The man he had always known to be one of the most fearsome of warriors stood outside his dwelling-house with Triona half supporting him, a fierce fit of coughing overtaking Ronan that made him slump against her.
At once, several clansmen rushed forward to help her get him back inside, the chill morning air the last thing his father needed at the height of the illness that gripped him.
Conor felt his gut clench to see Ronan disappear through the door, for he knew how his father wanted to be the one leading his clan into whatever battle might greet them.
Uttering a prayer under his breath for the man he so loved, Conor turned his attention to the clansmen surging from the stable with snorting horses hastily saddled, even as his own massive steed was brought to him.
Within moments, Liam, Tiernan, and now Niall, too, flanked him astride their horses after hurried goodbyes to their wives, Conor having no doubt that Deirdre would have insisted upon joining them if not for the babe she now carried in her womb.
Nora, his uncle’s wife, stood beside her, both women watching with their shoulders squared and chins lifted.
Eva, meanwhile, held the hand of her two-year-old son, Tomas, who rubbed his eyes and began to wail at the clamor of men and horses until she bent down to shush him.
Aye, such was the life of a warrior’s wife, a role to be borne with courage that must be taught as well to the children.
Waving his arm, Conor shouted for his clansmen to follow him as he rode through the gates in a wild tumult of dust and thundering hooves.
Annalise Burgoyne awakened suddenly to the sound of buzzing inside her tent, and she swatted at the insect flitting above her head.
A beetle had made its way inside, making her groan that she had only just fallen asleep after hours of staring at shadows flickering upon the canvas.
Shadows of tree branches waving in the stiff breeze.
Shadows of guards walking past her tent or bending down to stoke the campfire that blazed still to afford some warmth during the night.
Yet it wasn’t night anymore, the shadows fading as dawn approached on another day spent in these forbidding mountains—Annalise regretting again that her entourage had not remained with their crippled ship.
Instead of arriving in Dublin where an official escort awaited to take them to her future husband’s lands in Kildare, a terrifying squall had forced a landing far to the south. The main mast damaged and sails torn, Annalise shuddering at the memory.
Truly, it was a miracle they had survived except for four sailors washed overboard and drowned at the height of the storm, God rest them.
Yet instead of enlisting help from a nearby village to make repairs that could take a week or more, her father’s steward, Joffrey, had decided they should set out on horseback toward Kildare without further delay.
A delay Annalise would have gladly welcomed for she dreaded the impending marriage arranged between her desperate father, Edward Burgoyne, and Maurice de Saint Michael, who had become one of the most powerful barons in Ireland.
A thickset man with hawkish features and piercing dark eyes, Maurice had ostensibly returned to southern England this past summer to inspect his lands that bordered the Burgoyne estate—but in truth, he had come to make a devil’s bargain.
In exchange for paying off her father’s mounting debts that threatened him losing his castle and lands, Maurice would take Annalise for his bride—ah, God, now she felt as if she would be sick! Stuffing her fist in her mouth, she rolled over on her pallet and curled herself into a ball, tears burning her eyes.
Wasn’t it bad enough that she had watched her once formidable father crumble into a shell of a man after the loss of his beloved wife three years ago? His grief so intense for Annalise’s mother that he had lost all interest in managing the affairs of his estate until it was almost too late…only for Maurice to appear with an offer of marriage that couldn’t be refused.
“You’re even more beautiful than the girl I remember,” he had said to her after the bargain was struck and they were left alone, Maurice drawing closer even as Annalise had tried to back away. “I’ve always known that one day we would wed, and now fate has decreed that it is so. My first wife dead and your father agreeing to settle his debts in exchange for your hand in marriage lest the Crown confiscates everything from him…a very wise move. Now kiss me…”
She’d had no choice and no time to turn her head before Maurice had crushed her against him and covered her mouth brutally with his…the sickening memory of his hot breath roiling her stomach all over again.
She would have become his new wife that very week if Maurice hadn’t received an urgent summons to King Henry’s court, and then word had come he had sailed back to Ireland to quell an uprising among his Irish tenants.
Annalise had prayed desperately that Maurice might be slaughtered in the fray, thus releasing her from the unwanted bargain, but then a ship chartered by her husband-to-be had arrived in Sussex to take her to Ireland.
Joffrey and a dozen men-at-arms charged by her father to accompany her safely to Dublin…only now they were lost in the mountains, the brawny Irishman they had hired from the village to guide them disappearing yesterday afternoon.
Joffrey, his sallow face etched with worry, voicing last night that mayhap they should have remained with the ship after all. The forest so thick and the sky so heavy with clouds that he couldn’t tell north from south or east from west?—
“Dear God, help me, this journey has been nothing but a disaster,” Annalise prayed to herself as she drew a blanket more tightly around her shoulders.
The captain and crew of the ship were Irish, too, but not a one of them had uttered any guidance about setting out toward the town of Athy in Kildare.
Instead, they had watched silently as Annalise’s entourage had headed west three days ago on horses scrounged up along with food and supplies from the village and nearby farms, their expressions so somber that she had shivered before turning away.
