"And well-spoken?" he pressed. "I have never encountered her."
"She has the Irish way of speech."
"But is she nice in her ways? A lady?"
"Yes."
Ben Gunn fetched in the chicken upon a salver, and my great-uncle busied himself in carving. 'Twas comical to see how Peter's stolid face lighted up. As he carved Murray talked.
"She should be an exquisite chit, Robert. She has good blood in her. Her mother was a younger sister of the Duke of Leitrim, and her father's father was a younger son of Lord Donegal. She will be much to the fore when King James returns to Whitehall."
"If he does!" I jeered. "I marvel that you should use so hardly a maid of such birth."
"Hardly?" He looked up from his carving. "Why do you say that?"
"Oh, an end to your shabby deceits and subterfuge!" I shouted. "I ha' told you already I know she is to be dragged aboard your ship when you take the Santissima Trinidad. What good will the Duke of Leitrim and Lord Donegal and Jamey Stuart and all their string of Popish knaves be to her then? Bah! I could stomach your treatment of me, Murray. But to expose a slip of a girl, scarce more than a child, to life on this floating hell and the attentions of Flint and his lambs!"
My great-uncle pursed his lips.