“Comfort?” Annalise echoed, her heart pounding in her throat at how the goodly-sized room seemed so much smaller given Conor’s dominating presence. She backed away further still until she came up hard against the carved footboard of the bed, gasping.
Her startled reaction making him actually smile as if her discomfiture amused him, his teeth a flash of white and his face appearing almost boyish—making her heart seem to skip a beat. Yet at once she stiffened and drew herself up to all of her petite stature, which only made him smile all the wider, his laughter low and husky.
Was it the ale that had made him lower his guard around her? How many mugsful? Four? A half dozen? He didn’t appear drunk, and as quickly as he had smiled, he grew serious again and advanced slowly toward her.
“Aye, woman, your comfort. Mayhap you haven’t realized it, but you’re of great value to the O’Byrnes. We intend to keep you safe and protected until a plan is devised as to what to do with you. My father, Ronan O’Byrne, is chieftain of our clan and he will decide your fate and that of your steward, not me. Everything you need will be brought to you, food?—”
“I will not eat it!”
“Hot water to bathe?—”
“I will not use it!”
“Fresh clothing?—”
“I will not wear it!”
Annalise had tilted up her chin to stare defiantly at him, but Conor merely smiled again—although this time not with any humor.
“Then starve and stink and wear your Norman gown to tatters, for all I care. It could be days, weeks, even months before you’re once again among your own people?—”
“So mayhap you intend to release me?” Annalise felt such a lump in her throat that it had been difficult to speak, tears welling in her eyes. Yet instead of any sympathy reflected in Conor’s steely gaze, she saw only contempt that made her swallow, hard.
“Are you so eager to see your beloved bridegroom, Annalise Burgoyne? Maurice de Saint Michael? There are few men more despised in Éire—and God willing, he will be slain before you ever call him husband, we have only to first lure him and his forces into our mountains?—”
“He is not my beloved. I had no choice!”
Her outburst seeming to echo around her, Annalise clapped her hand over her mouth and stared aghast at Conor, who appeared as stunned at what she had so rashly revealed.
For a fleeting moment even, she thought she saw a hint of pity in his eyes before his jaw grew tight and his expression inscrutable.
“No matter. He must want you badly to bring you so far to wed him, your beauty enough to make any man crave you for his own…and which will bring about his downfall. Get some rest now, sleep on the floor if you deem my bed not good enough for you. Your comfort—or lack of it—is up to you.”
He turned then and left her as abruptly as he had entered the room, Annalise staring after him as the door was slammed shut.
The serving woman not returning, either, as if Conor had ordered Annalise to be left alone for a while to think upon what he’d said to her about days, weeks, even months that these Irish rebels might hold her captive?—
“Before I’m once again among my own people,” she hoarsely repeated his words, tears welling again as she sank down onto the floor with the back of her head resting against the footboard.
Yet strangely, a flicker of something else stirred within her…an undeniable sense of relief.
If Maurice was slain, then she wouldn’t become his bride, Annalise feeling some guilt as she began to pray that it would be so.
Such a wish was wrong, she knew it, but she didn’t want to marry a man who had seized upon her family’s misfortune to procure such a loathsome arrangement.
“Forgive me, daughter,” had been her father’s last words to her before she had boarded the ship bound for Ireland, tears streaking his cheeks that had grown sunken and lined with unrelenting grief.
Annalise had the strangest intuition at that moment that she would never see him again…his wife gone and now his only child—ah God, she couldn’t think upon it anymore!
Instead she began to weep, her fist to her mouth to stifle the sound, her shoulders shaking.
What was to become of her in this place? Conor had said she would be safe and protected, but how could she believe such a man?
A ruthless Irish rebel and an enemy of England. If Maurice was slain, would she still be turned over to her own people or had Conor said that merely to taunt her?
That thought made her sob all the harder, her fist no longer muffling her distress. She had never felt so lost or more hopeless, and so…so alone.
“Damn it all.” Conor stood outside the door to his bedchamber, not sure why he had lingered or why the weeping emanating from the room made him angry at himself all over again.
