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.”