"I told him how dangerous it was! Told him not to—" She tried to break through her confusion. "But why would you be there?"
"I am Silver Hand," Hugh admitted, his tormented gaze finding hers.
She gripped the side of the cart so hard that splinters drove into her palm, but she barely felt the sting. "You? Silver Hand? I don't believe it!"
"The soldiers overran the cave, intending to capture me. Ciaran..." his voice broke. "Ciaran sacrificed himself in my place."
Horror reeled through Fallon. Impossible. This was some sort of mad nightmare. Hugh couldn't possibly be Silver Hand. And Ciaran couldn't be at the mercy of Lionel Redmayne.
But Hugh said he'd confessed—confessed to being the smuggler half the king's army was fighting to bring to the gallows. Her blood iced, hands trembled. Dear God, they would hang him.
"No," she cried, pressing her fist to her mouth.
"I won't let him hang for me, Fallon." Hugh grabbed her, held her with one shaking hand. "I swear it on my life. I'll go to Redmayne. Tell him the truth."
"Then you'll die in Ciaran's place?" Tears spilled down Fallon's face.
"It's my crime. I'll take whatever punishment the Crown sees fit to give me. I knew the risk. But I won't let an innocent man die for my sins. Get dressed. I'll have my valet help me. We'll go to Redmayne's."
"And what? Sign your death warrant? Hugh, I can't—"
"Fallon, since you were a tiny girl, I had my chance to... to love you. To give you what you needed. I wanted to, but... I just couldn't seem to do it. This man loves you. You love him. I won't let him die, leave you alone again."
"Oh, Hugh!" Her voice caught. She flung herself into his arms. Her brother held her as he never had before, and there, in his arms, she realized how much the child she had been had wanted this, needed this—to know her brother loved her. It wasn't fair that she'd just found him in time to lose him to the hangman. "There m-must be another way. Some way to save you both!"
"There isn't time, sweetheart. Come. We have to hurry. I'm afraid—" He stopped, glanced away.
The dread pounded more insistently inside Fallon. "Afraid of what?"
"Redmayne won't be satisfied with just Silver Hand. They'd rather have a gibbet full."
"What do you mean?"
"Just that... I don't know how far Redmayne might go to get the information he wants."
Fallon swallowed hard, gazing up into her brother's bruised, tortured face. Hugh might not know how far Redmayne might go, but Fallon did. It was there in the Englishman's burning eyes, the intensity that radiated from him in hot waves. It was in the curl of his lips, the biting wit of double entendres that made the simplest words an enigma.
Redmayne had hated Ciaran from the moment their paths crossed. His loathing had only grown sharper, more intense the night she'd danced at the castle.
Redmayne would go to any lengths to triumph.
Ciaran was at his mercy.
* * *
Fallon.
He drank in the coolness of her name, imagined her in his arms, her face blooming and luminous with laughter, as the soldier's fist slammed into his gut again and again in a hellish rhythm. How long had it been, Ciaran wondered, his bound hands knotting into fists—two hours? three?—since the beady-eyed sergeant had dragged him into this cell and made it his personal mission to beat the prisoner to a pulp?
Twice he'd been so near the blessed release of unconsciousness he'd felt its dark, cool fingers sliding over him. Twice one of the sergeant's men had dashed icy water into his face, forcing him back into a red haze of pain. Doubtless Redmayne had given orders that the prisoner shouldn't miss so much as a twinge. Not that he wanted blood on his own hands. He hadn't said a word on the journey from the castle to his headquarters, only paced into his own chamber, leaving Ciaran to his underlings.
"Names!" The sergeant roared so loud Ciaran's head threatened to split. "The captain wants names of all the scum under yer command!"
Ciaran sucked a breath into lungs that were sacks of fire. "Go... to the... devil."
"Not as soon as ye will! Drummond, give me the cat- o'-nine-tails. We'll lash the answers from the bastard's hide."
The sergeant's hand closed around the wicked-looking weapon, its whipcords braided around heavy iron balls. Ciaran stiffened, waiting for the first blow.
