"Why? What should he smuggle in, Fallon?"
"Laces. Wine and brandy. French silks. Whatever the gentry might buy when the excise men have their backs turned. But this—not one grand family in the county would let such pedestrian wares cross their threshold."
"Then perhaps the wares aren't for anyone grand." His gaze met hers over the top of the box. "Blast, this is so strange. Smugglers ply their trade for money. They dare the noose for wealth, not for such paltry things as these."
"But there must be something here that can help us if we search hard enough. Ciaran, does anything here look familiar?" Abandoning the crate, Fallon began to look around. But there was nothing that could lead them to Silver Hand or give them any clue as to who might be lurking behind the elusive smuggler's carefully concealed identity.
Blast, it was just one more mystery. Their journey through the souterrains only raised more questions. Fallon was still searching doggedly through the last of the crates, and Ciaran was almost ready to curse the place to the blazes, when he noticed something white tucked beneath the prow of the farthest boat.
He knelt down, slid out a slip of paper and scanned the bold scrawl.Tuesday next.
A rush of triumph jolted through him. It must be mean some sort of rendezvous for Silver Hand and his men. He and Fallon would have to return Tuesday. He glanced at her, intending to share his find, but as his gaze locked on her face, he hesitated.
I was hoping you were beginning to understand, her voice echoed in his memory.This is my quest, too.
It should be so simple—Fallon deserved to know everything. She was brave, bright, resourceful, and she knew this land, understood these people better than anyone else living. She had traced the paths of this labyrinth countless times. Yet, could he really bring the woman he loved into danger? Gamble her life?
His jaw tightened, and he thrust the message back into place. He'd rather take a beating than tell a lie, but there were other ways to conceal—half-truths, things left unsaid.
"Enough, Fallon."
She turned, shadows from the torchlight flickering over her face. Guilt filled him. "Surely you want to keep looking."
"You were right. If we keep poking around, what will we find? More sturdy boots and cooking pots? There is nothing here that is familiar to me." It was true. The casks, the boxes, the boats—none of them whispered to him of all that he'd lost. Yet the souterrains themselves, the tunnels, the things fugitives had left behind—they resonated, plucked chords deep inside him.
Shoving a wisp of hair away from her brow with the back of one hand, Fallon gazed at him intently. "I'm sorry you didn't find anything to help you here. I know it must be difficult, feeling as if you've lost yourself."
Could she make him feel any more the bastard, Ciaran wondered. She did. She reached out, touched his hand with the slightest butterfly's wing of a touch, her mouth sweet with sorrow. Something in that mouth made him realize the truth. Yes, he was worried about Fallon's safety. No, he didn't want to risk hurling her into the midst of a nest of angry, possibly vengeful smugglers. Even smugglers with such common wares to protect could get ugly when their lair was invaded. They might shoot first, ask questions later.
But there was another reason, even stronger, that had driven him to thrust the note back beneath the boat's prow. A reason that shamed him. To take a smuggler's bullet, to die in front of his lady's eyes would be terrible beyond imagining. But it wouldn't be half so chilling as watching Fallon's eyes flood with disillusionment, revulsion, if the mystical hero she'd summoned was transformed into a common criminal. To watch her dreams die.
No. Whatever he had been before he met her, whatever mistakes he'd made, however he'd failed, he'd been forever altered by the faith in those sea-blue eyes. When Tuesday came, he would find his way back to this cave, confront these men who might know his secrets. But he'd do it alone. And in the meantime, he'd do what he could to make certain Fallon and the people she loved, this castle with its secrets and its living soul, were protected.
And he would love her. For whatever time they had left. He would fill the empty spaces in his memory with every nuance of her expression. He'd memorize the warmth of her hand, the texture of her fiery hair, the sound of her voice.
Fallon tried to pry loose the torch she'd jammed between two stones. Ciaran crossed to her, tugging it free himself. "I'll find the way out," he said, hating himself for deceiving her.
"It's too dangerous—"
He forced a smile. "You're the one who claimed I couldn't do it. Come, Fallon, you don't think your hero of the mist could resist such a challenge."
"But—"
"You'll be right there to call out before I step into oblivion."
She sighed. "That's true enough. It's not as if you'd be attempting it alone."
Not this time, Ciaran thought grimly. But when Tuesday came...
With a warrior's instinct, he focused every fiber of his being, every sense and instinct he possessed to mark the path. What was it Fallon had claimed? No friend of Erin had ever been lost in the maze, and no enemy had ever returned alive.
When he returned, perhaps the legend would tell him what his memory would not: whether he belonged to the mist and the green hills, the singing winds and the delicate interlacing. Whether he belonged to Ireland, and to the woman who had invaded his heart.
Chapter 14
Thank heaven he hadn't attempted the labyrinth alone, Fallon thought, relieved as they neared the entrance at last. She'd pulled Ciaran away from the brink of disaster a dozen times as they'd wound their way back through the souterrains, and the strain was beginning to fray her nerves.
But what troubled her now was far more complicated than a mere journey through twisted tunnels. It was the labyrinth of her own emotions she was beginning to fear. Everything had seemed so simple when she'd taken the ancient brooch toCaislean ag Dahmsa Ceoon Beltane.
