"Where we headin', anyhows?" Willie, quicker to forgive and forget than Caitlyn, asked the question of Mickeen. The ostler moved his eyes over the redheaded boy looking up at him with eager curiosity, then shifted his gaze to the black-haired one scowling at the redhead. Turning his head, the little man spat over the side.

"Donoughmore," he said.

"Is it a town?"

He grunted. Then, grudgingly, "Was a castle. Now it's naught but a sheep farm."

"Does he own it?"

"Who?"

"The Sassenach." The words were Caitlyn's. They had slipped out of their own accord despite her wish to appear disinterested in the conversation.

Mickeen looked at her with acute disfavor. "If you're meanin' himself up there, you're talkin' about Connor d'Arcy, his lordship the Earl o' Iveagh, and you show him some respect. Himself's no more a Sassenach than I be, or you. He's as Irish as the good green earth, descended from Brian Boru himself on his father's side and Owen Roe O'Neill on his mother's."

"He's Irish?" Caitlyn's eyes widened. "But-"

"Don't be believin' everything your eyes and ears tell you. His lordship was educated at Trinity College with the bloody Protestants at the wish of his father. He can ape their ways well enough when he needs."

"But why…?"

"Argh, that's enough out o' you, boyo. It's not for a beggar-boy to be questioning the activities of his lordship."

Caitlyn's eyes flashed at the description of her as a beggar-boy, but Willie nudged her in the ribs with enough force to keep her silent. She turned angry eyes on him. He urgently shook his head. Choking back her temper, Caitlyn conceded that Willie was in the right of it again. No purpose would be served by taking a swing at such an old bag of bones as Mickeen. All she would get for her pains would be to get thrown off the cart and left up to her arse in mud.