On A Wild Autumn Morn (The O’Byrne Brides #6)

Chapter 1

A peaceful morn.

Conor O’Byrne relished this hour before dawn when the stronghold was quiet, everyone still abed except for the guards atop the ramparts. Even the servants had not yet begun their duties, and only a few nickers drifted from the stable where the horses were tucked away in their stalls.

The sky still dark and heavy with clouds.

A crisp breeze rustling his hair, which he swept back from his forehead.

Aye, his favorite time of the day. Conor breathed in the air that smelled of wood smoke and autumn leaves as he strode past a row of dwelling-houses, his senses nonetheless alert in spite of the morning stillness.

It was his turn to remain awake all night long to oversee the stronghold’s security while his clansmen and their families slept, a critical task he shared with his brothers-in-law—Liam and Tiernan—and four trusted members of the O’Byrne clan.

Each man on duty one evening a week to oversee the guards and to stay watchful for any signs of trouble—though such events were rare indeed.

The stronghold was impregnable; Ronan O’Byrne, Conor’s father and the legendary leader of their clan, had paid diligent attention to their defenses over the years…just like every chieftain before him.

As Ronan’s only son, Conor would one day shoulder that responsibility, but first in line as Tanist was Niall, Ronan’s younger brother and Conor’s beloved uncle.

He didn’t mind at all that Niall would become chieftain before him, a well-deserved honor for years of loyal service to their clan.

He was an acclaimed warrior, too, and yet with an easygoing manner that differed from Ronan’s sterner approach to his position—Conor’s temperament falling somewhere in between the two of them.

He gave a low laugh now as he passed by the dwelling-house of his elder sister, Deirdre, which she shared with her husband of three months, Liam O’Toole.

The pair no doubt contentedly abed whereas before the wedding, Deirdre would have been up already and saddling her stallion, Tam, for an early morning ride, Conor usually accompanying her outside the stronghold at their father’s behest. Ronan never wanted her to venture out alone no matter her high-spirited bravado, which amazingly had tempered since Deirdre had become a wife and already a mother-to-be.

Aye, she could still be a handful, but Liam seemed to take her strong-willed nature in stride as if she constantly amused him—ah, God, love could bring even the most formidable warrior to his knees.

So it had done to Ronan, his devotion unwavering for his wife, Triona, Conor’s indomitable mother…

and to Tiernan, the stouthearted husband of Conor’s twin sister, Eva, their second son, Brian, born two months ago.

Yet, even with such marital happiness all around him, Conor didn’t crave it for himself, though he supposed it was only a matter of time before Ronan demanded he wed as their father had done to Deirdre.

He wasn’t averse to the thought of a wife and home and family one day, but no woman had ever stirred him enough to—

“Conor, a rider approaches!”

The guard’s shout from the rampart shattering the stillness, Conor lunged toward the stout inner gates where other men stood ready for his command.

Yet he waited until the same guard’s wave indicated not a foe, but a clansman, before Conor signaled for all three sets of massive gates to be hauled open.

His instincts pricked a few moments later to see the rider’s flushed face in the torchlight and the lathered condition of his horse, the exhausted creature’s sides heaving and froth dripping from his mouth.

“Normans, Conor! Four leagues from here!”

“By God, that cannot be,” he murmured under his breath even as the young man, one of the warriors sent out to patrol strategic points along Glenmalure, the O’Byrnes’ home valley, vigorously nodded.

“Aye, we couldn’t believe it ourselves that any would dare venture into our mountains. Fools! Yet not a large force, and only a few men standing guard around their camp.”

“A camp, you say?”

“Aye, we couldn’t believe that, either, a circle of tents around a stoked fire as if they have no inkling they’ve trespassed upon O’Byrne land. We were only two men, not enough to launch an attack, so I rode here straightaway—”

“We can reach them within an hour,” Conor said tersely, his fist clenched around the hilt of his sword.

Fury engulfed him that any Normans would dare to camp in Glenmalure, let alone the Wicklow mountains. Had the bastards not learned after years of defeat suffered during any incursion into lands ruled by éire’s rebel clans that their slaughter was assured?

Conor’s full-throated battle roar rang out across the stronghold, which exploded at once with commotion, clansmen rushing from their homes in half dress or even naked after lunging from their beds.

His strapping brother-in-law Liam thrusting his legs into trousers while Deirdre, enveloped in a blanket she had snatched to cover herself, stood alongside him until she rushed back into their dwelling-house to fetch the rest of his clothing and boots.

It seemed that men were dressed and standing at the ready within mere moments, sword belts fastened and weapons sheathed, while Conor had donned chain mail brought to him before he strode into the center of the stronghold to again raise his voice.

“Normans have invaded our land! One pitched camp at least, but who knows how many more might be out there? Mount up to ride and fight!”

His heart pounding and his face hot with outrage at the encroachment, Conor saw Ronan wave to their clansmen to affirm Conor’s command since his father wouldn’t be joining them.

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.

She knew that many of the Irish hated the Normans that had overtaken much of their country, but the ship had been arranged for by Maurice.

Surely her uneasiness was ill-founded and the captain and his crew simply didn’t want to speak out against what Joffrey had decreed, as if it wasn’t their place…

Annalise shut her eyes with the vain hope she might get some more sleep, but once again the beetle defied her by buzzing right past her nose.

With a groan, she sat up and threw aside the blanket, only to hear the cracking of a branch from somewhere behind her tent.

She heard a low exchange, too, in a language she didn’t recognize that made the hair prickle at the back of her neck…and then a guttural noise that sounded almost like choking, followed by silence.

She didn’t see the shadows of guards any longer pacing outside her tent and the entire camp had gone strangely quiet—until a piercing scream that she swore came from Joffrey made her jump up in alarm.

“No, no, please don’t kill me, I beg you—ah, God!”

Her breath caught, her heart pounding, Annalise stood frozen as she heard heavy footfalls approaching her tent and then the canvas was thrust aside with a sword pointed directly at her.

“Come out, wench.”

A harsh command in her own language that made Annalise want to throw herself instead upon the pallet and cover herself with a blanket until a strong hand reached inside to grab her by the arm and yank her outside.

Annalise cried out and nearly stumbled on the hem of her plum-colored velvet gown, a horrified scream strangling in her throat to see the bloody bodies of her father’s men-at-arms littered about the camp.

Eight…ten…twelve, not a one left alive while dangerous-looking men stood over them. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Joffrey on his knees with a sword blade pressed to his throat, his panicked gaze meeting hers.

“I-I told them we mean no harm, we’re trying to find our way to Kildare—”

“Silence, man!”

Struck dumb with terror, Annalise glanced up at the strapping warrior who still gripped her arm.

His expression grim and his eyes appearing pitch-black in the dawning light, matching the color of his hair.

Tears blinding her, she was certain in that moment her captor intended to kill her and Joffrey…until she felt him release her elbow and then sweep her into his arms.

Her breath knocked from her body, he drew her so roughly against him, Annalise choking now for air as everything seemed to whirl around her.

She heard Joffrey whimpering and a vehement curse from her captor…and then nothing as merciful blackness enveloped her and she went limp.

A soft plea dying on her lips, “No…please spare us…”