"Not the only—what the blazes?" Ciaran's throat went dry.
"The fates have delivered a second Silver Hand into our custody."
"A second?" Ciaran demanded. "Who?" But there could only be one person brave enough, foolhardy enough to take such a risk. Hugh—it had to be Hugh—captured in some mad attempt to free him. Ciaran closed his eyes, panic racing through him. No! He'd find some way to get Hugh out of this, Ciaran vowed to himself. There still had to be time.
"It's some sort of hoax, some sort of... of prank," Ciaran reasoned desperately. "I am Silver Hand! I confessed! Why else would I put a noose around my neck?"
"Why indeed?" Redmayne asked softly.
"Question this imposter and you'll see the truth!"
"Unfortunately, I am having a bit of difficulty interrogating this prisoner at present."
"Your sergeant misplace his cat-o'-nine-tails?"
Something unreadable flashed into Redmayne's eyes. "Even such crude methods would have little effect in this case."
"Why?"
Redmayne's gaze seemed to bore through Ciaran. "Because the man is dead."
Sick horror welled up in Ciaran, his hands knotting into fists. "Who—who is it?"
"I don't know yet. Some Irish peasants brought him in a cart. I thought you should be present for the unveiling. After all, it is your life that hangs in the balance. Come with me."
Ciaran followed Redmayne down the corridor, up the stairs, grief and fury already pulsing inside him. Damn Hugh! He'd begged the man to leave things as they were, not to endanger his own life and the lives of everyone who depended on him. But the honorable fool hadn't listened! And now, the instant the mask was pulled from his face, Fallon would lose everything she owned, everyone she loved. The tenants who had trusted in Delaney protection for generations would be cast into the hands of another landlord, one who might well be brutal and cruel, or, if they were lucky, only benignly neglectful. Fury surged through him at the incredible waste of it.
He stepped into the courtyard, blinking fiercely against the bright light, or was it the sting of something akin to tears? A ragged group of people clustered around a crude cart, the one-eared donkey in its traces restive, scenting death.
Ciaran caught a glimpse of blue, saw a familiar face among them. Maeve McGinty, wearing the cloak he had given her the night Fallon had found him by the castle. She leaned on the arm of the most beautiful young woman Ciaran had ever seen—a maid with hair like moonshine and eyes wise and knowing, a babe cradled against her breast. A tall, handsome man held the donkey's rope halter, and from the glance that passed between him and the young woman, there could be no doubt he was her husband.
"Ye might want to be hurryin', yer worship," Maeve said, without giving Ciaran so much as a glance. "Goin' to me wee grandbaby's namin' ceremony, we were, and there's a grand celebration waitin' fer us."
"You'll get there soon enough," Redmayne said. "Where did you find this man?"
"Washed up with the tide, he did. Heard ye kept another man prisoner in his place, and there was to be a hangin' and all. Even our wee Eve's celebration couldn't keep us from bringin' the villain here. How would it look to yer fine general, ye hangin' the wrong man?"
"That remains to be seen. MacDonough has confessed."
Ciaran stalked to the side of the cart, peered over the rough wood edge. There lay a figure swathed from head to toe in a length of sailcloth. Unable to endure another moment of wondering, he grasped the cloth, ripped it back from the corpse's head. His stomach plunged. The features were obscured by a water-sodden mask of shimmery silver—the mask he'd discovered in the priest hole the first night he'd come to Misthaven. A piece of the fantasy world Fallon had created as a lonely, motherless child.
Heartsick, he drew the mask off the corpse's face. The world tilted on its axis, and he clutched the side of the cart to keep his knees from buckling as he stared into the face of the one they'd claimed was Glenceo's smuggler king.
"Butler!" Ciaran cried, stunned. "Phineas Butler!"
Even Redmayne couldn't pare away the shock from his voice. "Impossible!"
The thunder of hoofbeats neared, but Ciaran barely heard them as both he and Redmayne stared at the corpse before them. But in an instant, a flurry of skirts and thick flame-bright hair rushed to his side. Fallon's hands clutched his rigid arm.
"We came the instant we heard!" she gasped. "Ciaran, you're free!"
"Fallon, don't—" Fear this chance would be snatched away was far too great for Ciaran to feel anything but stunned. He scarcely dared believe it.
But Fallon had already wheeled away to confront Redmayne. "It's obvious you've made a terrible mistake. Free my husband at once."
Ciaran's heart squeezed. She looked as if she were some Celtic queen of old and no one would dare refuse her command. Yet there was desperation, too, half hidden in the ripe curve of her mouth. Desperation born of love. The knowledge humbled him, and the thought of the pain his lady would suffer if he died terrified him.
"You heard my sister, Redmayne," Hugh said, striding forward. "Release this man at once." Ciaran raised his gaze to the man he'd thought dead, scarcely able to believe—believe what? That sober, responsible Hugh Delaney could be neck-deep in such a crazed plot? Who could have concocted such a mad charade? It seemed even beyond the powers of Fallon's wild imagination.
But would anyone be demented enough to believe that Phineas Butler, that sniveling, whining, cowardly little bully of a man was really the smuggler Silver Hand? Not even an inmate in a mad house could be so crazed.
Redmayne crossed his arms over the breadth of his chest, one brow arching. "How convenient to have Silver Hand delivered mere hours before your husband was to die, madam. It seems a miracle, almost beyond belief, does it not? Of course, Butler here can scarce defend himself, so I've no evidence save a corpse and a somewhat sodden mask that might have been stitched by any woman in three counties." His eyes narrowed on Fallon. "Even you, I would imagine."
Ciaran hazarded a glance at his wife. The tiniest flush darkened her cheekbones. She might as well have flown a banner of guilt.
Ciaran couldn't breathe, his chest was so tight with fear for her. Blood and thunder, did the woman have any idea what kind of penalty she would suffer if Redmayne was able to prove she'd staged this scene? Blast, she'd promised she wouldn't endanger herself or Hugh. He'd believed her love for Misthaven would keep her safe and that Redmayne would see him hanged before she could get into trouble. He should have known better. The instant the woman had left his cell, Ciaran should have found a way to hang himself!
"Don't let your imagination run wild, Redmayne," Ciaran snarled. "My wife had nothing to do with—"
"Captain Redmayne, what is the meaning of this?" The clipped, military voice sounded behind them. Every face in the group turned to where a stocky, florid-faced man with iron gray hair was striding down the stairs, his uniform proclaiming his rank. Scargill. It had to be the general who had come to see Silver Hand die. Now the officer's hawk-like eyes surveyed the scene before him with rank impatience.
Despite the sense of peril, Ciaran took fearsome pleasure in the dark flush that spread across Redmayne's cheekbones.
"General Scargill, sir—" the captain began.
"General, there has been a terrible mistake!" Fallon broke in, trying to hasten to the man's side, but Maeve darted in front of her, the old woman astonishingly spry.
Maeve fluttered over to Scargill, laying one hand on the general's sleeve. "It is just a wee problem we're havin' here, but now you've come, I can take care of it in a twinklin'." She winked at the officer. "We've a bit of misunderstandin', that's what we have here, general darlin'. Yer good captain, here, he—"
The general stared, transfixed, at the old woman, then snatched his arm away as if he'd been struck by lightning, his militant features stunned. Doubtless, he couldn't believe a lowly Irish peasant woman had dared to crease his uniform. "My captain can speak for himself!"
Onl
y the slight restless twitching of one of Redmayne's hands betrayed the captain's unease. "General Scargill, sir, I fear there has been some sort of misunderstanding. A ridiculous ruse played upon us. These people are claiming this is the body of Silver Hand." He gestured toward the cart. "But I knew this man—one Phineas Butler. He was a sniveling coward. If he is Silver Hand, sir, I will gladly swallow every medal that's been pinned on my chest."
Scargill scowled. "You couldn't possibly have made a mistake, Captain?"
"It's simple to make a mistake when one is working such—such long hours as the captain has," Fallon exclaimed, and Ciaran stared at her in shock as she rose to Redmayne's defense. "From the instant Captain Redmayne arrived here, he's been scrambling to bring Silver Hand to justice! Why, he's barely slept, scarcely eaten. It's little wonder he became confused."
"My dear lady," Redmayne began coldly.
But Fallon was a picture of innocence. "You needn't be humble, Captain. Everyone in Glenceo knows how much you've wanted this matter closed. I'm certain the west of Ireland is not the place an ambitious officer like yourself wishes to spend any length of time."
"Are you so eager to leave Ireland, Captain? Eager enough to be slipshod in your work?" the general demanded.
Redmayne's mouth hardened, and Ciaran was stunned to glimpse something like outrage, almost wounded pride in the officer's face. "I do my duty, sir. Follow my orders to the letter. In all my years in the army, I've never left a post until the job I was sent to do was finished—to the best of my ability. I swear on my honor that this man, Ciaran MacDonough, is the criminal we've sought. He is the smuggler. I would stake my life on it."
"Then why is another body lying here?" the general demanded.
"That is what I was attempting to find out when you joined us. This is some sort of trick."
The mere idea flooded the general's face with furious color. "Someone has arranged this charade? Do you mean to tell me that these... people"—the general cast a scathing glance at Maeve and her little family—"dared to mock the king's soldiers by producing a false brigand? Do they have any idea what they will suffer for such insolence?"
Fear for Maeve and her kin shot through Ciaran. "They said they found Butler by the side of the road," he reasoned desperately. "How could they know he was an imposter?"
The general rounded on Ciaran, jowls wobbling with the outrage that had doubtless struck terror into countless raw recruits. But before Scargill could lambaste Ciaran for his impertinence, the general froze, glaring at Ciaran, as if seeing him for the very first time. The man's eyes all but tumbled out of his head. When the officer spoke, his voice was low, dangerous. "This is the man you are so certain is an accursed Irish smuggler, Redmayne?" he demanded.
The captain stiffened. "I caught him in the smuggler's lair, there with the cargo. He confessed."
"My husband has been confused lately," Fallon leaped forward, her face achingly earnest. "He only went into the labyrinth because he thought perhaps one of the smuggler's men might recognize him. You see, I found him wandering near the castle. He didn't know who he was. He'd taken a blow to the head, and I-I found him, took care of him. No one in Glenceo had ever seen him before."
"That would have been difficult, considering that the man had been at sea for the last twenty years," the general grated.
"Twenty years?" Fallon echoed.
"His ship went down six months ago. He was the only man who escaped alive."
"You know who I am?" Ciaran could scarce breathe.
"I met you a month ago. You'd just come ashore in Dublin. You were having trouble with the horse you'd hired. Seems you'd forgotten how to ride after so long at sea."
"But I... I don't remember—"
"I hadn't talked to you five minutes before I realized you were Gordon Butler's son. Your father was a schoolmate of mine."
"Butler?" He heard Fallon's stunned gasp, felt her grasp his numb fingers.
"At first I thought you were the younger son, Phineas, I think his name was. A worthless whelp, by all accounts. One Gordon risked everything for. When I realized you were James, the elder son—I could scarce believe my eyes. It only proves that sometimes justice triumphs in spite of all odds."
"This is impossible," Ciaran said.
Scargill's eyes narrowed. "You really don't remember, do you?"
"Nothing," Ciaran rasped. "If you could—could tell me anything that might make it clearer."
"I know more than most men. You see, I was with Gordon during a wild holiday in Kerry when he met your mother. Your parents never should have wed. The match was doomed from the start. Gordon was handsome as the devil, but brutish when he'd had too much to drink. Your mother, so sheltered and gentle, her nose always poked in books. The marriage was annulled within three months. Gordon claimed it had never been consummated. They parted ways. He had no idea he'd conceived a son until eight years later."
Ciaran remembered the fierce lines of his father's face the day he'd dragged him from his mother's arms.
"Then my father wanted me?"
"Wanted you? Wanted to make you disappear, more like. He'd remarried soon after the annulment, had a second son he adored. When he discovered your mother's secret, he realized that you were the legal heir to all he possessed."
Ciaran struggled to grasp the general's words, the tale that meshed with what little he remembered of his past. But he had come back, hadn't he? When he was newly grown into a man, he'd returned to find his mother dead. And afterward, what had happened? Heartsick, had he returned to the only life he could remember? At sea? And what had he left behind? His mother's grave and a father and brother who hated him.
"Phineas... Phineas Butler—" he tried to put it in words, failed.
"He is—was—your half brother," Scargill insisted.
Then why had he been so certain he'd always been alone? Ciaran wondered. Why couldn't he remember?
"Ciaran, is it possible..." Fallon stammered. "Your name—your real name... your past—"
"No! This can't be!" If Scargill had announced Ciaran was the son of the Celtic sea god Redmayne couldn't have looked more stunned. "Sir, you have to be mistaken!"
The general bristled. "I most assuredly am not."
"General, sir, you're claiming this man is English?" Redmayne choked out in disbelief. English. The word struck Ciaran like a lance. English—Mary Fallon's enemy by blood. He stiffened, his worst fears coming true. Scargill must be mistaken. He winced as he felt Fallon's hand fall away from his.
"Do you dare to doubt my word, captain?" Scargill scowled.
"No! Of course not, sir, but—"
"Mr. Butler and I exchanged bits of knowledge about ancient weaponry. It seems he had quite a collection he'd gathered from some castle ruin before his father stole him away."
Ciaran reeled, remembering the only possession he'd had when Fallon found him—the ancient dagger. From the first it had puzzled him, a mystery he couldn't solve. Was it possible Scargill was right? That it had belonged to him even as a boy? Yet, if it was true, hadn't he been everything Fallon hated? He glanced at her, saw her face, white, strained, every bit as shocked as he was. He wanted to touch her. Couldn't.
"Release Mr. Butler at once," the general ordered, "and offer him a gentleman's apology, Captain Redmayne. Sixteen years ago, James Butler was known as one of the bravest men in the king's navy, blooded in countless battles. You should thank God these people delivered the real Silver Hand into your custody before this innocent man died in his place."
Redmayne's gaze flashed from Scargill to Fallon, Hugh to Maeve McGinty and back to Ciaran as if they were the teeth of a trap snapping shut around his neck.
"Do it at once, Captain!" Scargill snapped.
Redmayne sketched them a stiff bow. "I regret not having been more... thorough... in my investigation." Ciaran's jaw clenched. He was certain the captain did regret it—that he'd not built up unshakable evidence, so that Ciaran would hang.
Fallon struggled to smile
at the general. "Thank you so much for saving my husband's life. I am most grateful."
"You mean to tell me that this man married you, and he didn't even know his name?" The general turned to Ciaran, his features taut with distaste. "Tawdry business, this marriage—and to an Irishwoman no less." He suppressed a shudder. "Never approved of such hasty alliances. Always regret them in the end. Perhaps you can have it annulled." Scargill brightened at his own suggestion.
Ciaran started to dismiss the notion, then stopped. He tensed. Perhaps he didn't wish to annul their union, but Fallon had married him, not knowing who he was. She'd married a man with no name, a man she'd believed to be an ancient Celtic hero. Yet to marry an Englishman—an enemy, one of the heedless gentry she had loathed. He winced at the memory of her hand, so warm, so filled with love, suddenly falling away, her face so strained.
The general's voice broke through his tangled thoughts. "Now, I've spent a long night's journey anticipating the hanging of the man who killed my nephew. Since I've been cheated of that pleasure, I intend to console myself with more of that brandy you offered me, Captain."
For an instant, Redmayne looked as if he wanted to argue again, but after a moment he only nodded. "Of course, sir. My cellar is at your disposal."
The general turned on the heel of his polished boot, and stalked back into the building. Redmayne stared after him long minutes, then, suddenly, Ciaran was stunned to see a slow smile curve the captain's lips. "It seems you are free, MacDonough—or should I say Butler? I don't know how, but you've won our little game. Not only your life, but you've won a good deal more."
Hugh Delaney laid a hand on Ciaran's arm. "Phineas Butler's estates. With his death, they are rightfully yours."
"Quite an impressive victory. One that includes a particularly fine castle ruin," Redmayne said. "And a wife." His gaze flicked to Fallon, and for a heartbeat something raw glinted in his eyes.
"You wanted her." Ciaran drew her tighter into the protective circle of his arm. "After I died."
Her Magic Touch (Celtic Rogues Book 3) Page 31