Maurice backed up and dropped Annalise, moaning, to the floor to yank out his sword, but already the blacksmith charged toward him.
A huge axe in his hand that barely missed Maurice’s head as he dodged the blow and lunged into the center of the room where he had a better chance of fighting off the attack—for clearly the blacksmith intended to kill him.
“I don’t know what you speak of—by God, if anyone is to blame, it’s my knights!”
“You lie, Saint Michael, my daughter, Tressa, uttered your name with her last breath. You ravished her first and then gave her to your men like the filthy beasts you are and dumped her into the street to die. My only child!”
Maurice sucked in a breath as he dodged another death blow, his sword sinking into the blacksmith’s left shoulder that should have felled him as the man screamed in anguished rage and agony.
Yet his opponent was so big, so muscular that it would take more to bring him down even as smoke billowed into the bedchamber, Maurice realizing that the tower was on fire.
He threw a glance at Annalise, who had regained consciousness and was crawling on hands and knees toward the door, but he could do nothing to stop her as the blacksmith swung at him again.
This time Maurice didn’t move fast enough and the axe blade sliced his right arm, an intense wave of pain nearly blinding him as he tried to lift his sword.
Yet it wasn’t the blacksmith’s axe swinging toward his neck but a sword as if out of nowhere in a swirl of black cloak.
No sound but a gasp of surprise coming from Maurice as blood exploded before his eyes and he slumped to his knees, blackness engulfing him.
“Annalise!”
Coughing from the smoke, she lifted her head to see Conor lowering his bloody sword while the blacksmith sank his axe into Maurice’s lifeless body and then staggered toward her.
He was dying, she could tell, his lifeblood spilling down his dark leather apron from the deep gash in his shoulder.
Yet somehow the man seemed to rally as he pulled a wicked-looking knife from his belt, though Conor lunged between them.
“No! She is to be my wife?—”
“By God, man, a Norman?” the blacksmith countered in disbelief, blood trickling now from his mouth.
“Aye, this marriage to Saint Michael was not her wish or choosing—and she is innocent of your daughter’s death. I heard your words as I ran up the last steps. Let us help you from the tower before the floors collapse?—”
“No, nothing will save me now. Take your woman and go…and may this accursed castle be razed to the ground.”
Annalise winced at the throbbing in her head as the smoke thickened, Conor coughing now, too, as he uttered, “As the son of Ronan O’Byrne…you have my eternal gratitude.”
Now the blacksmith seemed to raise himself up to stare at Conor and then at Annalise. “A famed chieftain’s son…aye, then it is well that I die here. The fire will consume me to ash and that one there”—the blacksmith turned his head and spat upon Maurice’s body—“so the Normans will believe her dead, too. May they never trouble you in your Wicklow mountains—ah, God, go now. Go!”
With an agonized sigh, the blacksmith collapsed to the floor near Maurice as Annalise was swept up into Conor’s arms and he covered her with a blanket he had wrested from the bed.
Her eyes tearing from the thick smoke and such overwhelming relief that she couldn’t have said a word while Conor held her against him and lunged down the steps.
He didn’t uncover her even when she felt him hoist himself onto a horse and spur the creature into a hard gallop with the sounds of battle still raging around them.
Annalise thought she might suffocate for how long he rode before stopping at last to draw the blanket from her head—his kisses raining down upon her forehead, her tear-stained cheeks, until lastly, he claimed her lips.
When he lifted his head a moment later, he was staring down at her as if he couldn’t believe he held her in his arms…his face covered in soot and his hair damp with sweat.
They both reeked of smoke, while around them, she saw that his clansmen were gathered in the field where she had thought she would never see Conor again.
“I commanded they wait for me here…I didn’t want any of their deaths on my hands. If I didn’t come back with you, they were to return to Glenmalure and tell my father I died trying to save the woman I love—but you live, Annalise, my love, my heart!”
“And you live, my beloved,” she whispered against his lips when he bent his head to kiss her again. “Take me home to your people…my people. It’s time we were properly married, yes?”
His husky laughter caught her by surprise for she had rarely heard it since she had known him, but when he drew back and smiled at her, she laughed softly, too, her heart soaring.
“Aye, Annalise, it’s time you become a true O’Byrne bride.”
