"I don't understand. What plan?"
"To destroy anything that might remind the Irish of their past strength. You want to know why I summoned you?" She sucked in a steadying breath. "To save your castle. Redmayne threatened to shove it off the cliff."
"You mean that heap of rubble where you first found me?" He grimaced. "My castle is past saving. Even with my head broken open, I could see that. It looks ready to crumble into the sea of its own accord. What difference can one more tumbledown wreck of a ruin make?"
She looked aghast. "But surely you must know what that castle means to people hereabouts. That's why you returned to build it—so they would never forget who they are, where they come from, that the blood of heroes flows in their veins."
"Fantasies. Dreams."
"When that's all people have left, it means everything to them. Those dreams and the Castle of the Dancing Mist is all they have, all I've had for so very long. Hugh thinks it's a great favor just to preserve their livelihoods. They need so much more. I've always felt as if... as if it was my duty to preserve something, too. As if I were the keeper of their dreams."
Ciaran thought for a long moment then frowned. "Have you ever considered that it might be cruel to these people you love so much, making them cling to everything they've lost, a greatness they can never have again?" If he could have snatched the words back, he would have. Distress rippled across her face.
"You're wrong about that, Ciaran," she said fiercely, but after a moment, the storm in her eyes calmed, understanding and empathy taking the place of dismay. "Don't worry," she soothed. "It will be all right. When you remember, everything will make sense to you." She gave him a brave little smile. "Ireland would not be Ireland without magic. Just think how empty a place it would be without you."
Without him? Ciaran thought bitterly. It would probably be a damned sight better off. And yet, how precious would it be to have the power to believe as Fallon did? As these people she loved did? Tales stored up like riches, a treasure of the heart. Was it possible that such things could be more valuable to Fallon's simple Irish folk than full bellies and warm cloaks?
God, how he wished he understood. But he didn't belong here, with Fallon, or with the folk who dreamed in the castle by the sea. He didn't belong anywhere at all.
Despair rose inside him in a sobering tide, leaving him aching, more alone than ever.
Fallon turned her face up to his, candlelight gleaming in her eyes—eyes that echoed the yearning in Ciaran's own soul.
He gathered her in his arms, her head resting on his chest. He stroked her hair ever so softly, holding her as he sensed no one had held Mary Fallon Delaney in a very long time.
She was asleep far too soon.
Surprisingly reluctant, Ciaran disentangled himself from the sleeping lady and eased himself off the bed. He should have just grabbed up the candle and strode from the room. He should have escaped as quickly and quietly as possible.
Instead, Ciaran surprised himself by leaning over Fallon's sleeping form and drifting a soft kiss across lips that tasted like every dream he'd forgotten.
"Goodbye, Mary Fallon," he whispered. "Someday I hope you find your hero." Aching, he straightened silently and slipped from the room, leaving the legend behind him.
Chapter 6
Fallon jolted awake. Ciaran was gone. Only the hollow in the pillow beside her and the ragged heap of Maeve McGinty's shawl assured her that last night hadn't been a dream.
The living satin of his bare chest beneath her cheek, the throb of his heartbeat and the soothing sweep of his fingers against her hair had been real.
He'd been so warm with his arms circled around her, his breath stirring the wisps of her hair. She'd needed to feel his arms around her. And somehow, she'd sensed, he needed her as well.
She should have scrambled to her feet, searched for him, hoping against hope he'd gone back to the priest hole, but she didn't bother to do so. There was no point. She knew he was gone in a way that supplanted sight.
Now, with morning light streaming through the window and the room empty except for the echoes of his voice, his touch, his pain, Fallon felt as though some irreplaceable part of her had been torn away.
Had she made some sort of mistake? Broken some sort of fairy rule? Had Ciaran only been hers for that one brief night—and she'd wasted it, lying in his arms? No. He'd managed to build the castle on one of his previous visits. Surely that had taken months—years.
Had the quest she'd offered him been judged unworthy? Her heart sank as she recalled his confusion, his disbelief when she'd tried to explain how important the ruined castle was to the people of Glenceo.
She climbed out of bed, painfully aware that the faint scent of wind and sea, fresh soap and a masculine essence all Ciaran's own clung to the folds of her nightgown. She stumbled to where the heathery shawl lay and scooped it into her arms, pressing it against her breasts. Tears stung her eyelids. "You promised you'd stay, you'd help me, Ciaran. The legend—"
"Miss Fallon?"
Fallon all but leaped out of her skin as the bedchamber door swung open and Sorcha appeared with a tray of steaming chocolate in her hands.
The door was unlocked! Last night she'd secured it from the inside. That could only mean Ciaran had left that way. Relief and irritation warred inside her at the knowledge that no magic had swept him away. Damn the man. He'd gone of his own free will. But why? And where had he gone to?
She rushed to the window and peered out, hoping... for what? To find that he'd left her a trail of polished stones to follow? There was no trace of him—only Hugh's precious green fields flowing on forever.
