But for this moment, she was still his slumbering goddess, his lady of enchantments. His.
Gently, he took up her hand. Such a delicate hand, compared to the rough bronze of his own. Redmayne's ring was just a little loose, an abomination glistening there on her finger. Ciaran hated it. It was a symbol of the Englishman's cunning, the shrewd and dangerous web he had woven to trap them. He couldn't bear to see it in place another moment.
Ciaran eased the ring over Fallon's limp finger, wishing he could toss it into the fire. He dropped it on the coverlets instead, but at that moment he felt her hand twitch. He looked up to see wide blue eyes peering at him, solemn, yet so soft. The eyes of a woman newly made.
"My wedding ring," she protested, loss darkening her gaze as she gathered the sheets against her bare breasts.
"No. The ring was Redmayne's." He wished he could explain to her how he'd felt, the fierce possessiveness, the fury it had raised in him that anything belonging to the Englishman touched her in any way. "This is mine."
His cheeks burned, his pride badly stung that this paltry gift was all he had to give. He couldn't meet her eyes as he poised his own offering at the tip of her finger, slid it into place. She'd think him mad. Ridiculous. He braced himself for the slightest flicker of scorn.
But her face glowed, lovely, intent as she peered down at the only thing she was wearing, the lace-work of gold wire he'd labored over throughout the night.
"It's beautiful! Celtic interlacing made of gold. Wherever did you get it?"
He felt an irrational urge to shove his hands behind his back, to hide the myriad of tiny gashes he'd cut into his fingers as he bent the gold wire to his will. I plucked it from a fairy's wings. I stole it from the god whose task it is to light the sun each morn. He wished he could spin her a beautiful story, far from the mundane truth: that a clumsy, fiercely jealous man had struggled with the gold wire and his own torn emotions throughout the night.
"I made it," he admitted gruffly. How could he explain that the intricate designs had risen up from some secret part of his soul?
"You made this? But how? Wherever did you find such a delicate thread of gold?"
"It's mine," he said almost fiercely.
Her delicate brows lowered in confusion.
"I uncoiled it from the hilt of the dagger I was carrying when you found me."
"Your dagger! But, Ciaran, it was priceless! You didn't have to do this."
His jaw hardened, stubborn. "The dagger is the only thing that belongs completely to me. You're my wife. My ring will be on your finger."
He'd determined to keep some safe distance between himself and Fallon. But how could any man resist the picture she made, gazing down at his ring. Her eyes glowed as if he'd just offered her a precious jewel instead of a tangled bit of wire. "It's perfect," she murmured, then flashed him a soul-stealing smile. "Look, Ciaran. It fits exactly."
And it did. No heavy gold band, no chunk of jewel could ever capture the essence of Mary Fallon as well as the ring of gold lace could. For all his resolve to keep his distance for her own good, Ciaran felt himself drawn to her, irresistibly as the tide to the shore.
"This is an ancient Celtic art—this weaving that you've done," she said, her eyes sparkling with enthusiasm. "Let me show you!"
She scrambled up from the bed and Ciaran's heart lurched at the beauty of her lithe body as she snatched up a dressing gown and slipped it heedlessly about her nakedness. Subtle shadows, flashes of velvety skin tantalized as she hastened over to a table and grabbed one of her well-worn books. Bringing it to him, she curled up beside him as if she belonged there. She leaned against his shoulder, one full breast brushing his arm with its tempting softness.
Opening the volume to one of the pages, she pointed to the border of one of the illustrations. Ciaran stared. The lace-work ring was nearly a replica of the intricate frame surrounding an exquisite picture.
"Ciaran, don't you see how important this is?" Fallon said eagerly. "You must have some memory of interlacing, some link with it, or you could never have created this beautiful ring."
But he'd forgotten interlacing, forgotten the ring, forgotten everything as he stared at the delicately tinted image on the page. Two lovers lay upon on a platform made of stone, the woman slumbering, wrapped in the folds of her lover's mantle. Even at a glance, Ciaran could see that they were being hunted. The man guarded the dark-tressed beauty, watchful, as if at any moment some unseen force might snatch her away.
"Who are they?" Ciaran couldn't help but ask, some sense of kinship tugging at his vitals.
"Deirdre and Naosi—the most tragic, most wondrous lovers ever to wander Ireland's hills," Fallon said. "They defied a king because of their love. They divided the loyalties of the knights of the Red Branch—a breach that could never be healed. And yet, their story has haunted the hearts of all Ireland ever since. She's said to be the most beautiful woman ever born, but that isn't how she is remembered. She's called Deirdre of the Sorrows, because in the end, Naosi was betrayed by his enemies."
The words slipped like an icy blade beneath Ciaran's skin. He stood, paced to the window, wishing it was as easy to shove aside the feelings Mary Fallon stirred in him, the needs she unleashed, the promises in her lovely face.
"This is one of the most haunting poems ever written," she said softly. "Deirdre's Lament."
Her eyes slid closed and she recited by memory.
"The lions of the hill are gone, And I am left alone -alone- Dig the grave both wide and deep, For I am sick, and fain would sleep!
The dragons of the rock are sleeping, Sleep that wakes not for our weeping: Dig the grave, and make it ready; Lay me on my true-love's body."
The words of the poem resonated through Ciaran's whole being, like the shaft of an arrow that had found its mark. True love. Was it possible that he and Fallon had found a love so beautiful, so complete? Because he did love her. The realization pierced him. Love had been the force that had driven him to take her in his arms last night, to strip away her nightgown and worship her moon-pale body with his hands, his mouth. Love clenched in a fist about his heart, exquisite, terrifying, the most beautiful anguish a man could ever know.
He raised his gaze to Fallon's face, saw the tiniest glisten of a tear at the corner of her eye as she traced one slender finger over the lovers on the page. "They killed him before her eyes," she said, softly, as if she were Deirdre, mourning.
It was a shadow, just a shadow of grief over lovers long dead, lovers neither he nor Fallon had ever known. Why did it feel so fresh, so new?
Because for the first time Ciaran knew what it was to love, what it would mean to lose.
He wanted to tell her—tell her everything she meant to him. Wanted her to know that she held his heart in her hands. But he crushed the words, his jaw knotting with the effort. She was in love with a legend, not a mere man. And yet, even if love's incandescent light should glow in her eyes just for him, he couldn't tell her how he felt. His gaze moved sorrowfully to the image of the dark-tressed woman clasped in Naosi's arms. Had Deirdre known there was so little time before destiny claimed him, and death stole Naosi away?
What would happen to the dreams in Fallon's eyes if she watched him die as Deirdre had watched her lover?
Love was like a blade, and it had been forged between them in fires hotter than any Ciaran had ever known. Beautiful as it was, it could bring terrible, gaping wounds.
He wanted to take her in his arms, hold tight to whatever time the fates allowed them. He was tempted to scoop her up, to do as Naosi had done and carry her into the wild lands where Redmayne's treachery could never touch her.
But the danger in running was that once you began, you were doomed to run forever. And wandering thus, one step ahead of the huntsman, was no life for a woman, romantic as it might seem when captured in bard song. There, you couldn't feel the bite of winter winds, the hunger gnawing in your belly, nor realize the pain in sacrificing everything you'd ever known. What kind
of man could ask that of a woman, no matter how desperately he loved her?
He took the book from her hands and closed it, the illustration suddenly too painful to look at. As he carried it back to the table, he gathered up the pieces of his spirit her loving had stripped raw. With fierce resolve, he hardened them against the mystical beckoning in her eyes.
"What happened between us last night was a mistake, Fallon. A dangerous one."
A weaker woman might have been hurt. Fallon only raised her chin a notch higher, her sea-blue eyes shining with certainty. "No, it was beautiful, Ciaran. For both of us. I saw it in your face, felt it in your touch. You were as shaken by the power of our lovemaking as I was."
Ciaran felt as if she'd torn open his chest. "That may be. But it doesn't change anything. I won't be touching you again." Not until I unravel the mystery of my identity. Until I find a way to render Redmayne harmless.
She rose from the bed, her dressing gown streaming around her, her hair a nimbus of sunset curls—a woman, infinitely generous, heartbreakingly brave. If Deirdre had looked at Naosi thus, Ciaran understood why the warrior had cast caution to the winds and carried her away.
"You're not making any sense," Fallon insisted. "We've already made love. It was beautiful."
Ciaran ground his teeth. Beautiful? It was too small, too common an expression. No word had yet been invented that could reach the depth and breadth of the wonder that had happened between them. But he quelled the thought, his voice harsh.
"It was a distraction. A dangerous one. From this moment on, I intend to focus on what I should have focused on from the beginning: discovering who I am, if I'm dangerous, if somewhere, somehow, I have responsibilities. Am needed."
Curse her for the understanding that softened those rosy lips. "Of course. We'll find the answers together."
"No, Fallon. The answers are mine, and I'll find them myself. I'm going back to the castle, to find some way to track this Silver Hand to his lair."
"But you could be killed!" she burst out. "They're desperate men, the smugglers. They will do whatever is necessary to protect their secrets."
Ciaran thought he'd almost enjoy bashing a few smugglers, sweating out some of the frustration, the raging emotions that were roiling inside him. "It's a risk I'll have to take."
He winced at the sudden squaring of her shoulders.
"I'm going with you," Fallon insisted. "I'm known throughout Glenceo. Even the most desperate men hereabouts would never dare to hurt me. They trust me, after a fashion."
The thought of Fallon hurling herself into danger again on his behalf made Ciaran's gut clench. "Absolutely not. You'll have plenty to do on your own while I'm gone."
"Ciaran—"
He wheeled on her, lashing out the only way he knew how. "Don't you think we should get to work, trying to save your castle, Mary Fallon? Neither one of us can keep playing at fairy tales forever."
She flinched as the words lashed her, and he hated himself for striking at such a soft, vulnerable place in her spirit. But she only confronted him with stony resolve. "It's been a little difficult to concentrate on anything except hauling you out of trouble for the past few days. If you hadn't run away, I might have had a chance to begin considering—"
Ciaran cut her off with an impatient gesture. "We've been through all that. It doesn't matter anymore. It's time to focus on the task at hand. You did summon Ciaran of the Mist from the fairy kingdom for a reason, I presume."
"Of course! I told you what Redmayne threatened to do. That he was going to destroy..."
Castle ruins, tumbledown circles of stone, the ancient dolmens like those on which Deirdre and Naosi had slept. Shattered remnants of ancient glory—ghosts of a time that could never come again. Why the devil shouldn't he stand back and let Redmayne and his kind shove the infernal eyesores into the sea?
Because tearing them apart would be like tearing the very heart out of Mary Fallon. And no matter what Ciaran himself believed, that was one thing he couldn't bear. The least he could do was preserve some part of her dreams, to keep the light of magic sparkling in her eyes after he was gone.
"While I'm searching the coast for this infamous Silver Hand, you need to dredge up information about these stone wrecks you want to save. Whose property are they on? Does Redmayne have the owner's permission to tear the things down?"
Fallon bristled. "Caislean ag Dahmsa Ceo doesn't 'belong' to anyone. Neither do the fairy rings of stone. It's impossible to own the soul of an entire people."
Perhaps that was true, Ciaran thought, but he was discovering it was possible for a woman to hold a man's soul in her hands. He dared not let Fallon suspect—what? That he loved her? That he would walk through fire for her? That despite the tragedy that had given birth to a legend, he envied the long-dead Naosi for what little time the ancient Celtic lover had had with his lady? He battled back the raw emotions with his own anger.
"If the monuments can't belong to anybody, why did you go to all the trouble of summoning Ciaran of the Mist in the first place? Why didn't you just storm up to Captain Redmayne and tell him that? Your problem would have been solved with a lot less trouble."
Her cheeks flamed. Her embarrassment stung Ciaran, her anger chafed him, but it was the hurt in those eyes that had glowed with passion such a short time ago that undid him. "I know what you're trying to do, Ciaran. You're just trying to distract me—keep me busy, like a troublesome child, so I won't insist on going with you to find Silver Hand. But it won't work. Hugh hasn't been able to control me since our mother died. And you won't be able to keep me from doing what I know is right, either."
The woman would have made a glorious warrior queen, marching off to disaster, her head held high. Not waiting for a man like Naosi to do battle for her, she'd fling herself into the fray, to take the sword thrust meant for him. Not once would she stop to count the cost to herself. If legends could still be born in manor houses instead of castles, Fallon was the kind of woman who could play the heroine in one. Naosi should be grateful his Deirdre accepted his shelter, allowed him to protect her. Fallon never would.
"Fallon," Ciaran said, low. "It's true that I don't want you near these smugglers. But that isn't why I'm asking you to stay behind. I've asked you to perform vital tasks, tasks that might hold the key to whether or not the Castle of the Dancing Mist falls. If we could find out who owns the property, we might be able to reason with them, talk them out of destroying something so ancient."
"And exactly how would we do that? Most of the landlords would be thrilled to rid themselves of the ruins. They mock the crofters for their superstition, but you won't catch one of the pompous idiots with the nerve to walk into a fairy ring at night. The stones are a reminder that Ireland might not be subdued, but only sleeping. That it might awaken at any moment and scatter its conquerors to the winds."
Ciaran frowned. To someone logical, like Captain Redmayne, Fallon's image might sound absurd, yet Ciaran couldn't discount it. Even in the brief span of a few days, he'd felt the undeniable pulse of this land, as if rivers of enchantment flowed just beneath its surface. Every stream or pond sparkled with water nymphs, every hidden glen was a haven for magic, an unearthly power he sensed was unique to this island.
To anyone who hadn't been bred here, it must be not only beautiful but also a little frightening, as unpredictable as the weather that cast rain across the heather, then an instant later set the drops sparkling with sunshine.
"You claim that the gentry are uneasy?" Ciaran prodded.
"Squire Harry Biddleston once claimed it was like being stalked by a ghost whenever he rode past one of the standing stones in his parkland. Doubtless, the ghosts of all the people his family starved out, abused, stole from. Every family in the county has some sin to haunt them."
Ciaran scowled, mulling over Fallon's comments. Fear—it could be far more powerful than a sword. Because it was an enemy that had already breached the walls, one that lived inside you. "Perhaps reasoning isn't the answer
. There might be another way," Ciaran mused slowly.
"What are you saying?"
Ciaran crossed to where her sketchbook and pencils lay. He gathered them up and brought them to her. "Draw up a map charting all the ruins you want to protect. Add the names of the landlords who hold sway over them. Note down anything about the landlords that might be useful—skeletons in their family closets, secrets they might have, any weakness we might be able to use."
"Use for what?" Fallon asked, as she pressed the sketchbook to her breasts.
"You've almost managed to make me believe in this nonsense—a nine-hundred-year-old hero called back from the mist. Isn't it possible that we can make them believe it as well?"
"Make who believe? The gentry?"
"Why not, if they're as vulnerable to suggestion as you seem to think. But I'll need every weapon you can give me, every detail from this legend. After all, if Ciaran of the Mist is to walk again, he'd better not be bumbling about as I have the last few days. It's damned hard to be intimidating if you don't even remember your name."
"You? Portray Ciaran of the Mist?" She nibbled at the full curve of her bottom lip, perplexed. "It's a wonderful idea, but isn't it too late? The servants already know you as my husband. And the rest of the neighborhood soon will if Hugh has anything to say about it. One ball or soiree, and they'll all recognize you."
"I'll deal with your brother."
She forgot to be angry about the bond between the two men, the knowledge that Hugh would listen to Ciaran when he wouldn't listen to her. All thoughts were banished except her sudden realization of the import of Ciaran's words.
Her eyes widened, her features fiercely intent. "Wait. This plan. Does it mean... Do you mean you believe? That you're Ciaran?"
Her Magic Touch (Celtic Rogues Book 3) Page 19