Why did Ciaran look as shocked and pained as if she'd just driven a knife into his chest? And the villagers—she might as well have screamed that she'd slept with every soldier in the barracks, they looked so appalled. They wouldn't be babbling on about Vanessa and Norton Fyfe tonight.
"Damn it, Fallon, have you lost your mind?" Ciaran demanded as a gasp echoed through the onlookers.
"With child?" Redmayne's cool eyes widened just a fraction, then dipped to her waist so intently it felt as if he could see all the way to her backbone. "A most distressing circumstance for a lady such as yourself. I never would have guessed it. You're still slender as the frond of a willow."
Fallon pressed one hand against her stomach. "I've done my best to conceal it."
"And you've done an astonishingly good job of it. I would never have believed..." He let the words trail off, hang between them for a moment as torturous as the rack. "However, all things considered, I am astonished that your betrothed would allow you to be in the midst of such an unfortunate scene as the one taking place here today." Redmayne pursed his features into a moue of concern. "This disturbance cannot be good for you in your condition, Miss Delaney." He said, waving a hand at the milling townsfolk. "It must upset you. Doubtless it would be much better for you if we were to pursue this conversation in the comfort and privacy of my offices."
She wanted to scoop up her skirts, bolt as fast as her feet could carry her, but there could be no escape. The red brick face of the Fyfe house loomed behind them, the crowd fencing them in on all other sides. What a disaster! She glanced up at Ciaran, the expression in his eyes making her knees shake. Lord, what had she done? He looked ready to bury her instead of marry her.
As if that wasn't bad enough, in trying to conceal Ciaran's identity, she'd just crossed over a dangerous line. It was one thing to help an anonymous traveler injured by the side of the road, and another thing entirely to lie to the authorities on his behalf.
She might be certain Ciaran wasn't one of the smugglers Redmayne sought, but what if the captain decided to press the issue? What alternatives would she have? Ciaran had lost his memory. There would be no way to prove that he was not Redmayne's quarry. And she could sense, with every instinct, that Captain Lionel Redmayne believed none of the lies she'd spun and that he had no intention of letting a prime suspect go, once Ciaran was in his grasp.
Following the captain to his lair like lambs to the slaughter was too great a risk. There was only one thing to do. She had to make certain Ciaran bolted the instant the chance presented itself.
The captain made a sweeping gesture with one hand, the crowd dividing as if he were the Celtic sea god Mannan MacLir commanding the waves to part. Then he turned his back on them, walking with deceptive negligence toward the place where his horse was tethered.
Fallon's hand shook where it gripped Ciaran's. Her first instinct, whenever shamed or scorned, had always been to thrust up her chin, donning the hauteur of a captive queen and never allowing anyone to glimpse weakness. But much as it pinched at her pride, she did the opposite, burying her face against Ciaran's shoulder, feigning embarrassment. Doubtless an emotion the crowd felt was natural enough. After all, she was now a fallen woman in the eyes of everyone present.
"Run," she whispered for his ears alone. "The moment we're in the clear, you must run."
"Abandon the mother of my child?" She'd never heard such burning scorn. "What kind of a coward do you take me for?"
Her head jerked up so fast her neck all but snapped. She glared at him. "Don't be a fool," she mouthed the words, saw understanding register in Ciaran's eyes.
God above, didn't Ciaran realize Redmayne was offering them a perfect opportunity to... to what? Cudgel the captain over the head? Make a break for open ground?
At that instant, the anguish and fury in Ciaran's eyes seemed to shift, and it was almost as if she could hear what he was thinking through some connection of their minds.
Redmayne was offering them a perfect chance, but not the one she would have embraced so recklessly. Rather, he was attempting to lure them in, to confirm the suspicions that had been lurking in his eyes from the moment he had seen Ciaran.
She glanced up into Ciaran's tempestuous face as they edged through the crowd, and in his gaze she could see a dozen plans for escape hastily formed, then discarded. Why? The answer was as obvious as her penchant for disaster: because she was entangled in this mess, and he would die before he left her to fend for herself. A fist closed about her heart, and she gathered up her courage, her resolve.
"It will be all right," Fallon whispered. "We just have to brazen this through."
Angry as he was, he tightened an arm about her and cast her a glance that stripped away any delusions. In that instant, she glimpsed splashes of red against whitewashed walls. An escort of a half dozen soldiers stood at the ready just beyond the Grenadier's Inn, awaiting their commander's pleasure.
Or, Fallon wondered, did the soldiers believe they were waiting for a far more vital reason—to spring a trap upon the lord of smugglers who had eluded them for so long?
Chapter 7
Instinct—deeper than memory, more potent than anger—a cipher engraved deep into every fiber, every sinew, every breath that he took. It stirred, awakened, came to life inside him—a piece of the man he'd lost.
Ciaran grasped it as the Celtic hero Cuchulain had grasped the enchanted spear Gae Bulga, clutched it with the same fervor with which Arthur Pendragon had taken the mighty sword Excalibur in his hands—for it was his only weapon against the adversary he now faced.
This adversary endangered the woman who had found Ciaran wandering amid the ruins and offered him safe haven, a place to gather up the scattered fragments of his memory. Fallon, with her legend-brightened eyes and her courage, and the secret lonely places in her heart.
It would take all his wits, now, to save her from paying a terrible price for protecting him. But, half-blinded as he was by his own ignorance, did he have the strength? The cunning? He'd pleaded with the fates to give him that power during the miles he'd ridden, Redmayne's soldiers clustered in a loose chain about him, a hangman's noose woven of men, ready to jerk tight at the first sign of an attempt to escape.
He would need every resource at his disposal to best Redmayne, that much he knew. Because the Englishman was watching, gauging every movement, every fleeting expression during the miles they'd traveled from the Fyfe house.
Ciaran had been all too aware of Redmayne gathering information about him from the instant he'd gotten up on Fallon's mount and cradled her before him. The Englishman had marked Ciaran's discomfort on a horse and noted the subtlest nuances of emotion. Every scrap of information might be invaluable in what was to come.
A duel of wits.
A match that could have dangerous consequences for the woman who had spun such desperate lies on Ciaran’s behalf, if he should lose. But despite all his vigilance, Ciaran had learned precious little about the officer who now held Fallon's fate in his hands. He hoped like blazes he would discover something now.
