Page 24 of The Duke’s Man-At-Arms (The Duke’s Guard #11)

O ’Malley heard the whistle and his mind immediately went into warrior mode. Within minutes, he was bounding down the servants’ staircase, issuing orders. Confident they would be followed, and the women would be protected, he burst through the back door, rounded the corner of the town house, and froze. Six armed behemoths stood shoulder to shoulder at the entrance to the alley on the north side of the building. Two were armed with clubs, one had a lead pipe, and two others had blunderbusses—one aimed at his gut, the other at his head. The last man held a wicked-looking knife.

O’Malley dove to the side as the knife flew through the air toward him, missing his throat but catching him in the shoulder. He ignored the injury, pulled the knife free, and returned it to its owner. The man’s high-pitched scream took the edge off the raw pain in O’Malley’s shoulder.

He didn’t have time to plan, didn’t need to. In a crisis the men banded together, working like a well-oiled machine, to do what they did best—fight! Garahan took out the man with the pipe with the butt end of his rifle. Tremayne shot the blunderbuss out of another’s hands. While Garahan and Tremayne tied their prisoners’ hands behind their backs, Findley shot the other attacker wielding a blunderbuss in the arm, then tied him up and walked over to stand beside O’Malley. “Ye take the one on the right—I’ve got the other bugger.” They advanced on the pair of men armed with clubs.

“Who are you calling a bugger?” one of the man mountains shouted.

O’Malley laughed and shot the club out of the man’s hands. The man howled when a large splinter embedded itself in his arm. “Finish it, Findley.”

“Aye.” Findley stalked toward the last man standing. “Toss down your club, and I won’t shoot you.”

“I’m a dead man if I don’t kill O’Malley while he goes after the angel.”

“Shut your trap!” one of the prisoners roared. “You’ll get us all killed!”

O’Malley’s blood ran cold. “Where’s Haversham?” No one answered, and he knew the blackguard was inside the duke’s town house! “Garahan, with me!” He ran like a man possessed. “Michaela’s in the kitchen,” he said as they raced to the back door and into the building.

“Aimee was upstairs with Miranda and Emma,” Garahan ground out.

As soon as they were inside, they heard Haversham’s plea. “If you kill me, you’ll hang.”

“Then I’ll die knowing I have avenged the other women you violated. How many was it? Did you keep track? Was I the first or the twentieth?”

O’Malley and Garahan stood on the threshold, mouths open in disbelief. The angel of the streets had her back to the door and the tip of the blade in her hand pressed against Haversham’s throat. “Lower yer arm, lass,” O’Malley ordered her.

“No.”

“Michaela, ye don’t want to kill the man,” Garahan said.

“Oh, but I do. I really do. He deserves killing.”

O’Malley’s mind raced. Fear that the lass had finally decided to confront the man who violated her—abducted her, beat her— filled him. He had seconds to decide how to handle the rapidly deteriorating situation.

He hated the man to the depths of his soul, had had plans to use his blade on him before beating him within an inch of his life, but now knew he wouldn’t…couldn’t. He’d taken a vow and would never go back on his word to His Grace. But he could not let his wife bury the knife she held into Haversham’s throat—she’d hang!

He signaled to Haversham not to move. Unable to do otherwise, the man blinked as if he understood. O’Malley turned to Garahan and lifted his chin to the right. Garahan crept in that direction, while O’Malley moved to the left. Keeping his eyes on his wife, and the point of the blade against Haversham’s throat, he whispered, “ Mo chroí… don’t!”

“He deserves to be punished,” Michaela said.

“Aye,” he agreed, moving closer. O’Malley could feel his wife trembling with the force of her anger. She was almost beyond reason…almost. He closed the small gap between them and prayed she would listen. “Drop yer arm. I won’t watch ye hang if ye kill him. It would gut me, lass. Ye’ll not die on me watch for taking a life…even if I agree that his is not a life that deserves to be saved.”

“I don’t want to hang,” she whispered.

“The lower yer arm.”

“But he’s guilty,” she wailed.

“We both know it, and if ye put the why of it into writing, then King will be able to do something about it. We’ll pool our resources with his and collect the names of other women he attacked, and those he threatened. Once we do, he will stand trial and answer for his crimes.”

Haversham sounded as if he were choking. O’Malley knew that he wasn’t. It was anger that he would finally answer for his crimes.

The sound seemed to snap Michaela back to her senses. She lowered her arm, turned around, and handed O’Malley the knife. Her tear-filled eyes beseeched him to understand. He nodded, and she rasped, “Thank you.”

O’Malley saw movement out of the corner of his eye, pulled Michaela close, and spun them around so that his body was between Haversham and his wife. Haversham’s roar of anger was punctuated by the gut-wrenching pain O’Malley felt as a blade was buried deep in his back. Where in the bloody hell had the man gotten a knife?

“No!” Michaela’s voice sounded far away as he struggled to catch his breath.

The sound of a fist slamming into flesh reminded him that he had planned to punch the blackguard in the face. Garahan must have beaten him to it.

“Hold on, Emmett!” his wife pleaded with him.

Voices mingled with his wife’s orders to fetch the stack of clean linen. Why she’d be thinking about setting out napkins at a time like this was beyond him. He shook his head to clear it. They had to subdue Haversham!

“Don’t you dare die on me!”

His gentle wife’s roared command had him opening his eyes to stare at her. “Ye won’t hang, lass. But Haversham might.” The pain was excruciating. He needed to call on his control, but couldn’t. Insidious shards of pain took hold of him. A numbness crept up from his toes to his knees and…God help him, his bollocks! He wanted to ask Michaela if something had happened to his lower extremities, but his mouth wouldn’t work.

O’Malley’s vision grayed around the edges and slowly darkened. He no longer heard the frantic tones of his wife’s orders, nor Garahan’s insistence that he stop being an eedjit and fight to stay alive. Everything faded away until all that was left was a blessed silence.

The air changed, and the sweet scent of new-mown hay filled his nostrils. He inhaled and sighed. Recognizing the scents of hay and horse, he realized he was home—in Cork on the family farm.

“’Tis about time ye showed up,” his da grumbled. “Though I’d rather ye stayed where ye were and enjoy life, I could use a hand baling the hay.”

The tall, broad man with the crooked grin and emerald eyes—the mirror image of Emmett—was standing right in front of him. His mind had to be playing tricks on him. How could he be in the kitchen at the duke’s town house one moment, and back home on the family farm talking with father the next?

He closed his eyes and opened them again, but the man did not disappear. “Da? When? How? Why?”

His father rubbed his chin. “Well now, the when of it is just now. The how of it is that all things are possible with God. The why of it is that ye gave yer life to save yer wife from hanging. Though, in me opinion, it would have been justified. By the by, she didn’t kill Haversham.”

O’Malley frowned. He could not be speaking to his da, unless he was dead, too…

He struggled to sort through the morass of emotions and questions in his mind until finally he asked, “Am I dead, then?”

“So it would seem, if ye’re here at the farm to help. Yer grandda’s in the barn milking Siobhan.”

“That milk cow died years ago… So did Grandda.”

“Aye, lad. Come inside. Yer grandma always has the kettle on and was baking scones earlier. She knew ye were coming.”

O’Malley forced himself to swallow past the lump of emotion in his throat. “But Michaela… We were wed just yesterday.” His heart felt as if it were being ripped from his chest. The ache nearly drove him to his knees.

“Faith, it was a rushed affair,” his da said. “Without the banns being read. But we understood ’twas the matter of her safety. She’s a brave lass, with healing hands and a heart of gold. Yer ma will love her. Have no fear, Emmett—yer brothers will take care of her.”

O’Malley’s steps faltered, because he still had trouble feeling his legs. “I don’t suppose there’s a chance I can go back?”

“’Tisn’t up to me, lad. That would be up to a far higher power. I’m in charge of watching over yer ma and yerself, yer brothers and their wives and children, and yer sisters and their husbands and their children.”

“Did ye blink and that’s why I’m dead?” His father’s snort of laughter had O’Malley rushing to add, “Ye know I didn’t ask by way of disparaging ye, Da. Nor did I doubt for a moment that ye were taking good care of me.”

“I know it, lad.”

“God, I’ve missed ye, Da. So have Patrick, Finn, and Dermott. We had no choice but to leave the farm to make enough coin in order to save it.”

His father nodded. “Ye were the youngest, but the only one with the gift of healing.” Patrick O’Malley placed his wide-palmed, callused hand on his son’s shoulder. “Ye’ve done well, Emmett, and lived a good life. Ye have always stood for yer brothers, yer ma, and cousins. Ye gave yer all protecting the duke and his family. Ye rescued then married the other half of yer heart. I’m proud of ye, lad. Yer son will be the spitting image of ye.”

Emmett’s legs went out from beneath him, but his da caught him, holding him up. “Michaela’s carrying me babe?”

“Aye,” his da replied. “Ye treated yer wife like the treasure she is. Ye healed the tearing pain she still held in her soul. Where there is love, lad, there’s life.”

O’Malley’s voice broke. “Who will raise him? Will Michaela marry another so Patrick will have a da?”

His father grinned. “Ye planned to name yer son Patrick?”

“Aye. Not one of us forgot ye. Ma told us new stories every day, used some of yer favorite expressions so we would remember them and pass them on to our children.”

“Even the one I used the most?” his da asked. “‘Work until yer bollocks turn blue’?”

O’Malley laughed. “Aye, especially that one.”

“She didn’t say that to yer wee sisters, did she?”

O’Malley’s snort of laughter had his da smiling. “A time or two,” O’Malley admitted. “But that was right before each one of them married. We did our duty as their elder brothers. The four of us took their measure and approved of the men our sisters married. Just as you would have.”

“Grainne, Maeve, and Roisin must have had something to say about that. Strong-willed lasses.”

“Aye. But they married good men, who took over working the farm, so that we were able to leave and find work in London. Between us, we ensured no one would ever take the O’Malley farm.”

“Well now, ye had a bit of help from yer relations up here as well. The seven of ye have done yer ma and me proud, son. Remember that.”

The reality that he would not be sharing that information with his brothers or sisters or ma anytime soon was an arrow through the heart. But nothing compared to what he felt knowing he’d never see Michaela again…nor brush his hands across her cheek…press his lips to hers… “How will I live without her, da?”

“Ye’ll have a new duty, lad. We’ll be adding ye to our ranks to help watch over our ever-growing family. As yer duty to the duke and his made ye part of his family, we’ll be adding himself and his family to those we guard from above. Ye won’t have time to miss her, lad.”

Patrick nudged his son toward the cottage. “Let’s go have a cup of tea and a few scones, or yer grandma will be coming after me with her cast iron frying pan. Oh, I’d best let yer grandda know ’tis time for tea as well.” He paused and whistled. A short, sharp sound that lanced through O’Malley.

He grabbed both sides of his head and felt himself falling…