as he sat her up, mindful that she had injuries other than the ones he could see in the limited light. “Do you think you can stand or ride?”

“Possibly.” Morgana used her left hand to touch the back of her neck. She encountered mud, matted hair and excruciating pain. This wasn’t the time to start cataloging her injuries. She nodded in the direction of Kelly’s trussed body, easily distinguished from the others because of his silver-gray hair. “Is Kelly dead?”

“Not yet,” Hugh murmured. “By your question, I take it you are acquainted with him.”

“Enough to wish I wasn’t,” Morgana replied tartly. She busied her hands, making order of her clothing, and what she couldn’t order she wrapped securely under the sodden tartan to cover the gaps.

The curious boy kneeling at Hugh O’Neill’s side took off his own belt and offered it to her as a means to hold the plaid secure.

“That was kind of you, Owen. Now go and fetch my horse,” Hugh said, dismissing the boy.

“At once!” Owen popped to his feet, bowing deeply. Hugh thought the show of respect attributable more to the English lady’s breasts than to any sign of hero worship honoring Hugh.

“May I have my knife back?” Morgana asked as she fastened the belt buckle at her waist.

Hugh swung his eyes from the departing boy, back to the woman. Her intense gaze was leveled, pointed at his waist, where her blade rested in the same sheath as his dirk.

“Until I know you better, Morgana of Kildare, I think the blade had best rest where it is. I applaud your skill with it. One man of six dispatched to his Maker, three others wounded. My gut tells me that you are a dangerous woman.”

“A desperate woman, sir.” She challenged him without compunction, proving that she was no stranger to speaking her mind. “I would feel far safer if the blade rested in my own sheath.”

Hugh leaned over her, deliberately sliding his hand under her skirt to find the deadly dagger’s sheath, neatly buckled below her left knee. She was an Englishwoman from the Pale, and not to be trusted. His eyes met hers. “You will be safe in my care without it.”

The rhythm of Morgana’s heart arrested. Her breath caught in her throat. The flesh on the inside of her thighs quivered. The touch of his hand was intimate and warm. The implication of that sheath at her knee might have gone unsaid, but his proprietary attitude needed no more vouching for. She knew exactly what he was telling her—he was the one in control, not she.

Trying to take control of matters between them, Morgana grasped his wrist and removed his hand.

“I find, sir, my personal security never rests well in anyone’s hands but my own. I repeat, give me back my knife.”

“Not now, Morgana of Kildare. Not before we know who you are and what you are doing in Tyrone. Come, I will help you to stand.”

As Hugh assisted the woman back onto her feet, Kermit Blackbeard turned the contents of a filled water skin out on James Kelly’s head and chest. The moment the traitor roused from his stupor, Kermit kicked hard toes into Kelly’s ribs.

Kelly awoke spitting and cursing, shouting against the bonds restraining him. “God damn you, I’ll have your head for striking me!”

He sat up, blinking his eyes, and glared at the man assisting Morgana to her feet. “Untie me, O’Neill!”

“O’Neill!” Morgana gasped. She jerked against the young man whose kind arm gave her the support she needed to remain on her feet. “You’re the O’Neill?”

“Aye, lady, so he is,” Kermit Blackbeard assured her. He dug his fist into Kelly’s collar and hauled him onto his feet.

“Those are their words, not mine, lady,” Hugh crooned softly into the woman’s ear, to calm her.

“On your feet, man!” Shamus Fitz dug his heels into his mount’s ribs, putting hard tension on the rope tied between his saddle and Kelly’s fat neck. Kelly struggled, choking, his wild eyes searching for Hugh.

“O’Neill! Tell your men to desist! O’Neill!”

Morgana of Kildare reacted. Her hand shot out to snatch her blade from the sheath at the O’Neill’s waist. He stayed her hand, gripping her fingers firmly, adding a command to desist. “Nay, lady. This is my land, and he’s my prisoner, now. Unless you want to join Kelly in the ranks of the unwelcome, obey me.”

“Damn you, O’Neill, tell these bastards to untie me!” Kelly shouted hoarsely. “You can’t hold me! I’m an officer in the queen’s army!”

Owen Roe returned Boru and stood fast, holding the charger’s bridle by the bit, awaiting Hugh’s next order. Hugh nodded to Kermit and Shamus Fitz. “Take him to Fort Tullaghoge. He’ll be tried one week hence. Guard him well, Shamus Fitz.”

“On what charges?” Kelly raged, loud enough to wake the dead as far away as Tara. “Nothing I did to that woman matters. She’s my prisoner. I’ve a warrant to take her back to Dublin.”

Morgana instantly refuted that charge. “That’s a lie!”

It was a good thing that Hugh’s hands were put to use staying Morgana of Kildare’s vengeful fingers, else this time he’d certainly have broken Kelly’s jaw. “Take him out of my sight.”

“Wait!” Kelly shouted again, struggling against the ropes that bound him. “I demand to know why you are doing this, O’Neill. I can bloody well have your head.”

“On the contrary, Kelly. It is clan O’Neill that will have your head.”

“I’m not under your benefice.”

“Are you not James Kelly, born at Tullaghoge in county Tyrone, bastard of Margaret Mary Kelly, scullery maid at Fort Tullaghoge lo these many years?”

“Aye, and well you know my father is Lord Litton. You can’t lay a hand on me, O’Neill. You haven’t a charge against me that will hold in any court in England.”

Hugh carefully lifted the woman onto Boru’s saddle, then mounted the steed behind her. He nodded to Owen Roe, and the boy handed him the reins. “Get you to your father’s horse, Owen, and return to Dungannon with him.”

Hugh turned Boru to face James Kelly. His dark eyes pierced the bully’s soul.

“This is Ulster, Kelly. You have forgotten that you are a son born to the land of Tyrone, subject of the late Conn the Lame, Shane the Proud after him, and now my uncle, Matthew, by whose authority I arrest you.

“As for my having to lay my hand upon you, I will not stoop so low as to touch you again. It is the judgment of Tir-Owen and Tir-Connail that you will face, at the next gathering. Witnesses will be called to testify against you, many who claim you murdered Shane O’Neill.”

“That’s a lie! I dare any Celtic bastard to face me and swear against me. I’ll have their bloody head if they do! I’m the law in this land now, O’Neill. Not you.”

“Oh?” Hugh O’Neill’s voice was deadly cold. “Then we shall play this game your way, Captain Kelly. By my own authority as Her Majesty the queen of England’s earl of Tyrone, I, too, am invested with the power of pit and gallows over all criminals who enter Ulster under false pretenses. In Her Majesty’s name, I arrest you and bind you over for trial in the nearest docket.”

Suddenly this argument between the two powerful men cut through Morgana’s shock at finding herself face-to-face with the O’Neill. She stared at Kelly, tasting revenge on her tongue, and through him found the means to ensure that the O’Neill would aid and protect her.

“He can’t have my head or intimidate me,” Morgana said. “Under both brehon and English law, I can testify against him. He confessed to the murder of Shane O’Neill, boasting to me that it was none other than he who took Shane the Proud’s head to Dublin and sold it. You’ve got your murderer, O’Neill.”

“You lying bitch!” Kelly lunged forward, only to be drawn up taut against the ropes restraining him. “A cage outside Dublin Castle is too good for you. I’ll transport you to England. You’ll be hanged, drawn and quartered, the same as all the cursed Fitzgeralds! O’Neill, listen to me. That woman is Morgan Fitzgerald, protege of Grace O’Malley, both wanted in London for piracy and high treason!”

As if he hadn’t been interrupted by either of them, Hugh continued, finishing his words. “And did you not want to be charged for the murder of Shane O’Neill, Kelly, you should have remained in England and never return again to Ireland. Take him from my sight.”

The last five words spoken by the O’Neill were the only ones Shamus Fitz was listening to hear. He dug his heels into his horse’s ribs, and the rope to James Kelly’s throat stretched as his mount galloped to the bridge.

“Run or be dragged, Kelly!” Kermit Blackbeard hastened the traitor on his march by whalloping Kelly’s arse with the flat side of his sword.

Morgana sat stiffly on the charger, glaring after the departing men dragging their prisoner into the deep waters coursing over the flooded bridge. The rain beat down on her head, striking her face and stinging her eyes, making her squint to see into the dark night.

She wanted the satisfaction of watching Kelly drown, nearly as much as she wanted the satisfaction of killing him herself.

Hugh O’Neill waited in silence until Loghran and Donald the Fair joined him for the short ride to Castle O’Neill. He put no questions to the woman, though many came to mind. The hour was late and the woman exhausted. Her identity and status could be determined at another time.

Loghran and Donald rode at Hugh’s sides, which proved to be a good thing on the crossing. The Abhainn Mor had not calmed. Violent water surged high up Boru’s tall legs, lapping over the war-horse’s withers in the deepest portion of the flood. Hugh had all he could do to keep a firm hold on Morgana, whom he’d foolishly seated sidesaddle.

Where she had been fearless and indomitable in facing a band of rapists, the flood turned her into a terrified, shrieking female.

The very moment rough water came near her boots, she panicked, trying to kneel and then stand on Boru’s back. She’d have climbed Hugh’s back and toppled them both into the flood, had Hugh allowed such foolish action. It literally took all his strength to contain the frantic woman.

He thanked God he had Loghran and Donald making certain all three horses crossed without mishap. Otherwise, Hugh was positive both he and the woman would have been swept to their deaths in the floodwaters.

On the Tyrone bank, death still seemed imminent, judging by the choke hold Morgana had on Hugh’s neck. They were both soaked to the skin from the crossing. Hugh halted Boru on the high bank, to let his horse rest and to get the woman better seated for the journey home.

“It’s all right, Morgana, you’re not going to drown.” Hugh tugged her arms apart, loosening their death grip around his neck. Her legs, too, wrapped shamelessly around his waist. Their clothing mingled in a tangle of bared knees and lower limbs. “You can let go now. We’ve crossed the river.”

Loghran grunted a Gaelic comment pertaining to the indecency of the woman’s position, then galloped up the cliff, leaving Hugh to deal with woman on his own. Donald the Fair politely offered to wait at the bridge for Macmurrough.

Morgana swallowed hard several times, gulping down her fear, before she was able to speak. The river was behind her. No point would be served by voicing her deep-seated fear of water now. She managed to loosen her grip on Hugh O’Neill. She could exert no control over her shaking.

Hugh rather missed the tight bindings, once she’d righted herself on the saddle and sat astride before him. Again, she fussed with cloth—pulling down wet skirts, tugging hanging sleeves and covering tartan into modest disorder.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

Hugh cleared his throat, preferring not to remark upon the strength and power he’d sensed in her legs when they wrapped around his waist so intimately. He, too, gave his hands to the work of replacing her fallen clothing. For a moment or two, the river’s wild current had threatened to strip her naked. “Remind me not to attempt riding tandem with you over another body of water.”

Morgana ran a wet hand over her face. “This is most unseemly. Look you there. My horse is tied to that tree. You’ve been most kind. I can continue on my own from here.”

“Continue?” Hugh murmured in her ear as he tucked the salvage of his plaid over her shoulders. She shook so violently, her body felt as though it were convulsing. “Nay, Morgana of Kildare. A man of mine is coming with the soldiers’ horses. He and Donald will bring your animal to Dungannon’s stable. You are in no condition to ride unassisted.”

“I say that I am,” Morgana insisted. Dungannon was a stronghold of clan O’Neill. She had no interest in winding up there. If the truth were to be spoken, she had hired a guide to make certain she traveled north without passing within a league of Dungannon. James Kelly was a minor nuisance compared to the troubles she could expect from those who resided at Dungannon.

Morgana began again, guarding words, as well as tone. She didn’t want to alert any suspicion, but was doubly convinced that they must part ways. “I must be on my way to Dunluce….”

“Save your breath. I’m not listening. We ride to Dungannon as we are.”

Hugh cut off what he sensed would be towering argument. He’d learned young not to expend his breath arguing with women. Instead, he turned Boru to the path leading up the cliff and into Tyrone. She struggled some, protesting the leaving of her horse behind.

“This is outrageous,” Morgana declared. “First I am attacked at the inn at Benburg, then nearly killed at the bridge over the Blackwater. Now my rescuer abducts me against my will! Some knight in shining armor you pretend to be, Hugh O’Neill.”

Instead of correcting her, Hugh turned as silent as Conn the Lame’s marble effigy. Fifteen years under the rule of the most strident woman alive had taught him to keep his tongue behind his teeth and measure his words before voicing his opinions.

“You’re cold and miserable.” Hugh’s arms slid around her waist, drawing her back against his chest. “Whist now. We’ll be at Dungannon anon. My men will not rape you when we get there. You’re safe, Morgana of Kildare.”

“And that’s supposed to reassure me?” she asked waspishly, keeping a secure hold on his powerful wrist, where his hand pressed so firmly against her bare belly through wet and torn cloth. “Who is to protect me from you?”

Hugh chuckled at her apprehensions. “You’re safe from my attentions for the moment, lady. At least until I know if you wash up well.”

Morgana hissed, sucking in her stomach. His arm at her waist tightened more. God help her, but she’d never in her life found herself in a more vulnerable or embarrassing situation. Here the man who had saved her from certain rape now hinted that he might take more liberties with her person than James Kelly had dared.

She regretted calling upon her grandfather’s magic. She had summoned a devil! Hadn’t she woken to find this very man leaning over her, touching her intimately, speaking to another about her, as though she weren’t capable of hearing his words? His men all thought her a whore. Most likely he did, too.

She would disabuse him of that thought as soon as she could. It wasn’t decent to be so immodestly clothed and ride tandem with a man whose bare shanks touched her own legs.

The jarring gallop of his horse intensified the aches in Morgana’s head and neck. Damn Kelly! Her thoughts swam in confusing circles. She felt foolish and silly for having imagined ghosts and warrior-gods, now that she was certain this man was no apparition.

Hugh was solid and warm-blooded and hard male flesh against her back. His heat warmed her sodden clothes and soothed her shivering body. She was shamed anew each time she remembered having both her legs wound around his waist. She wanted him to disappear. The last thing on earth she wanted to do was to face him eye-to-eye in any better light.

“How much farther is this Dungannon?”

“Not far.” Hugh urged Boru to the crest of a steep hill. Hidden in the valley behind it was Dungannon. The fortified village skirted the north shore of a lake, its walls now enlarged to enclose all of the Dominican abbey within the fortifications. On a crannog jutting into the lake sat the dark and ominous castle of the same name, Dungannon. The rain beat harder on the lee side of the hill.

To Morgana’s eye, the castle and its walled town looked like a great black spider crouched in the center of a shimmering, intricate web.

Her brooding unease shot to full-blown alarm. The castle was completely surrounded by water! She bolted upright, banging the crown of her head on Hugh’s chin. “Put me down!”

Hugh tasted blood, because she’d caused him to bite his own tongue.

“Put me down, I say! I’ll wait here for your man to come with my horse. I refuse to go one step farther in your company. Put me down!”

It was becoming difficult to retain sympathy for her plight in Hugh’s mind. Where was the woman’s gratitude? He’d put an end to the cruelty Kelly and his men had dealt her. He’d saved her life. She should be kissing his hands, begging his grace and expressing her thanks, not haranguing him at every turn. “No. I will not put you down.”

“Why not?” Morgana demanded imperiously.

“You should know better than to ask that. A woman alone isn’t safe in these climes.”

“I command you to put me down. This instant!”

“Lady, you do not command me to do anything,” he responded. “Be silent!”

“No!”

“Now, you listen to me,” he countered, goaded out of his usual reticence. “This is Ulster. More than that, this is my land, Tyrone! Here a woman does not speak again when a a man commands her not!”

Morgana twisted on his thigh, turning halfway round to glare at him. “I’ll scream my bloody head off if you don’t put me down at once! I don’t know who you or where you are taking me or what purpose you have to your actions. You’re frightening me, and I’ve had quite enough fright for one day and night.”

“Morgana of Kildare, I gave you my name. It is Hugh O’Neill. That is my home, Dungannon Castle. I am taking you there for the purpose of cleaning you up, giving you shelter for the night, then sending you on your way at first light.”

“Will you swear by that on your immortal soul?”

“Woman, you delude yourself, thinking you’ve had fright enough for one day and night,” Hugh declared in an ominous, threatening voice. “Do you provoke my temper at this hour, you’ll know what true terror is before morning comes. Now, keep your tongue behind your teeth.”

To the north, over Slieve Gallion, thunder rumbled and lightning stroked the sky. A responding cord smote Slieve Gullion, whence Morgana had come.

Morgana’s banked temper nearly burst forth. She knew better than to believe a word he’d said about sending her peacefully on her way. Come morning, someone might remember that James Kelly had named her as a Fitzgerald. She’d never get clear of Dungannon Castle then.

“Very well,” Morgana said, having the last word. She snapped her shoulders and, head upright, glared at the castle. She mustn’t give in to her weariness or let down her guard. If it cost her a night’s sleep to stay alert to the arrival of his man bringing the horses, so be it. The very moment she was reunited with Ariel, she’d leave for Dunluce.

Only a light rain was falling by the time they reached the portcullis. It was raised to admit Hugh and Morgana, and closed behind them. She shuddered when the gate groaned as it was lowered. That was not a good sign.

The village streets were dark and narrow and fairly quiet. She silently searched each crossroad, looking for a postern gate at the end of the cobbled street that might give exit outside the town walls.

In the town’s square, there was some celebration occurring. Hugh spoke to numerous men who hailed him from the doorway of a tavern, but he didn’t tarry. Morgana clutched the dripping tartan to her shoulders, her eyes on the open avenue ahead, which ended at a stalwart portcullis barring entrance to the castle.

It looked more terrifying up close than Traitor’s Gate at Dublin Castle. Morgana’s heart rose to her throat. A Fitzgerald woman in Dungannon—that couldn’t be borne. Now, when it behoved her to faint, she couldn’t.

Hugh held Boru still, waiting for the portcullis to rise. As soon as it had, he guided the horse at a measured pace over the long bridge, crossing the lake into the fortress. Morgana’s fingers exerted incredible force where they gripped his forearm, which brought questions to his mind. How had she come to acquire her unusual and unwomanly strength? Was she a protegee of Grace O’Malley, piratess extraordinaire? More importantly, was she actually a Fitzgerald, as Kelly had claimed?

Torchbearers and grooms rushed to meet him. Hugh dismounted and surrendered Boru’s reins, then reached up to help the woman down to the cobblestones, saying to the servants, “Wake Mrs. Carrick and tell her to come to me in the round tower. Fetch hot water and clean cloths. Both my guest and I are in need of hot baths.”

“I can’t possibly go inside tracking all this mud and filth,” Morgana stammered, clutching at every imaginary straw she could think of to avoid stepping foot in the castle proper. Hugh dropped his hands from her waist, letting her stand on her own. The light from the torches showed how filthy and battered she was. Few hags had ever looked worse. He inclined his head in the direction of the open well in the bailey yard. “Would you prefer that I have servants douse you naked with water from-that well?”

“Of course not,” Morgana answered, without looking for any well. Her gaze was fixed past Hugh’s right shoulder. “I can’t go in there! I can’t!”

The desperation Hugh heard in her voice caused him to swing around to look beyond the wide-open doors of the great hall. A measure of pride filled him, for the well-lit, stately chamber, filled with dancing courtiers and elegantly dressed and coiffed ladies, gave proof of how hospitable and elegant his home was. The happy strains of melodious harp and lute accompanying a tenor’s sweet voice entertained a bevy of noble guests.

“You can’t possibly think I want anyone to see me looking like this? Isn’t there a side or a back door I can go through?” Morgana pleaded.

Hugh lifted a clump of muddy, matted hair from her brow. “What difference could your dishabille make to others who have never laid eyes upon you? To what would they compare your appearance? Can you not be thankful that you are alive?”

“That’s unfair.” She lifted her sodden skirts free of her soaked boots, trying to wring the water from her hems with her hands.

Hugh took hold of her hands, stopping her from continuing such a useless and futile effort. “Nothing can be done for these clothes you wear, Morgana of Kildare.”

He caught her chin, lifting it, to make her look into his eyes. The torches glittered back at him from pale irises. “Where is that courage you had in abundance a little while ago? No one will disparage you for the accident of being drenched in a flood.”

“Were it only a flood that caused me to be in such dishabille, I would rejoice.” Morgana stared back at his dark eyes, her pride surfacing in the upward thrust of her chin. “Very well, O’Neill. Let’s get this entrance over with. The sooner begun, the better done.”

“That’s the spirit.” Hugh’s eyes twinkled as he gave her his arm. He didn’t doubt for a moment that his elder sisters would have a fit when they saw this woman enter the great hall on his arm. But neither Susana nor Rachel would dare to cross him in his own house.

Morgana held her chin high, laid her hand on his arm and marched up the steps at Hugh’s side. They hadn’t taken too many steps inside the vast hall before the music stopped, the dancing ended and all heads turned to stare.

Susana O’Neill rose to her feet from her comfortable seat on the dais, alarmed by two things: young Hugh’s tardy arrival to hall and his attire in the rough garments of a kern. Their uncle, Matthew, rarely came to hall, so Susana was by all rights the lady of the manor, and most entertainments she organized suited her pleasures. Since Hugh had returned from England, she’d made many accommodations to please him, but he really didn’t care what sort of events took place in the great hall each evening.

“Young Hugh? What has happened?” Susana left her seat at the high table, rushing forward to intercept her little brother. “Who is this woman? What happened to the both of you? I expected you to hall hours ago.”

“Yes, do explain this.” Morgana challenged him before the woman, obviously great with child, came within hearing range of her voice. “I dare you, young Hugh.”

“Ah, you just proved something else to me, lady,” Hugh said under his breath. “You are a troublemaker.”

Morgana’s hand left his arm, reaching out to snatch her dagger from the sheath on his hip. Again Hugh kept her fingers from their prize.

He offered a soft warning. “Mind what you do, Morgana of Kildare. Tempt me not to make you officially my prisoner. Kelly did accuse you of being a Fitzgerald. That is reason enough to lose one’s head, isn’t it?”

Morgana’s hand clenched into a fist, which she dropped to her side. She turned her back to Hugh, waiting to meet the approaching woman. Several more trailed her, young beauties all, making Morgana feel even more disadvantaged. She heard water drip from her clothes onto the polished tiles at her feet, but she’d be damned from here to eternity before she bowed her head to look at the damage she was causing.

“Ah, good eve, my dear sister. Forgive me for interrupting your soirée.” Hugh smiled disarmingly and bent to kiss Susana’s fair cheek. “I’ve brought a guest to the house. You will see that she has had a rather troubling time on her journey. Morgana of Kildare, may I present my sisters, Susana and Rachel. Susana, Morgana will need some cosseting. The Abhainn Mor is a most rapacious river. I fear Morgana lost all of her possessions to the flood.”

“Sweet Mother of God, Hugh, you weren’t out crossing the river in this weather, were you?” Susana exclaimed, her alarm deepening. “And why on earth are you dressed like a kern? Have you forgotten that I invited Inghinn Dubh to be here this eve?”

“No, I hadn’t forgotten.” Hugh turned to another woman, trailing his sisters. He bowed to Inghinn, also, but did not favor her cheek with a kiss, as he had done with his sisters. “Inghinn, you are-looking splendid this eve, as always. Ladies, please, do not allow us to interrupt your evening. I’ll see Morgana settled by Mrs. Carrick. She’ll take her under her wing and see to everything, I’m sure.”

Hugh turned Morgana to the open stairs rising up to the minstrels’ gallery. Ignoring his sister’s gasp of shock, he led Morgana out of the gallery, to the supreme isolation of the round tower. It adjoined the castle itself at his mother’s solar, on the second floor.

Both the tower and the solar had been closed following his mother’s death in 1570. Five weeks ago, when he and Loghran returned from England for good, Hugh had decided to take up residence in the tower’s comfortable upper rooms.

He had decided that Morgana could be housed in the solar and the sleeping chamber adjoining it on the second floor of the tower. His gut told him to keep her nearby. She was English, therefore not to be trusted. Servants ran ahead of him, opening doors and lighting candles.

Morgana hadn’t missed the surreptitious look of alarm that had passed from Hugh’s sisters to the beautiful black-haired young woman named Inghinn Dubh. The women surely thought their young Hugh was bringing a doxy into their house. Had Morgana been standing in their shoes, viewing a ravaged and filthy woman in these tattered clothes, that would have been her assumption. So she couldn’t hold theirs against them.

Her feet were literally dragging on the last steps up a winding bartizan staircase that opened onto a lady’s solar in some distant quadrant of the massive house.

Mullioned windows lined the solar’s outer wall to the east, two of them partially open, letting damp night air mingle with the ripe, earthy scent of a peat fire in the hearth. Numb with fatigue, Morgana surveyed the solar’s elegant furnishings, cushioned chaises, tapestries, painted walls, coffered ceiling and beautiful ribbon-fold paneling.

The chamber didn’t fit with her preconception of what the inside of the clan O’Neill’s stronghold should be. O’Neills were barbarians, brutal killers, savages. How could such ignorant, uncivilized folk have produced any such beauty? Morgana’s mind was incapable of dwelling on that conundrum. She wanted to drop where she stood, and couldn’t, because a man named O’Neill remained with her in this impossible-to-comprehend chamber.

The peat fire in the solar’s wide hearth beckoned her. Morgana stretched cold, trembling fingers out to it. Hugh’s wet kilt slapped on his ankle as he put one knee to a marble hearth and wrestled a stout log onto the fire.

“You’ll be comfortable here,” he said casually, casting a sideways look over his shoulder at her. Morgana swallowed, mesmerized by the breadth of his left hand as he rocked the log back and forth, breaking apart the coals underneath it.

Smoke and flames stirred to life out of white ash and soot-blackened peat. Sparks shot up, snapping and crackling with the blue flames that licked the log, and tried to kiss his hand. A warm glow gilded his profile, highlighting his straight nose and angular jaw.

Morgana caught herself staring at his mouth. It looked out of place against his otherwise strongly masculine features. His mouth was too pretty and too gentle by half.

A wild impulse to run her fingers across that Cupid’s bow lower lip, to touch the cleft indenting it, just to make certain it was real, unnerved her. She restrained the urge by pressing both her hands tightly against the wet cloth on her thighs.

“Mrs. Carrick will be here momentarily. You may sit down, Morgana of Kildare. The chairs won’t melt if they get wet.”

“Perhaps not, but no one will thank me for ruining them with the filth covering me,” Morgana told him. She spread her skirts toward the fire, abhorring the dirt ground into the cloth. It was not the best gown she owned, but it hadn’t begun this day as a shabby rag, either. Disheartened, she let the cloth drop. “I may as well burn this as try to clean it.”

“With two sisters and their offspring to the house, I’ll have no difficulty replacing that with something more suitable.” Hugh rose to his feet, dusting soot off his hands.

Both his knees popped loudly, making him grin at the incongruity of his own clothing. Standing beside Morgana, he towered over her. She was uncomfortable, and he knew the reason why. His bare knees, her torn gown. No wonder Susana had regarded him with such shock in her face.

The earl of Tyrone had not worn a kilt in his castle since he’d returned home from England. A wild grin edged Hugh’s mouth. He hadn’t liked dressing in a kilt and tartan earlier that day just to prove a point to his men, but he rather liked the feel of the cloth now. It had certainly contributed to his enjoyment of the ride home with a half-naked woman seated on his lap.

He crossed to a silver service set on a sideboard, uncapped a crystal decanter and poured a generous glass of spirits. Hugh put the glass in Morgana’s hand, saying, “This might restore you somewhat.”

Morgana brought the glass to her nose, sniffing its contents. She was as wary as a wet cat. “What is it?”

“Whiskey.” His fingers remained at the bottom of the finely cut crystal, tilting the contents toward her mouth. “Drink it by little sips, not too much at a time. It’s well proved. At the least it will warm your bones, at the most loosen your reticent tongue.”

“What do you mean by that?” Morgana sputtered over the first taste. In her part of Ireland, whiskey was a man’s drink. She was more used to wine—and that only in modest amounts.

“What would you like me to mean by that?” Hugh’s back, which faced the fire, enabled him to study her more critically. In the hall he’d guessed her hair was as dark as Inghinn Dubh’s. Under the better light of his mother’s Waterford chandelier, he could tell that the wet, mud-caked mop wasn’t black at all. Under the river’s grime, that hair was redder than autumn apples.

Even filthy and battered, she was an attractive woman. Younger than he’d first supposed.

Morgana tried to hand him back the glass. “I’m not going to drink till I fall down in a drunken stupor, if that’s what you’ve got in mind.”

“I didn’t say you would.” Hugh helped himself to a glass of Bushmill’s finest distilled spirits. “In fact, I’ll join you. A dousing in the Abhainn Mor saps one’s body heat.”

“So does the bloody rain.” Morgana tasted another sip, grimacing over the burn at the back of her throat. “Does the sun never shine on this part of the island?”

“I seem to remember it doing so upon occasion, but I will admit it has rained repeatedly since I returned from England. Does Kelly actually have a warrant for you, Morgana of Kildare?”

“I doubt it.” She met the intensity of his dark eyes without flinching. “Nothing is too low for his kind, especially if it means he can steal from defenseless children or women.”

“Are you speaking from personal experience?”

“Aye, I suppose I am.” Morgana affirmed that much, but she deliberately clamped her mouth closed afterward, minding her tongue. She took another sip from the glass, swallowing purposefully.

Hugh sighed silently. He wanted her to open up and give him some reason to put his trust in her. “Kelly rarely picks on anyone his own size, but then, most bullies are like that. You still haven’t said what it is that put you on his list of enemies.”

“I haven’t the foggiest idea.”

Morgana tilted the glass to her lips and finished it. She rather liked the whiskey’s immediate ability to start an internal heat. The ache in her jaw numbed, the back of her neck and her hip throbbed a little less ferociously. Her fingers trembled as she put the glass on the marble mantel.

“You will forgive me if I call you a liar to your face, then, won’t you, Morgana Fitzgerald?” She jerked when he said “Fitzgerald.” “A few years back, I had the dubious honor of attending Parliament when the latest writ of proscription against the house of Geraldine was read into law.

“More recently, Her Majesty insisted I attend the execution of an Irishman named Warren Henry Fitzgerald, as a lesson in prudent stewardship prior to my return to Tyrone. It is an act of treason to use the name Fitzgerald nowadays, isn’t it? Is that why you claim to be known as Morgana of Kildare?”

Morgana chose to say nothing. She turned to warm her back at the fire. A pair of burly servants toted a huge wooden tub into the solar. Hugh directed them to place it near the fire.

Both he and Morgana stepped back, allowing a stream of servants bearing steaming buckets to fill the tub. A short, heavyset woman supervised that work, and the laying out of towels, soaps and fresh clothing.

“We shall have to continue this conversation on the morrow, Morgana.” Hugh motioned the woman forward. “Here is my housekeeper, Mrs. Carrick, come to help you out of these wet clothes. A hot bath will soothe and restore you, though I do suggest you make a strong effort to stay awake after your bath, Morgana.”

“Why is that?” Morgana asked suspiciously.

Hugh brought his hands to her cheek and chin, touching the bruises on her face. With uncanny accuracy, he found a throbbing lump at her temple.

“People who sleep too soon after taking serious blows to the head sometimes have the ill fortune of never waking up. I shouldn’t want that to happen to you,” Hugh said firmly. “It would bode ill for the O’Neills to have another Fitzgerald woman die in this house.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.” Morgana lied with deliberate ease. “I’ve told you, my name is Morgana of Kildare.”

Hugh stopped himself from saying, And I’m Richard III. No good would be served by engaging in a verbal fencing match with her at this moment. She needed a bath and the cosseting of other women. The morning would be soon enough for her to answer his many questions.

Answer all of them, she would.

He realized then that he wanted to take this battered woman to the trial of James Kelly. Not because she could testify to Kelly’s boastful confession of killing Shane the Proud—the council of elders would consider that hear-say—but because under brehon law, rape was a capital crime, punishable by death.

Hugh’s corroborating testimony as a witness to that crime was enough to condemn Kelly. His kerns had also witnessed that crime.

Whereas Hugh had no proof that Kelly had murdered Shane the Valiant. He doubted they could elicit a confession before the council. The elder judges would not condemn Kelly without irrefutable proof that he had committed the murder. Rumors and gossip were not testimony.

Hugh turned to Mrs. Carrick, giving her instructions, and left Morgana in her care. He didn’t bother with explaining how the woman had gotten in the shape she was. Some things were not to be spoken of, to Hugh’s mind. Better that the women dealt with such things in their own way.

Morgana sagged onto a high-backed chair after the O’Neill departed. Without his presence in the chamber, she had no reason to continue to play the brave heroine while the last buckets were poured. She let her head drop to her knees and let go of all the worries and fears that had assaulted her from the start of this day to the end.

A babble of women’s voices crooning in Irish wafted over and around her, soothing her, taking her back to May-nooth, before it was razed to the ground and burned.

Her wet nurse and nanny had been Irish. Their language lay deep in Morgana’s memories of childhood safety, security and love. All that was gone.

Morgana had only her wits to keep her alive. She must get to Dunluce. She had time enough still. All wasn’t lost. Grace O’Malley had promised she would put into port at Dunluce on the tenth of May. No sooner and no later.

Morgana had every intention of being there when O’Malley’s ship, the Avenger, docked.

Mrs. Carrick bent over the softly weeping woman to gently shake her shoulder. “Here, now, my lady. The tub is ready. Come. Let us get you clean. You don’t have to do a thing.”

It was good that the housekeeper felt that way, because Morgana couldn’t have done anything for herself. Now that she was out of the elements, aches too numerous to count had increased tenfold. She knew without having to look for confirmation that her body would be bruised from head to toe.

Mrs. Carrick coaxed Morgana onto her feet and moved her to the tub. Two maids helped her to gently strip away Morgana’s ruined clothes.

Morgana clung to Hugh’s tartan, refusing to let go of it. Wisely, Mrs. Carrick didn’t fuss over such a simple need. She let the poor dear keep the cloth clutched to her bosom.

A girl she was, Mrs. Carrick concluded after supervising the whole procedure of her bath. In Mrs. Carrick’s experience, no woman grown retained a coltish, leggy body for very long past maturity. Certainly she was old enough to be married—all girls were, once their menses had begun. But this lady was young. Mrs. Carrick was convinced the young woman was no older than ten-and-seven.

They had to change the water in the tub twice once they wet her hair. Black Abhainn Mor mud held the tangled coils close and flat against her head. Washed and rinsed until the water ran clear, that head of hair hung past the girl’s knees.

Mrs. Carrick suspected that when it was dry, it would be the color of winter’s Hogmanay fires. Her brows and lashes, and the soft down on her forearms, were as red as autumn apples. Morgana’s skin wasn’t prone to freckles. Unless in the past she had taken great care not to be exposed often to the sun.

A cup of tea and a scone settled the girl’s stomach when leaving the heated tub had made her woozy and dizzy-headed. The judicious use of a leech drained most of the blood swelling the lady’s blackened eye and went a fair ways toward removing the worst of the bruising on her face.

Mrs. Carrick did not ask any questions about any of the injuries she treated. Morgana of Kildare did not offer any explanations or make any observations of her own, either. She seemed to be a stoic sort, and very private.

As for the rest of the physical damage the young woman had suffered, Mrs. Carrick knew time would heal each injury. The razorlike cut from Morgana’s breasts to her throat was most likely going to leave a scar. The origin of that wound caused a troubling frown on Mrs. Carrick’s brow. True, only the young woman’s husband would ever see it, but he would very likely have questions about its origin, too.

On that subject, Mrs. Carrick came away from the solar with numerous questions to put to Sir Hugh. Most importantly, where had the lady come from, and how was it that she had met young Hugh?

For a short while, Mrs. Carrick harbored the idea that Morgana might have met Hugh at court in England. On that subject, Morgana had made the vehement claim that she had never been to England. She’d said she’d never traveled north of the Pale until she’d begun her pilgrimage to Dunluce.

Of the few things Morgana had said, none sounded more outrageous than that she was making a pilgrimage to Dunluce.

No one in his right mind would do that. Mrs. Carrick knew that pilgrims prayed at Saint Patrick’s shrine in his cathedral at Armagh, climbed to the top of Croag Patrick in county Mayo and gave penance by fasting on Skellig Michael off the coast of Kerry.

There were no saints to be honored at Dunluce. Devils, demons, ghosts and fairy folk, yes. Dunluce had evil aplenty.

It was most peculiar.

Mrs. Carrick found a way to appease her growing curiosity when she found out later in the evening that Hugh had retired for the night. She made a supper tray and personally took it to his study, high in the tower. She found him in his upside-down seat, gazing at the clearing night sky through his optic instruments.

Hugh’s tower was something else that bothered Mrs. Carrick. He allowed no servants to enter the uppermost chambers. He claimed that some of them might do unwitting damage to his inventions and banned all but Mrs. Carrick and his gillie, Loghran O’Toole.

The young man was obsessed with grinding tools and glass furnaces and sheets of gleaming brass. He personally shaped and welded brass into odd tubes, making all manner of aids for sight. He also cleaned and swept the chamber himself, when he thought it absolutely necessary. That was the one source of contention between him and Mrs. Carrick.

Now—she had another—Morgana of Kildare.

“I’ve brought your supper, young Hugh,” Mrs. Carrick said, alerting him to her presence. He twisted his head around, disengaging himself from a strangely carved ivory eyepiece that left an indentation around his right eye.

“Ah, supper. Wonderful. Thank you, Mrs. Carrick. Put it there on my worktable, but do mind the glass lenses scattered on the felt.”

It took him a moment to untangle his long body from the upside-down chair. As he came upright, she saw that he’d changed back to his normal clothing, a dark tunic, fitted trews and hose. His wearing aphilabeg, and the woman he’d brought home, were the talk of the house.

Hugh O’Neill never dressed like an Irishman. To Mrs. Carrick’s knowledge, he hadn’t so much as lifted an eyebrow in the direction of any Irishwoman in the few weeks that he’d been home from England. Of course, he was a widower, but he was no longer required to mourn the loss of an English wife. None of clan O’Neill counted that a true marriage, since the vows had been spoken in the Protestant church and were therefore not valid.

To the clan’s eyes, Hugh and Loghran O’Toole lived like monks in this tower. O’Toole’s behavior Mrs. Carrick understood. He really was an Augustinian monk, ordained as a priest at Holy Trinity Priory in Dublin before the English razed the monastery.

Conn the Lame had provided the Augustinians sanctuary at Dungannon when Henry VIII had evicted them from their properties in Dublin. In return, O’Toole had been entrusted with the education of Conn’s grandson.

Hugh padded on bare feet to his table. He towered over Mrs. Carrick as she set his supper tray on the cluttered worktable. Looking up at him, Mrs. Carrick always had trouble linking this tall man to the apple-cheeked, curious boy he had been fifteen years ago. How they had all fretted and worried when Lord Sussex took Hugh from Ireland, and none more than his grandfather, old Conn. Losing Hugh had killed him.

“What did you bring me?” Hugh eagerly rubbed his palms together. “Summat sweet, perhaps?”

“A bit of the mutton from the day’s roast, and some shepherd’s pie. Bread and cheese, too. And there’s plenty of vegetables, do you care to eat them. I don’t think you eat near enough good cabbage, milord. To wash it all down, I brought you ale.”

“Excellent!” Hugh toed a stool, nimbly dragging it to the worktable without having to use his hands. He tossed the napkin covering the tray aside and gave a glance at his clock. “Good Lord, it’s gone past ten o’clock. I’m famished, and could eat a whole oxen. Did you make a tray for my guest? What’s she look like without the mud?”

“Look like?” Mrs. Carrick asked, surprised by the question. “Why, she looks as a girl of ten-and-six should look, Sir Hugh. Save for that awful bruise on her face. The poor mite’s battered from head to toe. Such bruises as I’ve never seen the like. Not from an unexpected dip in Abhainn Mor, I haven’t. But if you say that’s how the poor dear was hurt, then so she was.”

“I didn’t actually say that,” Hugh pointed out.

“Well, then, I suppose those rapids could cut a lady’s gown to ribbons. Or scratch her deep from her belly to her throat. Why, if she tumbled off that Benburg bridge, that would account for blackening her eye and putting bruises the size of a man’s fist on her back and her hip. Are you sure it was just the river you rescued her from?”

Hugh bit down on a biscuit, eyeing Mrs. Carrick’s placid face. He knew better than to try and fool her. “All right, then, you’ve found me out, Mrs. Carrick. Aye, a brute of a man was intending her grievous harm. But I don’t care for that to be common knowledge, or for there to be gossip down in the kitchens about her. She’s a lady, and rightly in need of my protection.”

Just what exactly had convinced Hugh of that fact, he couldn’t lay his finger on. Certainly nothing tangible. Then he remembered her horse and her concern for the animal, or for what the horse might have carried in its saddle packs. He’d have a look for himself when Macmurrough arrived.

Mrs. Carrick beamed at him, saying proudly, “So you dispatched him, did you? Good for you, O’Neill. You’re a better man than your father, if that be the case.”

“Humph,” Hugh grunted over the compliment that praised him at the expense of his father. His jaw worked, chewing a crisp biscuit packed with sausage and ginger sauce.

“I didn’t exactly dispatch him. I dispatched five English soldiers, and I’ve detained the bastard who beat Morgana. Provided that I can convince Matthew to summon the council for a trial, he’ll be dispatched once and for all. The man’s wanted for other crimes, but you know my odds of convincing Matthew better than I.”

“I heard talk in the kitchens that it’s James Kelly you’ve brought to justice.” Like most O’Neill kinsmen, Mrs. Carrick believed in speaking her mind. Hugh didn’t imagine the bright, bloodthirsty gleam in her eyes. She’d served three O’Neills, and as loyal and trustworthy as she was, Hugh hoped she’d live to serve three more. “Is that true, young Hugh?”

“You’ve found me out. So I have done,” Hugh admitted.

“You’re not one to brag over your accomplishments, are you? But if you’ve captured James Kelly, then I say it’s time you sat on the stone of clan O’Neill and declared yourself the O’Neill. It’s high time we had a strong leader, milord.”

“Last time I heard how it was done, one didn’t sit on the stone of O’Neill and declare oneself anything. The clan’s inaugurator does the proclaiming, else there isn’t any claiming to be done, period.” Changing the subject, Hugh asked, “Don’t you find Morgan a peculiar name for an Irishwoman?”

“Irish? She’s no more Irish than Great Harry or his harlot daughter,” Mrs. Carrick replied, exasperated.

“She could be ‘old English.’” Hugh referred to the descendants of the Norman conquerors.

Periodically the landed descendants of the Norman Conquest went into open revolt, as the whims of politics struck them. Queen Elizabeth claimed the tenth generation Fitzgeralds, Butlers and Burkes were more Irish than the real Irish, and too proud to admit it. That observation had stung Hugh years ago. Now that he was older, it no longer had the power to shame him into thinking he was less a man for his Gaelic ancestors.

“I gave that some thought, asking her of customs in the Pale—French wines and priest holes. She is very tired, tho’ and ’tis hard to guard one’s tongue when one is exhausted. I think she is English and titled, milord.”

“What makes you say that?” Hugh asked, actively seeking the woman’s opinion.

“Och, she was content to be served, as though it were her due. Only nobility take the service of others as their due.”

“She was boorish? Rude?”

“Nay, milord, nothing like that. She graciously accepted without question any service offered her. That’s the way of noble English ladies.”

“You have experience serving noble English ladies, Mrs. Carrick?”

“A few times, Lord Hugh. You may think me not old enough, but I served the Lady Catherine Fitzgerald when she came to Dungannon as bride to your grandfather, Conn.”

“You did?” Hugh’s eyes widened at that bit of news.

“’Twas a sad time, and I was a young girl, then, but I remember how gracious Lady Catherine was. Young Morgana is of the same ilk, a lady. I’d stake my soul on that.”

“A noble, you say,” Hugh mused, somewhat distractedly. “That complicates things, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, it does. Lady Susana will be hounding you about her. Susana was hoping you’d take favor with Inghinn Dubh.”

Hugh judiciously cleared his throat. “The queen would never approve that alliance. She’d likely have a fit if I dared marry outside of her approval. I know earls who’ve met the headsman’s ax for less.”

“Mayhap you shouldn’t have let her make you an earl, then.” Mrs. Carrick’s innate practicality came to the fore. She spoke freely to Hugh, still thinking of him as a young boy needing a mother’s good counsel and direction.

“As I wasn’t given any choice, I couldn’t refuse the honor,” Hugh answered, just as forthrightly.

“Och, you could have if you’d been at Dungannon when your grandfather died. He cursed all the Irish who make terms with the English. That curse made Matthew the weakling he is, God save his tormented soul.”

“I thought a fall from his horse broke my uncle’s back,” Hugh said, with no facetiousness intended. He tried to think back to his early childhood, to remember his uncle walking, or moving his legs unaided. No image of that came to mind, though he knew perfectly well that his uncle’s accident had happened after Hugh went to live in England.

Mrs. Carrick gave evidence of how deeply her own superstitions ran, by crossing herself before speaking. “A deathbed curse bears more weight than others. There are those what say it’s the weight of it on Matthew’s shoulders that broke his back. In the olden days, it was always an eye for an eye, tribute for tribute and ache for ache. Then Conn the Lame made terms with Great Harry, and you know the rest.”

“Fascinating,” Hugh said as he bit deeply into a bun stuffed with slabs of mutton. “You believe those old tales, Mrs. Carrick? Of witchcraft, and curses that pass on from generation unto generation?”

“Believe them?” She laughed a little too brightly, then reached over Hugh’s shoulder and took a pinch of salt from the cellar on his tray and tossed it over her left shoulder.

“I’m Irish, laddie. I believe in all of it, from leprechauns and pots of gold under rainbows on down to our Lord Jesus Christ and all his blessed saints. You’d be well served to believe in things you can’t explain, too.”

Now it was his turn to laugh, and Hugh did, chuckling deeply, but not scorning what the old woman said. “Ah, you’d have loved attending Queen Elizabeth’s court, Mrs. Carrick. She’s an astounding wizard in her employ, a Welshman by the name of John Dee. Some say his skills put the fabled Merlin to shame. I’ve seen him do fabulous tricks with my own eyes.”

“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.”

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.

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