She could not keep the wistfulness from her voice. "I do not mean to sound ungrateful to you for saving my life. It is just that I wish my life could be like everyone else's, even for just one night."
"It can be."
So calmly he said it, so certainly. She raised her eyes to his, saw the quiet hunger in those dark green depths.
"Dance with me, Caitlin."
Her cheeks flamed, and she stumbled back astep, thrusting her hands behind her like a child caught reaching fingers toward something hot and sweet just come from the fire. "But—but someone might see us," she objected weakly.
"Every man here has eyes for his lady alone this night. They are drunk on poteen and moonlight. In the darkness here, what will they see? The shapes of just one more man with a woman? Not even the moon knows who we are."
Caitlin raised her eyes to his. "I do not know what to do. I have never even seen such dancing until tonight." He reached out his hand, took her fingers in his own.
"Trust me," he urged her as the music swelled.
Caitlin's body tingled, her hand trembling in Niall's strong grasp. Sword-callused and hard, a warrior's hand, yet it was so warm, so inexpressibly gentle.
Trust me, he had asked her. How could she not? She loved him. The realization was almost more than she could hold. It welled up inside her, sweet and magical and utterly impossible.
She had taken so much from this man already. She could not ask him—so strong, so vital, so brave—to share her shadow-world, forever fearing discovery. She loved him too much, understood him too well to condemn him to suchan existence. He would have to be free of her, build a life of his own. A new life far away from Fintan's cursed daughter, if he was ever to have a chance to feel the sun on his face.
That truth hurt her more than she could bear, and yet she turned her face into the moonlight, letting the breeze brush away sorrow and loss. Should she not be grateful for this gift the fates had let her taste even so briefly? Some women lived their whole lives and never loved a man so completely.
In this one night, aye, and what little time remained, she could fill herself up with this secret, precious love, gather memories she could keep forever.
Even as she turned to smile up into the rugged planes of Niall's face, Caitlin knew there was one thing she could never do.
She could love Niall in silence, but never could she tell him.
Chapter 14
No star had ever shone as bright as Caitlin's eyes when he touched her. Niall lost himself in the dark-lashed depths.
She had never danced before, and yet as her willowy body swayed and dipped, it seemed as if the ancient ones were alive in her, matching her every movement to the pounding beat of his heart.
Her hair rippled in fairy-kissed waves about the glowing oval of her face, her soft white brow creased in earnest concentration, and her lips, pink and delicate as new roses, parted in a smile so sweet he longed to taste it.
Never as a youth and seldom as a man had Niall joined such festivities—first because he hadguarded his dignity so fiercely, those surrounding him all too ready to jeer at the awkward fumbling of the infamous Ronan's son. Later, he had scorned the dance because he saw nothing in its movements but danger, the seductive allure of that most perilous of temptations—the wiles of a woman's body. That lust had fueled his father’s obsession and driven him to an act so terrible it sickened Niall. Made mockery of his father's honor and shattered Niall's family forever.
Aye, he would do better to drink poison than need a woman, Niall had often reasoned. The draught was far more honest about the destruction it could leave in its wake, and it killed only the one who drank it. It did not drag any innocents along its path into hell.
Yet this night with Caitlin was as she had said—like touching heaven. Not that solemn place filled with sober-faced angels priests told about, but a mingling of the joy and magic ofTir naN Ogand the wondrous imagination of the One who had created, not merely dry duty and saintly toil, but life in all its chaos and brilliant colors, its beauty all the more precious because it was fleeting, changing swiftly and certainly as the face of the sky.
Because in this wondrous place, one day aman's soul could be parched, abandoned, filled with futility, and the next day a fairy maid could awaken him to a world so green, so lush, he scarce dared to believe it was real.
But this was real. Niall clung tight to the knowledge, the hard shell that had caged his heart for so long splitting, allowing breath and life and light to touch it after so long.
For just one night, Caitlin of the Lilies, bold Fintan's daughter, belonged to him.
The music swelled, soaring toward its climax, the power of it bursting in a shattering release of strings and drums and wailing of pipes. Niall caught Caitlin in his arms and flung her skyward, her laughter replenishing his soul as certainly as spring rain after endless winter.
He drank in the vibrant waters of her spirit as he caught her midair, but he could not set her on her feet as the dance demanded.
He pressed her lithe, warm body against his so tight he could feel every supple, feminine curve, every secret hollow melding to the landscape of his own much larger frame. Shuddering bursts of warmth brushed his cheek as she struggled to catch her breath, her heartbeat racing like a wild thing, caught in his arms—a fairy maid plucked from her bower by a mortal tooenchanted with her beauty to let her vanish into mist.
Aye, Niall thought, he was stealing this moment with her as certainly as if he had taken her from the realm of fairies. He had no right to do it, and yet, never had anything in his whole worthless life felt so true.
The music began again, soft at first, a plaintive strain as if the wind itself were weeping. A gangly boy with a voice clear as a secret stream sang of the greatest love Ireland had ever known. Heroes and maidens shivered to life in his song, suffered impossible passion and excruciating loss, the blessing and curse of the bleak destiny that had driven its cruel blade between the two lovers.
