Ciaran eased the ring over Fallon's limp finger, wishing he could toss it into the fire. He dropped it on the coverlets instead, but at that moment he felt her hand twitch. He looked up to see wide blue eyes peering at him, solemn, yet so soft. The eyes of a woman newly made.
"My wedding ring," she protested, loss darkening her gaze as she gathered the sheets against her bare breasts.
"No. The ring was Redmayne's." He wished he could explain to her how he'd felt, the fierce possessiveness, the fury it had raised in him that anything belonging to the Englishman touched her in any way. "This is mine."
His cheeks burned, his pride badly stung that this paltry gift was all he had to give. He couldn't meet her eyes as he poised his own offering at the tip of her finger, slid it into place. She'd think him mad. Ridiculous. He braced himself for the slightest flicker of scorn.
But her face glowed, lovely, intent as she peered down at the only thing she was wearing, the lace-work of gold wire he'd labored over throughout the night.
"It's beautiful! Celtic interlacing made of gold. Wherever did you get it?"
He felt an irrational urge to shove his hands behind his back, to hide the myriad of tiny gashes he'd cut into his fingers as he bent the gold wire to his will.I plucked it from a fairy's wings. I stole it from the god whose task it is to light the sun each morn.He wished he could spin her a beautiful story, far from the mundane truth: that a clumsy, fiercely jealous man had struggled with the gold wire and his own torn emotions throughout the night.
"I made it," he admitted gruffly. How could he explain that the intricate designs had risen up from some secret part of his soul?
"You made this? But how? Wherever did you find such a delicate thread of gold?"
"It's mine," he said almost fiercely.
Her delicate brows lowered in confusion.
"I uncoiled it from the hilt of the dagger I was carrying when you found me."
"Your dagger! But, Ciaran, it was priceless! You didn't have to do this."
His jaw hardened, stubborn. "The dagger is the only thing that belongs completely to me. You're my wife. My ring will be on your finger."
He'd determined to keep some safe distance between himself and Fallon. But how could any man resist the picture she made, gazing down at his ring. Her eyes glowed as if he'd just offered her a precious jewel instead of a tangled bit of wire. "It's perfect," she murmured, then flashed him a soul-stealing smile. "Look, Ciaran. It fits exactly."
And it did. No heavy gold band, no chunk of jewel could ever capture the essence of Mary Fallon as well as the ring of gold lace could. For all his resolve to keep his distance for her own good, Ciaran felt himself drawn to her, irresistibly as the tide to the shore.
"This is an ancient Celtic art—this weaving that you've done," she said, her eyes sparkling with enthusiasm. "Let me show you!"
She scrambled up from the bed and Ciaran's heart lurched at the beauty of her lithe body as she snatched up a dressing gown and slipped it heedlessly about her nakedness. Subtle shadows, flashes of velvety skin tantalized as she hastened over to a table and grabbed one of her well-worn books. Bringing it to him, she curled up beside him as if she belonged there. She leaned against his shoulder, one full breast brushing his arm with its tempting softness.
Opening the volume to one of the pages, she pointed to the border of one of the illustrations. Ciaran stared. The lace-work ring was nearly a replica of the intricate frame surrounding an exquisite picture.
"Ciaran, don't you see how important this is?" Fallon said eagerly. "You must have some memory of interlacing, some link with it, or you could never have created this beautiful ring."
But he'd forgotten interlacing, forgotten the ring, forgotten everything as he stared at the delicately tinted image on the page. Two lovers lay upon on a platform made of stone, the woman slumbering, wrapped in the folds of her lover's mantle. Even at a glance, Ciaran could see that they were being hunted. The man guarded the dark-tressed beauty, watchful, as if at any moment some unseen force might snatch her away.
"Who are they?" Ciaran couldn't help but ask, some sense of kinship tugging at his vitals.
"Deirdre and Naosi—the most tragic, most wondrous lovers ever to wander Ireland's hills," Fallon said. "They defied a king because of their love. They divided the loyalties of the knights of the Red Branch—a breach that could never be healed. And yet, their story has haunted the hearts of all Ireland ever since. She's said to be the most beautiful woman ever born, but that isn't how she is remembered. She's called Deirdre of the Sorrows, because in the end, Naosi was betrayed by his enemies."
The words slipped like an icy blade beneath Ciaran's skin. He stood, paced to the window, wishing it was as easy to shove aside the feelings Mary Fallon stirred in him, the needs she unleashed, the promises in her lovely face.
"This is one of the most haunting poems ever written," she said softly. "Deirdre's Lament."
Her eyes slid closed and she recited by memory.
"The lions of the hill are gone, And I am left alone -alone- Dig the grave both wide and deep, For I am sick, and fain would sleep!
The dragons of the rock are sleeping, Sleep that wakes not for our weeping: Dig the grave, and make it ready; Lay me on my true-love's body."
The words of the poem resonated through Ciaran's whole being, like the shaft of an arrow that had found its mark. True love. Was it possible that he and Fallon had found a love so beautiful, so complete? Because he did love her. The realization pierced him. Love had been the force that had driven him to take her in his arms last night, to strip away her nightgown and worship her moon-pale body with his hands, his mouth. Love clenched in a fist about his heart, exquisite, terrifying, the most beautiful anguish a man could ever know.
He raised his gaze to Fallon's face, saw the tiniest glisten of a tear at the corner of her eye as she traced one slender finger over the lovers on the page. "They killed him before her eyes," she said, softly, as if she were Deirdre, mourning.
