Lord Of The Isle
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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.”