Blast, Ciaran thought, would the women never make an end of it and leave the infernal room? Years' accumulation of dust tickled his nose, and he fought to stifle a sneeze. If he didn't, it would be a calamity damned hard to explain. Of course, in a household where legendary heroes could be summoned at a snap of the fingers, a sneezing wall might draw no comment at all.
"Did Fyfe shoot her lover?" Emer demanded with bloodthirsty eagerness.
"Fired a shot, but he was too fast for the barrister. They grappled, and then the lover leaped out of a second-story window."
"Saints afire! Who was it? Did he break his neck?"
"Nobody knows who it was for certain. Some stranger. But the fall didn't kill him nor the bullet either. Left a smear o' blood on the pavement. But by the time the barrister got t' the street, he was gone. Fyfe tore about the town, searching everywhere for 'im, but there was no sign o' Vanessa's lover anywhere."
"Probably just melted into the crowd. It would be easy enough to disappear, I guess."
A sly laugh trilled out. "Somehow, I doubt that, lass. See, when the gentleman leapt from the window he forgot something—his clothes. Vanessa's lover was naked as a newborn babe."
Ciaran's breath froze, every muscle in his body tight with denial.
"Go on! Ye're lyin'!" Emer gasped.
"I swear by the veil o' the Blessed Virgin 'tis the God's truth. Those who saw the whole happening did say he was a fine specimen, handsome as sin, with the broadest shoulders they'd ever seen and a shock o' black hair."
Throat thick with revulsion, Ciaran's numb fingers touched the shaggy ends of his own dark mane. No.
"But his face—what did he look like?"
"Ye know how particular Vanessa Fyfe is about her gents. Probably handsome as the devil an' twice as wicked. But as for what 'e looked like, well... th' only good description they could offer was o' the man's bum. A fine one it was, too. An' don't ye be gaspin' in shock, Emer Murphy. Tell me true, if ye'd been there on that street an' a bare-naked man had gone runnin' past, where would ye have been lookin'?"
Laughter swelled up again amidst a clank of metal. Ciaran felt ill. Was it possible that he was the man in the maid's sordid tale? He closed his eyes, envisioning the scene she'd described far too clearly—the vulgarity of it, the lewdness.
Bedding another man's wife, being caught by the husband, then not even having enough honor to face the man he'd wronged. Instead, leaping from a window and fleeing like the basest coward, naked, through the streets.
The mere thought he might have been involved in such a disaster made his skin crawl. Was it possible that he was the mysterious lover this barrister Fyfe had chased? He wanted to thrust the thought away, deny it, and yet, it was a far more likely explanation than Fallon's story that he was some nine-hundred-year-old hero come back from some mystical land.
If he'd been shot at and grappled with a cuckolded husband, then leaped from a window, wouldn't that explain how he'd injured his head? And if he'd been fleeing this Fyfe blindly, with no notion where he was going, wasn't it possible that he might have strayed up to that abandoned castle?
How he'd come to have the Celtic dagger he couldn't guess. Might it have been a letter opener or some such he'd grabbed up from a nearby table when he should have been grabbing his breeches?
He grimaced. He should have been relieved that his plight was making a trifle more sense, that this might be the rational explanation he'd been searching for. Instead, he felt soiled somehow. He wanted nothing more than to shun the thought and blot it from his mind.
In the hours since he'd found himself wandering the jagged cliffs, he'd been willing to sell his soul to find his own identity. It had never occurred to him that he might not like the man he found when he regained his memory.
He winced inwardly, feeling as if he'd failed Fallon already. It was so easy to recall the light in Mary Fallon Delaney's eyes when she'd looked at him, her Ciaran of the Mist, a legend come to life.
What would happen to the unshakeable faith in her animated features if she discovered the truth? If he was the man who had bedded Fyfe's wife, a wastrel whose attributes were loose morals, lust and cowardice, wouldn't it be best to leave Misthaven House as soon as possible and disappear before he could hurt her even more? Before he could endanger her brother and all who lived here?
He couldn't stop himself from flattening his palms on the sliding door, wishing he could just shove it aside, stalk past the astonished servants and leave before he ever had to look her in the eye again. But the fates weren't disposed to be that merciful.
"Miss Fallon," Sorcha piped up, suddenly a study in innocence, "is there anything in that bundle I can be helpin' ye with? Some mendin', or—"
"No." There was a hasty click of some sort of door, as if she were shoving whatever she held out of sight. "You needn't trouble yourselves."
He could hear the puzzled undertones in the servant's voice. "Your bath is ready. Let me just help with your gown, and we'll have ye plunged in there in a trice."
"No. I mean, no thank you. I don't need any help with my bath tonight. You can go now."
"But-but your gown—ye can't get it off without help."
"How stupid of me. You're right." Fallon hesitated, and Ciaran knew she was thinking of him, hidden away in the priest hole.
"Miss Fallon, are ye feelin' well? Ye look exhausted entirely."
