"The kind of hero who could get you killed if we're not careful. If I am proved to be this smuggler, this Silver Hand person, and you are my wife, what the devil would happen to you? If I am involved in some kind of skullduggery, you'd be in it up to your neck."
Her gaze met his, valiant, innocent. "I'm not afraid."
"You should be. No matter what happens with Redmayne, I would destroy you. I can't stay here, Fallon. I don't belong here. That's the only thing we both know for certain. A marriage between us wouldn't be any more real than your pretty myths and legends. I don't love you. You don't love me." The simple truth shouldn't have made him ache so much. "I will leave whenever this is over. If you were my wife, pledged to me, bound to me, you'd be alone for the rest of your life. There could be no husband to love, to fight with, to grow old beside. No children."
One delicate shoulder shrugged, and she smiled up at him. It was a brave smile, and it hurt his heart. "I never expected to marry anyway."
He frowned, feeling an unexpected twinge. It couldn't possibly be disappointment. "You didn't want to marry?"
A flush pinkened her cheeks. "I didn't say I didn't want to. But some things just aren't destined to be. You might want to pluck the moon as if it were a silver lily. That doesn't mean you can reach into the night sky and do it."
"You're a beautiful woman, Fallon. Brave, resolute, generous to a fault. Why should marriage be impossible for you?"
"I'm a lot like you, really. There's no place I fit. Hugh and I are loathed by the other landowners, though they pretend to tolerate us. Our Irish blood is sin enough. The fact that I refuse to grovel at their feet is unforgivable. The way they abuse their tenants—they sicken me. They are gluttons for pleasure no matter what it costs the crofters who work their land."
"Like the twins in the drawing on your bedchamber wall?"
She flushed. "They know how I despise them—all of them. I'd rather die than wed one of the English, an enemy. It would make me a traitor to everything I believe in. And, though I love the crofters dearly, they are a little afraid of me—fairy-kissed from my cradle, the landlord's daughter. Not even the bravest among the young men would dare even think of loving me the way a man loves a woman. I belong to them. But not with them."
Pain, yearning, and resignation rippled through her voice, echoed in the glistening of her eyes. Ciaran wanted to touch her cheek, offer comfort. He understood. By every river that tumbled through Ireland, he understood the loneliness she felt.
"Even you don't quite know what to do with me, Ciaran." Her smile wobbled and she gave a little laugh. "You think I'm mad. Not the most attractive quality in a prospective bride."
"Mad is too strong a word. You have a unique view of reality, I'll admit, but at least you remember your own name." Ciaran meant it as a joke. He'd never felt less like laughing. He cupped her cheeks in his palms, as if she were the moon-lily she'd spoken of, to be treasured, longed for, impossible to possess. Soft, petal-soft, her skin warmed his hands, tendrils of coppery hair kissing his knuckles. "You deserve better than what I can offer you, Mary Fallon. I wish—"
Wish what? That he could give to her all the dreams hidden in the rosy curve of her lips? That he could open his arms to her, gather her against his chest and give her a place to belong? Or were his motives far more selfish? Did he want this woman who had already given him so much, risked so much for him, to teach him that sometimes fairies did make magic, and heroes could walk from the mist? That sometimes moon-lilies could be gathered by a mortal's hand?
Tears glittered, diamond-bright, on the thickness of her lashes. "Be very careful of wishes, Ciaran," she said, with such sorrow his chest ached. "I wished you here, and there's been nothing but pain for you ever since."
"Not all pain, Mary Fallon," he whispered, knowing it wasn't true, because it hurt so damn much to want, to wonder, and not to taste. But she was hurting, too. Alone. If only there were fairy-kisses that could drive away the hurting, drown the ache. But there were no fairies here, no magic. Only the two of them, lost and alone.
If she were to be comforted, it would have to be his lips that touched hers. She'd kissed him before—that fleeting moment when she'd used her mouth to stop up his words, to keep him from betraying their lies. He'd been stunned, angry and ready to throttle her.
This time was worlds different.
Slowly, he lowered his mouth, saw her luminous eyes widen in surprise and then flood with fierce emotion. Thick lashes fluttered down, concealing summer-sky blue. Her lips parted, sought his, eager. A tiny cry rose in her throat. And the knowledge that she wanted this kiss as much as he did humbled him, inflamed him.
She tasted of the nectar of the wildflowers she'd wandered in. She offered herself up with the generosity of the mother goddess who had once given life to all Ireland. Her hair burned red with the immortal fire of bard song, her courage and strength as humbling as that of Deirdre of the Sorrows, who had risked everything for the love of heroic Naosi.
Why was it that the mere thought of that ancient tale filled him with such sadness, like a wound still raw?
A shiver of surprise rippled through him. He remembered the story. Bits and pieces that tantalized, asking far more questions than they answered. Love, that greatest of all beauties, the most lethal weapon of destruction, the bronze blade that could cleave comrades in arms, brothers in spirit, into factions of enemies.
Had he ever tasted of love before? Ever understood its power? He didn't love Mary Fallon Delaney. Couldn't possibly love her when he didn't even know himself. But the forces her kiss unleashed in him were the most honest, most potent power he'd ever known.
His tongue traced her lips then slipped between them, tasting her deep inside. But even that wasn't enough. Not for him. Not for her. Sounds filled the chamber, kittenish, hungry, as her hands glided over the taut muscles of his arms, the cords of his neck, the planes and hollows of his chest.
Was danger an aphrodisiac? Or was there something else at work here? Fallon's own unique brand of magic?
He drove the fingers of one hand back into the lustrous cascade of her hair, his other arm catching her about her waist, dragging her closer, until her breasts flattened against his chest. Her skirts tangled about his legs.
She was soft, delicious, exotic. He reveled in all the things that made her a woman, exploring her as if she were some creature spun of his own restless fantasies.
He was aware of the twin pearls of her nipples, hardened at the center of her pillowy breasts, the musky hollow where her femininity was hidden, the soft swell of her belly igniting a living fire in that part of him suddenly rigid with an arousal so fierce he couldn't breathe.
He shut his eyes tight, but that didn't stop him from wanting to scoop up a handful of soft muslin, slide it up the slender column of her thigh and the lush curve of her hip, bunch the fabric around her waist so that his fingers could go questing for secret, satiny places beneath.
Places he'd yearned to discover. Places he was suddenly certain he never had discovered.
