Even after Ciaran had appeared she'd known what she wanted. Perhaps his memory was obscured. Perhaps he wasn't exactly what she'd expected. And perhaps there had been unforeseen complications to deal with. But the one thing Fallon had never questioned was the results that she had wanted. The castle safe. Redmayne stopped. For her life to go on as it had, year after year, filled with legends and bard song, the scent of heather and the warmth of the peat fires in the cottages she visited. Dreams that had always been far more real to her than the world of shipping ledgers and livestock and crops, ballrooms and military reviews and foxhunts. The ancient past had always seemed far more alive to her than the present. Because it was safe.
The realization struck her, astonishing her. She'd always considered herself an adventurer, like Maeve, the woman so strong she'd matched wits with Cuchulain, had been his greatest adversary, or Grainne O'Malley, queen of the pirates, who'd bedeviled England's Elizabeth I. Was it possible that she'd been hiding, as deeply in her own way as Hugh was when he buried himself among his ledgers and business affairs?
And yet everything had changed since Ciaran had come into her life. She knew what it was to love a man, to feel callused, eager hands on her naked skin instead of the caresses of mere phantoms, taste the fierce tenderness of his kisses instead of just imagining what it must be like.
Now she understood the real tragedy Deirdre of the Sorrows had faced. Deirdre hadn't cared about legends or the laments bards would sing about her one day—she'd only wanted Naosi's arms around her, wanted to sleep with her hand pressed against his chest so she could feel the precious beating of his heart.
Deirdre had never been given a choice between becoming a thread in the tapestry of legend and embracing the lot of a mere mortal woman—a woman who would awaken with her lover throughout a long life filled with simple joys and sorrows, aggravations and triumphs, arguments and the honeyed pleasure of healing the breach once tempers had cooled.
Fallon's throat tightened as she watched Ciaran near the opening that led back out into the world of blue skies and mist, a place where destiny still awaited them and the fates held uncertain futures in their hands. She would be given no choice either—be it myth or reality—however the next weeks played out. But if she could choose—between Ciaran of the Mist, the magic that would protect what was irreplaceable to her people, and Ciaran the man, who had taken her to wife, who had awakened her to the glory of simple things, a rumpled bed, a drowsy smile, the possibility of a cradle of their own, filled with a child created out of their loving—how would she choose?
In her heart, the darkest, most secret places of her heart, she had betrayed the legacy of the brooch already. If he were only a man, he could love her.
Ciaran turned at that instant, reached for her hand. She clung to his strong fingers as they stepped back into the light. It was only the glare after so much dimness that made her vision blur, her eyes sting, Fallon assured herself, not the battle even now taking place in her heart.
It took Ciaran mere moments to extinguish the torch and return it to its hiding place. Carefully he erased all signs of their presence, instinctively doing his best to protect the entrance to the souterrain from Redmayne's keen eyes.
Despite her most valiant efforts, Fallon couldn't drive back the tears, even when he turned around to face her. She needed so much for him to touch her—to know that, for this single moment, this tiny, infinitely precious window in time, he was real. He was hers.
She could see the emotions warring in his face, the need, the resistance, the surrender. Without a word, he came to her, gathered her in his arms. She clung to him, the wind whispering Deirdre's lament, the sea that had always sung to her, jeering now.If you could choose...
He never belonged to the fairies—they stole him. He never wanted to be their champion. Why shouldn't he be allowed to love?
But without the betrayal of the fairy king, without the enchantment of the cherries, there wouldn't have been the magic. The battles he'd fought through the centuries for those too weak to defend themselves, the castle, the souterrains that had offered haven, even when the greedy otherworld had kept him prisoner.
Why can't he be mine? A voice cried in her heart as his lips skimmed over her temple, down the curve of her cheekbone to the corner of her mouth.
His finger hooked under her chin, raising her mouth to his, and he kissed her with such tenderness, her knees melted, her heart burst. She delved her fingers back into the dark thickness of the hair at his nape, and with a wounded moan made fierce love to his mouth, as if this were the last kiss they would ever share.
She could taste the passion in him, the pain, the yearning, and the fear—the same fear she herself knew: that the time they had left was slipping away.
She wanted him to drag her down onto the mossy bed in the lee of the stone, wanted to strip away the layers of clothing that separated them, wanted him to make love to her with such passion even the fairies across the divide inTir na nOgwould weep at its beauty. The heartless, greedy creatures would be unable to part them, even when his quest was past.
She slid her hands into the opened front of his shirt, felt the ripple of hot muscle, the soft swell of her belly cradling the hardening evidence that he wanted her as much as she wanted him. Then, suddenly, Ciaran's whole body stiffened, his mouth stilled.
She gave a tiny cry of protest as he drew away. "Fallon, wait."
She couldn't bear it if he turned away now. She tightened her fingers in his hair, strained on tiptoe to meet his mouth. But he only shook his head, his voice roughened with unappeased passion.
"We're not alone."
Her heart leaped into her throat. Had Redmayne or his minions followed them? Had they led the Englishman here? She wheeled. What she saw stunned her. Heat spilled into her cheeks, and she pressed her fingertips to her kiss-stained lips.
No soldiers emerged from the faint wisps of mist that always seemed to cling about the castle. Rather, beloved, familiar figures—the country folk from around Glenceo.
The Dunnes were the first she recognized—gawky stair-step boys who never backed down from a fight—Dermott Mahon with his flock of pretty daughters, old Brian Loughlin who had buried his wife and children and grandchildren when fever had swept through their cottage eight months ago, Siobhan Moynihan, her stomach swelling, a toddler's hand in each of her own. And others—a dozen others.
What could have driven them to come here? Some catastrophe? The soldiers raiding the countryside as they had so many times before, sweeping up supposed rebels to fill their jails and wet their whipcords with blood?
"What is it?" Fallon ran toward them, sick with apprehension. "Is something wrong?"
"Not at all, miss!" Tom Dunne cried as she reached them, his uilleann pipes tucked beneath one beefy arm, a grin on his face. "Caitlin and me, we thought ye and yer husband should have a proper weddin' celebration," he said. "So we summoned up the lot of those who love ye, and brought 'em here fer a charmin' time. Except it seems as if ye had other plans." A merry twinkle lit his eyes. " 'Tis a fine place fer a lover's tryst, though ye'd have to be careful not to get pebbles in yer..."
"Thomas!" Dunne's blushing wife jabbed him with one elbow. "That's enough of such talk! Nothin' like a wedding, Miss Fallon, to bring out the bawdy in a man."
"Shoes! I was just goin' to say shoes, woman!" Tom pretended to be indignant. "It isn't my fault that yer mind runs wicked!"
Fallon stammered something, she couldn't remember what. But even embarrassment at being caught in such a compromising position faded next to the glow of happiness, of affection in these people she loved so well. They were people of the earth, with an innate understanding, respect and awe for the seasons of life—death and birth, courtship, marriage and mating.
