"You're a fine brother. A good man."
"No. We were always different, Fallon and I. She was flame, hurling herself into life headlong. While I consider every step I take a dozen times before I dare make a move."
"That is called wisdom. It's the only reason your tenants have survived."
"It cost me the love of my sister—something I wanted more than you'll ever know. Grief can do terrible things to people, Ciaran. I was so raw and Fallon was so angry. I suppose I thought time would heal the breach between us, once the pain softened. I was wrong. By the time I realized it, it was too late."
"I don't believe that. It can't be too late."
"I failed her. Nothing can change that. Worst of all, I couldn't make her understand. Fallon hated our father, never understood it was love of our mother that drove him away. He couldn't bear to see her suffer, and once she died, he tried to forget Misthaven existed, the land she'd loved so much. Tried to forget about me, and about Fallon who was so much like her. He ran, that's true. But Fallon doesn't understand the real tragedy of our father. He wasn't running away from us, he was running away from himself—his own weakness, grief and pain."
"I'm sorry," Ciaran said, knowing the words were futile. Wishing he could reach out, touch this man he'd respected from the first, a man he was beginning to love like a brother.
"By the time I inherited, the estate was on the brink of ruin. England had locked up Ireland's trade so tightly there might as well have been iron bars surrounding us. Most of the gentry had lands in both Ireland and England. They bled the Irish lands white, and would've been happy enough to see the whole island starve if it meant English trade was protected."
"But what about the people, the crofters who live here. How are they supposed to survive?"
"The same way they always have—clinging to life as tenaciously as the heather on the cliffs. They've struggled to keep body and soul together for centuries. This is just one more skirmish in a battle without end. Their resilience, their courage astonishes me, humbles me."
Ciaran remembered his own visceral reaction to the people he'd met—Maeve McGinty with her ageless eyes in a face wrinkled and tart as dried apple, Tom Dunne and his irrepressible daughter, Siobhan Moynihan, a lady of sorrow and courage, tending her flock of babes. And the others, so many others who had brought him bridal gifts and clapped as he and Fallon had danced in the moonlight.
Hugh paced to where the boats stood, upright now, their bottoms lapped by the water. "I fear I'm a most unnatural landlord. You see, I can't stand by and watch my people go without—without shoes, clothes, food, books for their little ones, decent cottages for shelter. I had to do something."
"So you put your own neck in the English noose. Risked your life so children could be warm in winter, have shoes on their feet, food in their bellies."
"Don't make it sound like some epic act of heroism. I just didn't know what else to do. Things got so bad, I became desperate. I promised myself I'd do it just one time—smuggle a shipload of wool to France and sell it, get what was necessary and bring it back. I was scared as hell. If the ship hadn't been buffeted by the devil of a storm from the north, I might have turned back a dozen times."
"You wouldn't have turned back if the whole English fleet lay in the channel," Ciaran said with quiet certainty. "As for your courage—the only man who isn't afraid is the man who has nothing to lose."
"Stands to lose everything he owns if the Sassenachs ever catch him," Moran grumbled under his breath as he and Martin melted out of the shadows, a rag in hand. "They'll take his land, his house, and the fates of every soul on Misthaven."
"That's enough," Hugh snapped, obviously uncomfortable with his cohorts' adoration. "The two of you take yourselves off and get busy. We've got all that cargo to disperse."
"Aye, sir." Moran cuffed young Martin in the shoulder, and they returned through the tunnel. Hugh took Ciaran's arm, led him around a tight curve into the chamber he and Fallon had found days ago. Torchlight bled down the walls. The boats, righted and in the water, were packed so full they looked ready to capsize.
Hugh's men had already started rummaging through several of the boxes, Moran keeping up his constant grousing. "Hurry up, ye young fool, or by the time we get this box to Tom Dunne, those boys of his'll already have outgrown the fixin's Silver Hand's brought them."
"Ciaran—" Hugh said after a moment. "Fallon must never know about this."
"Why? Why not tell her? She's so hungry to love and to be loved. Not only by a husband, but by a brother. She loves these people as much as you do. If she knew the truth she might—" He stopped, appalled at what he'd almost betrayed, the hurt he'd nearly dealt the good man standing before him. But Hugh finished his sentence with brutal honesty.
"She might feel something for me besides contempt?"
Ciaran could sense exactly how deeply Fallon's scorn had injured this man, how much suffering her rejection of him had caused. But there was no blame, only sorrow and understanding. "Hugh, give her a chance to know you. Who you really are."
"No. That's impossible."
"But why? Why can't you—"
Hugh held up one hand. "Her contempt is a small price to pay for her safety. Think, Ciaran. Headstrong, brave as she is, defiant and honest—what would happen if she ever flew into a temper, accidentally let slip that she knew something. The fact that she's a woman wouldn't protect her. The authorities would wrench a confession from her any way they could, and then, life as a virtual slave in a penal colony would be the best fate she could hope for. What would you give to keep Mary Fallon safe?"
"The last drop of blood in my body. Anything. No matter what the price. I thought... Fallon and I thought I might be Silver Hand. I'm not. I may never know who I really am. But I know this. What you're doing here is a brave thing. A just and noble thing." Ciaran let the bloody rag fall from his hand. "Let me help you with your work here."
Hugh ran his fingers back through his hair, his jaw hardening. Yet Ciaran could see the longing in his features, too. He sensed how much Hugh wanted someone to share this with—the fear, the crushing responsibility. Like his sister, Hugh Delaney was a man too often alone. But he shook his head in denial.
"No. You've already helped me in a way far more important. When I took the identity of Silver Hand, my greatest fear was that I might die and leave Fallon alone, with no one to care for her. I don't have to be afraid of that any longer. I'll thank God forever that He sent you to guard my sister, to love her." Hugh reached out, clasped Ciaran's hand.
Ciaran's chest ached with affection and admiration for this man—a hero, in a way he never could be. If only Fallon could know. How proud she would be of her brother.
