"It would have been beautiful, Fallon," he whispered, his voice ragged. "A forever to love you. But sometimes the tale ends before we wish it to. Remember how you told me the story of Deirdre and Naosi?"
She nodded. "I-I thought it was beautiful... until now. Love hurts too much. I wish I'd never let myself..." She broke off with a choked sob. "No, I could never wish that. I just never knew the truth—why Deirdre couldn't go on without him."
He smiled at her, a smile filled with pain and love, aching at the thought of Fallon's loss, her grief, the knowledge that she would have to face it alone, in the bed they had shared. "You won't die as Deirdre did, of a broken heart. You're strong, Fallon. As strong as the cliffs by our castle. This place has made you that way. You'll hold your head high, lady. Sorrow won't break you. And you'll live a long life, a full one."
"What life? How can I do it without you?"
"I know you don't think so now, but in time Misthaven will heal you. That, and the knowledge that whatever happens in the future, we both found what we were searching for at your castle by the sea. You found a way to trust again, and discovered the love of your brother. You stepped through the gateway of your legends into the world of the living. And I—I had the privilege of loving you, if only for a little while. I had no life, no memory before you found me, Fallon, healed me. I consider it an honor to lay that life down to save everything you love."
"But I love you most of all."
"You taught me that no one who ever really loves this place ever leaves it entirely, no matter where they go—to the New World or to the life hereafter. They leave a piece of themselves behind." Ciaran stroked her cheek. "Don't you know I'll be with you every time you feel the kiss of the mist on your face?"
She clutched him tight, as if she were trying to meld them into one being, one soul. Didn't she know her love already had? When she pulled away, she looked stronger somehow, more beautiful than ever. He had never loved her more.
"I'll find some way to save you, Ciaran."
Dark dread spilled through Ciaran, terror for her. Was there anything that would stop this valiant woman from attempting to snatch him from death? Anything that would make her cautious? Protect her?
He groped for something that might give her pause. Suddenly an idea came to him, infinitely sweet and precious and—most astonishing of all—possible. The thought awed him, filled him with hope.
"You can't risk yourself, love. What if..." His hand slid ever so gently to her belly. Was it possible it felt fuller? Or was it only that he wished it were so? "There's a chance, just a chance, I've left a part of myself with you. A child made of our love."
A faint spark of joy, hope flickered in Fallon's eyes. "It's too soon to tell—" She stopped. Her lips trembled. "You're using it against me, to tie my hands. To stop me."
"I'd like to believe that you carry my child. It might be true, Fallon. Everything about our love has been so magical. From the very first."
"Magic." Her voice was sorrowful. She drew away from him, a broken laugh stealing from her lips. "I-I brought you something. I'm not certain why. I just wanted you to have it." She slipped one hand beneath her skirts, drew out a soft bundle.
He ran his fingertips over the stitches she'd set into the shirt with such love. "It's beautiful. I'll wear it—" he couldn't finish. Was it cowardice in him—the comfort he took in the fact that he could wear this gift when he strode out of this cell to meet his death? All he knew is that it would help give him the courage he needed to leave his lady behind.
"There is something else," she said, a flush darkening her cheeks. Within the billows of the shirt he found another object wrapped up in a lace-edged handkerchief. Hard, heavy, it lay in his palm.
Ciaran folded back the bit of linen, and what he saw there made his throat constrict. Cabochon jewels glinted red on ancient, mellow gold. "The cloak brooch of Ciaran of the Mist," he whispered. "No, Fallon. I can't take this from you. What if Redmayne gets his hands on it?"
He tried to force it back into her hands, but she thrust them behind her back and shook her head.
"At first, I'd hoped the enchantment would protect you somehow, that you'd—I don't know—vanish in a puff of mist before they could kill you. I've discovered there is another reason I brought it instead. This belonged to a hero, lost centuries ago. Now it belongs to the bravest man I know."
The door opened, and the young soldier cleared his throat. "You'll have to leave now, madam."
Ciaran caught her in his arms one last time, the edges of gold cutting into his hand. "You can't leave Ciaran's cloak brooch with me, Fallon. The legend—you're supposed to keep it, pass it down through the generations."
She gazed up at him, a lifetime of fairy tales in her eyes, the magic of myths and legends softening her lips. Yet he knew that at long last, Mary Fallon realized they were make-believe. His lady had stepped forever into the real world. The certainty filled him with stark regret.
"Then you'll have to find a way to live, won't you?" she said. "Bring it back to me."
She pressed a parting kiss on his lips, then turned and left the cell. Ciaran stood there, clutching the ancient talisman, foreboding gnawing his nerves. Both she and Hugh would fight with all their might to save him. Put themselves at risk. There was only one thing to do. The sooner this was over the better. He hid the brooch in the billowy folds of his shirt then went to the door.
"You!" He called out, hammering at the thick wooden panel. "Guard!"
The youth opened the door.
"Tell the captain I wish to see him. There is something of importance I need to ask him."
"Aye. I'll tell him." The guard shut and locked the door again, returning with Redmayne in an astonishingly short time.
The captain's eyes betrayed the slightest hint of curiosity, amusement, until his gaze flicked to the lace-edged handkerchief Ciaran still held in his hand. Something shifted, ever so slightly, in the captain's look, his voice a little softer. "There is something you needed to ask me about, MacDonough?"
Ciaran's mouth set, grim. "How soon can you manage to arrange a hanging?"
"You are so eager to die?" Redmayne's brow raised a fraction. "I confess, I am astonished. I think few men would be hasty to embrace the grave if Mary Fallon Delaney ever gazed up at them with such adoration."
The words chilled Ciaran. Was it possible Redmayne had feelings for Fallon? Wanted her? That once Ciaran was hanged, he'd...
No. Hugh would keep Fallon safe. She was in far greater danger of putting herself in some sort of peril in an effort to save Ciaran's life. The only way Ciaran could end that danger was to die.
"My wife has suffered enough because of me," Ciaran said. "I want an end to this, Redmayne."
Was there a flash of something almost human in Redmayne's countenance? Understanding? Strange. Whatever it was, Ciaran found it far more unsettling than his animosity or his scheming.
"An end to this," Redmayne echoed. "Yes. It is time. We should be able to have this settled by morning if my superior, General Scargill, arrives by then. He was most insistent that he be in on the kill."
"How long will it take for him to get here once he scents blood?"
"I've already sent word to the general that Silver Hand has been captured. He should be here before noon. The instant he reaches Glenceo, I promise you this, MacDonough." Redmayne crossed his arms over his uniformed chest. "I'll do everything in my power to hasten the day we make Mary Fallon a widow."
Chapter 19
The night keened beyond the glass panes, as if the salt sea wind were already mourning the death of a hero, a loss the mist-shrouded land had suffered countless times before. Blood had watered the heather. Grief had fallen free as summer rain, countless women surrendering their courageous lovers to eternal sleep.
The sounds and the stories had been Fallon's lullaby since she was a child, but tonight the sorrowing all but drove Fallon wild. For now, it was her beloved who would die. The man that had awakened her heart and
healed the raw, lonely places. Ciaran.
It was as if, even now, separated by rolling hills, velvety green glens, and thick iron bars, she could feel every precious beat of his heart, his tenuous hold on the world of the living. A fragile thread Redmayne was eager to sever as soon as possible.
It felt so strange, this panic that tightened inside her with each tick of the clock, each subtle movement of the moon across the sky beyond the windowpane.
She'd lived all her life in a land where time seemed to stand still, where the past was more real than the present, and the future as unreachable as the fairy kingdom of Tir na nOg. But suddenly, time was galloping past with the reckless speed of a Celtic charioteer's horses, careening toward disaster.
While, most infuriating of all, Hugh sat at his desk almost terrifyingly still, as quiet in his desperation as Fallon was restless in hers.
"There has to be something we can do to save him " Fallon insisted, pausing in her frantic pacing long enough to cast Hugh a pleading glare.
"You're Silver Hand. How did you manage to make so many narrow escapes? You must have been bold, dashing—"
Hugh winced and drove his fingers through his hair. "Fallon, there was nothing dashing about it! I'm still the same man I always was! I was scared out of my wits most of the time, and spent the rest concocting damned careful plans, considering alternatives, weighing consequences. It took me months to plot out every move Silver Hand made."
"But time is the one thing we don't have! You're the one who sent Padraic to the garrison. You heard what he found out. The soldiers are claiming Redmayne intends to hang Ciaran tomorrow!"
"I know."
Frustration raged through her. "God in heaven, this is impossible!"
"If the old commander, Will Scargill, were still in charge, I might be able to bribe the guards, break Ciaran out that way. But the troops are more afraid of Redmayne than the devil, and no amount of coin would make them risk betraying him. If there were more time I could infiltrate the place, send some of my men in as servants, or laborers or some such, manage to slide into the garrison that way."
She wanted to throw something, hit someone. She wanted to break into sobs, but she didn't dare. If she started to cry she might never stop, and her tears wouldn't save Ciaran's life. "This is insane, babbling on about things we bloody well know can't work!"
A flush darkened Hugh's cheekbones, his voice strained, level. "Sometimes it helps to just fling out ideas. Something might pop into your head unexpectedly."
"Of all the stupid, brainless, futile things I've ever heard!" She was hurting Hugh, but she was too desperate to care. "We don't have time to waste dithering that way! Matters are hopeless enough as they are! If Silver Hand himself rode into Redmayne's office and shot the buttons off his uniform, I'm not certain the English cur would let Ciaran go."
The words were scarce out of Fallon's mouth before she wheeled toward Hugh, a single idea making her hands tremble, her heart lurch with hope. "That's it! That would prove Ciaran isn't Silver Hand!"
"Fallon—"
"Don't you see? Someone could dress up in Silver Hand's disguise and—"
"Silver Hand didn't wear any bloody disguise!"
"No mask or cloak?"
"Emblazoned with the smuggler's coat of arms to announce his presence to half the county? No."
"What kind of an outlaw were you, for pity's sake?"
"A damned poor one, by your standards, I'm sure!" A muscle twitched in Hugh's jaw, hurt tempered with infuriating patience darkening his eyes. It was an expression she'd seen far too often before. One that spoke of his sorrow at failing her.
"I'm sorry to disappoint you again, but blast it, Fallon, all I wanted was to sell the wool from my sheep, put clothes on my tenant's backs! I wasn't interested in being written about like Sixteen String Jack or Rob Roy. My best disguise was just being myself. Who would ever suspect me? No one ever saw Silver Hand."
"No one saw you? Then no one would know..." Fallon grasped his arm. "How would the English know you didn't wear some sort of disguise?"
Hugh's brow furrowed. "What the—"
"They wouldn't know, Hugh! If we threw together some sort of—of makeshift costume, put it on and rode, they would think it was Silver Hand." A smile broke over her face. "After all, what kind of smuggler king would run about without hiding his identity?"
"A very inept one," Hugh said, but she could see the spark of hope m his eyes. "But where would we get such a disguise? There isn't time."
"I could fling it together before morning—one of papa's old cloaks, that old silver gauze mask I used to play highwayman in. And a letter—you know, one like the sheriff of Nottingham posted in the Robin Hood legends—'To whom it may concern: No innocent man shall hang in my place.'"
"And this costumed Silver Hand would what? Saunter into Redmayne's office, deliver the missive, then saunter back out?"
"Of course not! We'd have to find another way! But Hugh, at least it's something. It just might work."
Hugh looked at her, grim. "As long as the rider doesn't get caught by Redmayne's soldiers. The place is crawling with them."
"It's a chance we'll have to take," Fallon said.
"But we vowed not to endanger Misthaven. Promised Ciaran. The tenants—"
"That is why we'll have to be incredibly careful. But we can do this, Hugh. I'm certain of it." Her voice cracked, her fingers trembled. "Hugh, I can't lose him."
Hugh stood, gathering her in his arms. "I know, little one. We'll make this work somehow. Together."
She hugged him fiercely, taking comfort in his steadiness, loyalty. Hugh was as solid and unchanging as the cliffs near Caislean ag Dahmsa Ceo. Why had she never known, all those lonely years before? She drew strength from him, gave him hope in return.
After a moment, she straightened. Sucking in a deep breath, she squared her shoulders. "There's only one question left to settle."
"What's that?" Fallon raised her eyes to her brother's troubled face. "Which one of us puts on the cape and mask and rides as Silver Hand?"
The billows of the shirt Fallon had stitched should have offered comfort, but the folds she'd labored on so lovingly brought Ciaran no peace. He paced his cell, half wishing Redmayne would let the vindictive sergeant return for another inquisition. It would have been less torture than being alone with his thoughts. Every minute Hugh or Fallon might be concocting some mad scheme to free him. Every hour so much teetered in the balance. Dawn seemed a thousand years away.
What had Redmayne claimed? That all could be ended come morning? Even now, the sun was almost at its crest. It must be nearing noon, and still no word. Nothing except the foreboding knotting his gut, the dread that with each tick of the clock, disaster might be careening closer.
It was treacherous ground he and Fallon and Hugh were treading on, until his trial and the inevitable execution. Redmayne claimed he would be satisfied with the death of Silver Hand. But who could guess what was going on beneath the Englishman's inscrutable mask, what he might be plotting? He was a brilliant strategist with a blazing intellect and an innate ruthlessness no one could mistake. He might be waiting for the exact moment to spring some kind of trap.
And this General Scargill—he might be so hungry for blood he'd not be satisfied with one corpse dangling from the gibbet. And if he were eager for a bloodletting, who better to feed that sort of appetite than the woman who had done all in her power to protect the man condemned as Silver Hand?
Ciaran could stand before Scargill and swear by every god who had ever ruled over Ireland that Fallon knew nothing of his role as the smuggler, but if Redmayne and Scargill chose not to believe him, how could anyone ever prove that she was innocent?
He stalked to the barred window and stared out at the impossibly green hills bathed in buttery rays of sun. Death would be a relief. He vowed he'd embrace it gladly for his lady. And yet, some part of him wanted to cling to life. A man who had had nothing, suddenly with so much to lose.
&n
bsp; He took Fallon's handkerchief from his pocket and unwrapped the cloak pin she'd believed so firmly had been fashioned for the fairy king. It had been her greatest treasure since her mother had died. Yet, could his lady know that what he found even more precious was the bit of linen she'd wrapped the brooch in?
He held the soft square of cloth to his face. The scent of her, ever so faint, still clung to its folds, and he knew that it would be in his hand when he mounted the scaffold to meet his death.
Soon, he pleaded with the fates. Let it be soon. Before Fallon had time to get into trouble. Before Hugh had too much time to think. Before both these valiant spirits he'd come to love hurled themselves into danger in his name. And they would, if given half a chance.
His hands tightened on the brooch. Blast, why didn't Redmayne send for him? Get this debacle over with once and for all?
It was as if some unseen force answered his plea. The sudden scraping of the bolt being flung back made him hasten to tuck away the precious gifts Fallon had given him. He turned to face the door.
Ciaran's eyes widened in surprise. What the blazes?
Redmayne himself stood there, his lean, aristocratic features oddly strained. His eyes that seemed able to strike dread into anyone who saw them glittered, piercing. "The general has arrived. He's waiting in my office."
"At last. Good." Ciaran stiffened, relief warring in him with despair. His judge and executioner awaited. It was time to make an end. "We can finish this, once and for all."
"It's not quite that simple." Redmayne grimaced. "I don't know why I am surprised. Nothing ever is in this infernal land."
Trepidation thrummed through Ciaran, suspicion overpowering his sense of relief. By all appearances Redmayne had come to fetch him to meet with the general, but why? He had countless underlings to tend to such menial tasks. Something was wrong. "What do you mean things aren't that simple?"
"Just that I was forced to leave the general in my office with a bottle of my best brandy until I could get some rather, er, unforeseen difficulties untangled. It seems you are not the only Silver Hand in Glenceo."
Her Magic Touch (Celtic Rogues Book 3) Page 30