She wanted to hold him there forever, stroking his broad back and the sweat-dampened tangle of his hair as his breath slowly eased, his heartbeat steadied. But at last he rolled to one side, flung one arm over his face.
He was suddenly so still. So quiet. Joy faded, concern making her catch her lower lip between her teeth. Did he regret what had happened between them? Or had she done something wrong? Had she been too eager? Ciaran MacCailte, high champion, most honorable of all the knights of the Red Branch, would have nothing but scorn for a wanton.
But he was her husband. She had wanted to give him all of herself, holding nothing back.
"Ciaran?" she said softly. "What is it?" He shook his head, his face still hidden from her gaze. Dread tightened inside her. Anything was better than this uncertainty. She slipped her fingers into the cup of his hand, drew his arm away.
She couldn't breathe as she gazed down at him. His eyes were closed tight, dark lashes fanned against his rugged cheekbones. His jaw clenched, his mouth still reddened from their kisses. But what stunned her, moved her, was the tiny trickle of moisture that charted a trail from the corner of his eye to the fine hair at his temple.
A tear?
He'd probably be furious that she caught a glimpse of such stark vulnerability. This strong, powerful man, with his honor and his fierce pride, his courage and his confusion.
She didn't know what to do. Should she pretend she didn't see it? But then it would lay between them forever, a tiny, aching secret. No. This was one time she couldn't pretend. She remembered his words before they'd made love, tender words that she'd carry forever in her heart.
I'd kiss your tears away. All of your tears.
No one understood the pain of solitary tears better than Fallon did. Or the danger in them.
Leaning over Ciaran, she pressed her lips to the glistening trail. He tasted of salt air and broken dreams, the secret sorrow of a wanderer who yearned for a place to belong. But wasn't it possible—just possible—that he could find it in her arms?
A harsh moan rose in his throat.
"Ciaran, what is it? What's wrong?"
"I've lost so much along with my memory. Know so little. But now I know this, Mary Fallon," his voice cracked. "If this is madness, I never want to be sane again."
He opened his eyes, and they seemed to plumb her very soul. "Tell me, Mary Fallon, about the world I glimpse in your eyes. Your dream places, where everything is as color-bright as your fiery hair and heroes shine, even their defeat glorious. Where love echoes, untouched even by the grave."
"You mean—"
"I know it's impossible, but I almost wish that I could be your hero."
She cupped his jaw in her palm, the faint roughness of his beard warm against her skin. "You already are. You gave me tonight. A gift so beautiful—one I never expected to have."
"You're the one who gave me a gift. My first time and yours. Perfect. It almost made me believe—"
"What?"
"In the tales you spin, my weaver of dreams." His lips curved into a smile, astonishingly tender, beautiful in its vulnerability. "Can you tell me how the story ends? The tale of your warrior Ciaran?" His fingertips caressed the full curve of her lips. "When his quest is finished, does he win his lady love?"
Such a simple question.
Such a painful truth.
The words snagged in her throat, and for the first time she wished he were right: that she was blinded by her vivid imagination, that he was nothing but a mortal, simply a man who could belong to her.
She buried her cheek against his chest, unutterable sorrow clenching her heart. "It ends just as it began. Ciaran walks into the mist." Her voice quavered, broke. "Into the mist, alone."
Chapter 10
Stripped to shirt and breeches, Lionel Redmayne lounged in the chair before the fire, staring into the flames, the rustlings of his aide-de-camp, Kenneth Barton, irritating as the incessant scraping of a wind-shaken branch against a windowpane.
"Captain, sir, is there anything else I can do for you before I retire?"
Redmayne arched one sardonic brow and cast a glance from the shards of his broken shaving bowl to the gold braid torn from his uniform. "No, Barton. I believe you've done quite enough for one evening."
The young man flushed, even the faint blond shadow of his beard seeming to take on a pinkish cast in embarrassment. In the month since Barton had come to him, Redmayne had mused that it was a pity the army didn't give a medal for blushing. The twenty-year-old Barton would have been sure to win it.
