Lord of the Isle (10 page)

“My head’s gone to mush,” she informed Hugh petulantly. “And it’s too cold in here. There’s no fire.”

“I’ve got plenty of quilts.” Hugh steered her to the edge of the bed and sat her down. Putting out the lamp could wait a moment longer. “Besides blankets, it helps to have a drink each night before I go to sleep. Whiskey warms the blood.”

“I’ll say it does.” Morgana let go of her neckline with one hand and wiped her fingers across her face. “I’ve never felt so strange… ever.”

“Is that so?” Hugh knelt at her feet, took one in hand and began unlacing the boot, keeping his head bent, not wanting her to see his expression.

Fascinated, Morgana stared at the top of his head and the wide, wide ledges of his shoulders, jutting sideways below it. Even doing such a simple task as unlacing a boot made the network of musculature across his upper chest and shoulders ripple and bunch. If there were actually bones underneath all that flesh, she couldn’t see a one of them. Tempted, she reached out to touch his hair, fingering one of the smoothly plaited braids at his temple. “Did you wear your hair like this in London?”

“Och, no.” He shook his head, lifting her right foot to slide the unlaced boot off. “I kept it clubbed.”

“What’s clubbed?”

“Tied at the nape of my neck and tucked under, so no one can really tell how long it is. The queen says too much hair is a sign of poor breeding. Most courtiers keep theirs short to suit her. She has a weakness for mustaches, though, and beards. Says those are manly.”

Morgana pressed her fingers over her mouth to hold back a giggle. Something turned loose her tongue, and her thoughts spilled out. “I heard she’s got a red mustache…and shaves it off just like a man.”

Hugh glanced up at her face to judge the quality of that silly comment. He didn’t approve of malicious gossip, or indulge in that sort of behavior himself. Knowing that he
was always subject to recall to London, he didn’t intend to develop any bad habits that would come back to haunt him.

Realizing how seriously he was studying her face, Morgana pressed her lips together and looked up at the ceiling. Oddly enough, she found a square hole in that open-raftered ceiling. She hadn’t seen that before, and she’d thought she’d done a good job examining the empty room. “What’s that?” she asked him. “A priest hole?”

“No, lady. This is a tower, or have you forgotten that? A tower is built for defense. In case of siege, each floor can be cut off from the one below it. That’s a trapdoor, only I’ve removed the door.”

“There’s another room up there?”

“Aye, my loft.” Hugh nodded, setting to work on the left boot. She bounced backward, sinking into the feather mattress as she tried to bend far enough back to see into the room above.

“How do you get up there from here?” she asked, wiggling enough that her dangling feet were hard to capture.

“You don’t!” Hugh caught hold of her left boot, stilling it so that he could untie the laces.

“Why not?”

“What good would a tower be as a defensive works, if one could just get up to the next floor without a fight?”

“I don’t know. This is the first tower I’ve ever been in. We live in a manor house.” Those words were out and spoken before Morgana realized what she’d said. She blinked again, having shocked herself. “I mean, we used to live in a manor horse…house.”

“Which just goes to prove that towers still serve a very useful purpose.”

“My father said they are death traps, now that cannons can level even the stoutest walls.”

“So, you know a lot about warfare, do you?”

“Oh, no. Nothing.” Morgana shook her head. She shut her mouth and bit her cheek. It was too numb to feel anything.
She’d never been really drunk before. Her own numb sensations fascinated her nearly as much as watching Hugh’s muscles. She poked her fingernail into her cheek, testing the limits of the numbness.

The leather laces noisily whipped out of the eyelets each time Hugh stuck his finger under the crossover and pulled back. His hand felt very firm and determined at her heel, the pressure indicating that he wasn’t letting go till the job was finished.

The sides of her boot flopped open, and the tongue fell out. He tightened his grip on her heel and lifted her ankle with his other hand, drawing the shoe off. Morgana let herself giggle again. Her feet were ticklish.

Hugh took both shoes in hand and set them at the foot of the bed. He looked up at her and frowned to see her poking her finger at her jaw. “What are you doing?”

“My face is gone all numb. It’s most peculiar. Is it because of the whiskey?”

“Most likely.” He stood up, both knees cracking loudly.

“You have very noisy joints.” Morgana shook her head. “Is that what you meant by saying no one ever accused you of sneaking up behind them?”

“That’s what I meant.” Hugh padded barefoot to the lamp, intending to put it out.

“I would like another glass of whiskey.” Morgana said, putting forth her first of many planned demands.

He frowned at her. “I don’t think you need another.”

“But it feels very good,” she argued. “I mean, not the feeling all hot and sticky, but the numb part feels very good. My jaw doesn’t hurt right now. Nor do my arms or my neck.”

She got out of bed and came over to where Hugh stood under the lamp, holding her right hand up for his inspection in the light. The whiskey appeared to have made her oblivious of how loose the neckline of her undergown was. She leaned toward him, displaying the bruises on her wrist
and hand, and unknowingly showed him her splendidly uninjured breasts.

Hugh took a deep breath as he took her hand in his. His scowl darkened as he examined that complicated structure of bone and sinew that composed a delectably delicate hand. He threw mental reins on his rising interest in what lay exposed by the gaps in her gown, reminding himself that he was first and foremost a man of caution. Not a man of passion.

“See. It’s very bruised. Maybe another whiskey would make me forget how badly it hurts. And you should look at my neck. James Kelly struck me with the handle of his sword, right here.” She turned around, lifting hanks of tumbled red hair from her neck, exposing that sensuous curve to Hugh’s hungry eyes. “I’m sure there must be some sort of mark. I can’t begin to describe how much it aches right here…. Why are some men such bastards?”

Hugh laid both of his palms on her white shoulders. There was a terrible mark to the left of the fragile bones of her spine. Hugh knew better than to touch it. Instead, he carefully turned her around to face him. “I can’t explain why some men are cruel and hateful, Morgana. They just are. I’m sorry, but I don’t think there is enough whiskey in the world to make your pains go away.”

“Then why did you practically insist I drink it?”

“Because its most consistent effect is to put tired people to sleep.”

“Oh,” Morgana said, making her voice bright and full of energy. She turned around, walked to the bed and sat. “It doesn’t seem to work that way on me. I don’t feel at all sleepy. Only I never talk this much, and I’m talking a lot. That’s peculiar, too, isn’t it?”

Hugh blew out the lamp. The bedding rustled, and he assumed Morgana was settling into it. He waited for his night vision to adjust to the dark before moving to his side of the bed. Mostly he had to feel his way. His bedchamber was
blessedly dark at night, which was why he slept here. Before he got into bed, he unfastened his trews and slid the garment off.

Even on the coldest winter nights, Hugh slept nude. He stretched his back and his arms, then lay down, lacing his fingers under his neck.

He managed to lie perfectly still, but that wasn’t the case with Morgana. She wiggled and squirmed. Turned one way, then another. She pulled up the covers, and minutes later tossed them back to the foot of the bed.

Upstairs, the clock in his study tolled the hour of one. She sat bolt upright, saying, “What was that?”

“The clockwork.”

“Is it going to do that every hour?”

“No.” Hugh summoned the answer from a deep well of patience.

“It chimes one bell every quarter hour.”

“Sweet Saint Brigit.” She flopped onto her back. The bed bounced. “I’ll never go to sleep. I can hear it ticking.”

“You can’t hear the clock ticking. It’s too far away to hear that, and you haven’t been quiet long enough to hear anything but your own movement.”

“I hear it ticking,” she repeated. “It’s too dark in here. I don’t like it.”

“Morgana,” Hugh said dryly, “how old are you?”

“Two-and-twenty.”

“And I’m four centuries older than Methuselah,” Hugh snapped. “Is lying a practiced art with you?”

“I’m two-and-twenty years old, Hugh O’Neill. How old are you? Seventy?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You sound like a crabby old man.”

“You sound like a spoiled seven-year-old. Be still and be quiet. Go to sleep.”

“No. You’re the one who insists I have to sleep here with you. So you have to put up with the consequences. I’m not sleepy.”

She turned over, rocking the bed, dragging covers thither and yon. God only knew what she was doing on her side of the bed. Hugh considered taking her pillow and using it to suffocate her…at least as far as the point where she’d drop into a dead faint. He ground his teeth together. No doubt about it, now she was definitely being perverse—like all the rest of her English sisters. Obviously he’d only had to wait her out to discover her true nature.

“You shouldn’t do that.”

“Do what?” Hugh asked tersely.

“Grind your teeth. It a very bad habit to acquire. You’ll break perfectly healthy teeth. Then you’ll lose them, and you’ll wind up a toothless old man who has to eat mashed foods and pudding.”

Hugh laughed bluntly, unable to imagine himself either old or toothless. He abruptly turned onto his side, facing her, and stretched out his hand till he found her hip. She wasn’t under the covers, but then, neither was he. They had enough whiskey coursing in their veins to have no need for covers right now.

Morgana became very still and awfully quiet as his fingers splayed across her hip, gripping her firmly enough to turn her toward him. “What are you doing?”

“My lady, you’ve told me no twice when given a direct order. Did you parents not instill an understanding of obedience and law in your head?”

“I haven’t seen either of my parents in six years.”

“Are you using that as an excuse for doing whatever the hell it is you want to do, lady?”

“Sorry. I don’t follow you.”

“All right. I’ll make this even simpler, so your limited, womanly brain can understand. Do you know how to follow an order?”

“Of course I do. I wouldn’t be alive today if I didn’t know how or when to follow orders.”

“Then follow this one. Shut up and go to sleep.”

Hugh pushed her hip away and turned to his back. Blessed silence followed, so he laced his fingers behind his neck once more and closed his eyes.

Morgana rolled onto her back once he’d released her hip, and for several minutes listened to the ticking of the clock, which reverberated on the rafters, his breathing, and the constant thrumming of her heart in her ears. She could hear her throat creaking when she swallowed. The drip of water off the roof, and the lap of the lake against the rocks below the castle.

Oh, she could hear and identify all kinds of sounds. Beams creaking. Stone contracting. The rush of a bird’s wings as it took flight from the roof. The distant thrumming of a bodhran and the rattle of crystal glassworks tinkling in the wind. And running under all that, there remained the rumble of thunder as the storm continued its relentless drive southward.

Knowing she must get away from him now, Morgana took a very deep breath and turned her face toward Hugh’s. “I’m not sleepy.”

Hugh sat up. He swung his legs off the bed and stood. Morgana raised up to her elbow, looking for his shape in the darkness. She followed his moment with her eyes, and listened to the sounds his body made as he moved. Though the night hid all the details, she could tell he was naked, because his thighs made a curious whispering sound with each step he took.

The thought of his nudity brought other images to her mind, images she’d prefer not to see again. James Kelly on top of her. The visage of the warrior-god that had ridden across the Blackwater and saved her. Her own terrifying vulnerability when that warrior’s eyes had locked on to her, showing her the true meaning of blood lust.

A shiver of fear cooled Morgana’s skin. For the most part, Hugh O’Neill had been very kind to her and didn’t deserve to be manipulated. Was it going to matter what bed she woke up in when the sun rose?

It was not as if she actually had a reputation to protect in society. No, not at all. Were the truth to be admitted, socially she was ruined. A pariah. In Dublin, old friends alternately called her a whore, a witch or Ireland’s richest widow. Her dowry was immense…consisting of all the Ormand and Kildare lands combined, demenses, castles, vast plantations, and the greatest library in the world outside the Vatican.

That left Morgana in more danger than ever. It wasn’t just Lord Grey who wanted to force her into an unholy marriage. Each and every greedy upstart who came to Ireland to steal the country blind wanted to get his hands on the Fitzgerald wealth. And not one gave a damn how they accomplished bringing her to the altar.

Ruined reputation or no, it still mattered to Morgana whose bed she woke up in come sunrise every morning. Since Gregory O’Malley’s death, Morgana had always managed to wake up alone. She no longer cared how many people called her a whore. What mattered was that she wasn’t one.

It was very, very important to her that she not succumb to becoming one simply because the temptation to give in to a man had become impossible to resist.

For those complex reasons, she did at this moment, regret provoking Hugh O’Neill. God help her if he ever figured out how desperately she had to work to manipulate him.

Glass clanked together. A cork popped out of a bottle. Liquid gurgled and splashed. The cork squeaked when it was roughly replaced. The man in the shadows turned and trod softly back to the bed. Morgana sat up. Hair raised at
the nape of her neck and down her forearms, as she dreaded the coming explosion.