Conor’s arms had stiffened around her as if her response had somehow distressed him, his expression inscrutable in the flickering candlelight—though she shook her head, understanding flooding her.
For so fearsome a warrior, Annalise realized at that moment she held his heart in her hand, and she reached up to touch his face.
“Because you are the better man, Conor O’Byrne, and I care deeply about you. More than I could have thought possible?—”
Annalise gasped as Conor’s mouth found hers to silence her with a kiss so impassioned that now her knees did give way…though she didn’t fall.
Conor had lifted her against him even as her arms flew around his neck to hold him close, her heartbeat thundering in her ears.
She swore she could feel Conor’s pounding heartbeat, too, against her breast, everything around her disappearing as all sensation centered around the pressure of his lips upon hers.
Warm…so warm and fervent until he groaned against her mouth and then lifted his head as if with great reluctance to stare down at her.
His handsome face grown stricken now and his gaze anguished, which made Annalise stiffen in his arms as sudden tears blurred her eyes.
Any future with Conor was nothing more than an unattainable dream for the bitter reality that would soon separate them…the ransom and Maurice de Saint Michael.
“No…there has to be another way,” Conor said almost to himself as if he had read her mind. “There must be—by God, he will not have you!”
Conor released her then but held fast to her hand and pulled her with him to the chair where Annalise had left her cloak.
“We must leave now—aye, Glendalough is only a few leagues away. A priest at the monastery there can marry us this very night and then no one can separate us. Not my father or anyone else! Saint Michael will believe you dead just as I said earlier, and no one will be the wiser.”
“But what of Joffrey? He knows the truth—ah, God, surely you don’t intend to slay him?”
Annalise had stopped dead to stare at Conor even as he didn’t answer her, a terrible sinking feeling overwhelming her.
“He has a wife and five children awaiting his return in Sussex. Mayhap he could be sworn to silence?—”
“That whimpering scarecrow? All it would take is a blade near his throat and an oath made to me or anyone else would be forfeit. Annalise, we can speak of your steward later. We must go now while everyone is asleep but for the guards, who I’m certain will not defy me when I demand they open the gates—now come!”
Conor whisked her cloak around her shoulders and then he grasped her hand tightly again as he opened the door and led her through the rest of the dwelling-house.
Her breath caught. Her heart thundering, though the warm strength of his fingers flooded her with reassurance and made her rush alongside him.
Conor was the chieftain’s son, yes? Surely just as he said, no one would dare question him or stop him. Within a few hours she would become a bride—not of the brute whose fetid breath had made her stomach roil, but of the man she longed to once again feel his embrace, his kiss!
Within a blink it seemed Conor had thrust open the door and they stood together outside in the cold as he paused to ensure her cloak was wrapped tightly around her.
His face so handsome in the torchlight that she felt overwhelmed by the masculine beauty of the Irishman she would soon call her husband.
Her husband! Conor’s hair black as midnight and now flecked with snow that whirled around them when again, he drew her with him toward what she knew from their walk earlier that day was the stable.
Never in a thousand years could she have imagined then the swift turn of events that would soon find them married and sharing a bed together before the night was done—ah, God!
Annalise had never felt her cheeks burn so hotly as she wondered if that would even occur within a monastery or if Conor intended for them to return to Glenmalure after they were wed, when nothing could be done to part them?—
“Conor, stop at once!”
Annalise blanched at the vehement curse that exploded from Conor as he kept right on steering her toward the stable—a vast timber building with stalls for a hundred or more horses—while more shouts to stop rang out behind them.
A half dozen guards came running toward them, too, with several blazing torches held high that illuminated the swirling snowflakes as Conor swore again and came to an abrupt halt.
Annalise pulled tightly against him when he turned with her to face their pursuers, while the others stopped in a half-circle at their backs.
She recognized Niall O’Byrne at once, but not the two clansmen with him—more guards, she guessed, all of them as grim-faced as Conor appeared in the sputtering torchlight.
“You’re out late, Uncle.”
