Ciaran's mouth set, grim. "How soon can you manage to arrange a hanging?"
"You are so eager to die?" Redmayne's brow raised a fraction. "I confess, I am astonished. I think few men would be hasty to embrace the grave if Mary Fallon Delaney ever gazed up at them with such adoration."
The words chilled Ciaran. Was it possible Redmayne had feelings for Fallon? Wanted her? That once Ciaran was hanged, he'd...
No. Hugh would keep Fallon safe. She was in far greater danger of putting herself in some sort of peril in an effort to save Ciaran's life. The only way Ciaran could end that danger was to die.
"My wife has suffered enough because of me," Ciaran said. "I want an end to this, Redmayne."
Was there a flash of something almost human in Redmayne's countenance? Understanding? Strange. Whatever it was, Ciaran found it far more unsettling than his animosity or his scheming.
"An end to this," Redmayne echoed. "Yes. It is time. We should be able to have this settled by morning if my superior, General Scargill, arrives by then. He was most insistent that he be in on the kill."
"How long will it take for him to get here once he scents blood?"
"I've already sent word to the general that Silver Hand has been captured. He should be here before noon. The instant he reaches Glenceo, I promise you this, MacDonough." Redmayne crossed his arms over his uniformed chest. "I'll do everything in my power to hasten the day we make Mary Fallon a widow."
Chapter 19
The night keened beyond the glass panes, as if the salt sea wind were already mourning the death of a hero, a loss the mist-shrouded land had suffered countless times before. Blood had watered the heather. Grief had fallen free as summer rain, countless women surrendering their courageous lovers to eternal sleep.
The sounds and the stories had been Fallon's lullaby since she was a child, but tonight the sorrowing all but drove Fallon wild. For now, it was her beloved who would die. The man that had awakened her heart and healed the raw, lonely places. Ciaran.
It was as if, even now, separated by rolling hills, velvety green glens, and thick iron bars, she could feel every precious beat of his heart, his tenuous hold on the world of the living. A fragile thread Redmayne was eager to sever as soon as possible.
It felt so strange, this panic that tightened inside her with each tick of the clock, each subtle movement of the moon across the sky beyond the windowpane.
She'd lived all her life in a land where time seemed to stand still, where the past was more real than the present, and the future as unreachable as the fairy kingdom ofTir na nOg. But suddenly, time was galloping past with the reckless speed of a Celtic charioteer's horses, careening toward disaster.
While, most infuriating of all, Hugh sat at his desk almost terrifyingly still, as quiet in his desperation as Fallon was restless in hers.
"There has to be something we can do to save him " Fallon insisted, pausing in her frantic pacing long enough to cast Hugh a pleading glare.
"You're Silver Hand. How did you manage to make so many narrow escapes? You must have been bold, dashing—"
Hugh winced and drove his fingers through his hair. "Fallon, there was nothing dashing about it! I'm still the same man I always was! I was scared out of my wits most of the time, and spent the rest concocting damned careful plans, considering alternatives, weighing consequences. It took me months to plot out every move Silver Hand made."
"But time is the one thing we don't have! You're the one who sent Padraic to the garrison. You heard what he found out. The soldiers are claiming Redmayne intends to hang Ciaran tomorrow!"
"I know."
Frustration raged through her. "God in heaven, this is impossible!"
"If the old commander, Will Scargill, were still in charge, I might be able to bribe the guards, break Ciaran out that way. But the troops are more afraid of Redmayne than the devil, and no amount of coin would make them risk betraying him. If there were more time I could infiltrate the place, send some of my men in as servants, or laborers or some such, manage to slide into the garrison that way."
She wanted to throw something, hit someone. She wanted to break into sobs, but she didn't dare. If she started to cry she might never stop, and her tears wouldn't save Ciaran's life. "This is insane, babbling on about things we bloody well know can't work!"
A flush darkened Hugh's cheekbones, his voice strained, level. "Sometimes it helps to just fling out ideas. Something might pop into your head unexpectedly."
"Of all the stupid, brainless, futile things I've ever heard!" She was hurting Hugh, but she was too desperate to care. "We don't have time to waste dithering that way! Matters are hopeless enough as they are! If Silver Hand himself rode into Redmayne's office and shot the buttons off his uniform, I'm not certain the English cur would let Ciaran go."
The words were scarce out of Fallon's mouth before she wheeled toward Hugh, a single idea making her hands tremble, her heart lurch with hope. "That's it! That would prove Ciaran isn't Silver Hand!"
"Fallon—"
"Don't you see? Someone could dress up in Silver Hand's disguise and—"
"Silver Hand didn't wear any bloody disguise!"
