“I’m your afters,” she said, and then took her bottom lip between her teeth as she seized Padraig’s hand, pulling him into the room and then slamming the door.
* * * *
Iris felt as if her entire head was afire by the time she pushed through her own chamber door and bolted it behind her. She went at once to the panel in the wall to retrieve her writing materials.
Her lips pressed together and her face continued to burn with humiliation, although she couldn’t have explained why—she hadn’t been caught naked in a corridor. She moved to her cot to unpack her supplies, wishing to set down the details in writing quickly, before they began to smudge together in her mind, although she realized that she would likely have more time than she’d anticipated now that Padraig Boyd was occupied with the Scotswoman.
Iris began to list the guests as she remembered seeing them in the hall, but her hand was shaking in an annoying fashion. She paused and raised her gaze from the page, took a deep breath and blew it out. Immediately, her mind’s eye was filled with the image of Cletus, writhing on the stones.
“Argh!” She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head, hoping the image would be dislodged. But when she opened them, only tears escaped, leaving space for so many other undesirable memories to rush in. Lady Paget’s study of her, Padraig’s attentiveness, Lord Paget’s embarrassing accusations, Father Kettering’s bewildering outburst.
Searrach waiting for Padraig in his chamber. Naked.
Iris sniffed and swiped at her nose with the back of her wrist and then set to her notes again. This was no time for ridiculous self-indulgence. The facts wanted documenting.
The fact was, Cletus was dead. And it could have very easily been Padraig Boyd instead.
She forged ahead with an angry frown, detailing as best she could Lord Hargrave’s speech, Adolphus Paget’s tirade, the dishes Cletus had sampled from the platter on the table. Which servants had carried what dishes—she could remember very little clearly, it seemed; she’d been so distracted by Padraig Boyd.
It’s nae your duty I want more of.
And all the while, Searrach had been awaiting his return.
Iris finished her notes and threw the quill to the floor in a fit of pique. She shoved the packet from her lap to the cot and gained her feet to pace the small chamber, as if she could escape her maddening thoughts.
Why did she care that he flattered her but slept with Searrach? He was obviously only playing with her. Practicing with her. Isn’t that what Lucan wanted her for, any matter? To teach Padraig Boyd how to behave as a noble?
And wasn’t that what noblemen did? Heap praise and petty flattery on those worthy of their station, while behind closed doors they sated their baser and terrible desires with women other than their wives?
Padraig Boyd is neither Adolphus Paget nor Vaughn Hargrave, she told herself.
No, but he is the son of Thomas Annesley.
Iris stopped in the middle of the chamber.
What had Father Kettering meant in the corridor? Why had he stolen Padraig’s brooch with such antagonism? The priest had been nothing but mild mannered since Iris’s arrival.
What if Lucan was wrong, though? Not only about Padraig Boyd but Thomas Annesley too?
Iris went back to her stack of papers, riffling through the bottom half until she found the information she sought. Euphemia Hargrave had disappeared from Darlyrede House the same year Lucan’s and her parents had perished in the fire at Castle Dare. It had been Lucan’s boyhood theory that if Thomas Annesley hadn’t died in Scotland all those years ago, as everyone thought, he had returned to Northumberland to take unfounded revenge on the Montagues, wedding guests at Darlyrede House the night Cordelia Hargrave had died. Lucan had vowed to track down Thomas Annesley and find out the truth.
What if Thomas Annesley was guilty and had passed down his terrible traits to Padraig Boyd? Perhaps Lucan had dedicated his life to handing back the domain of a monster to his spawn.
Then she remembered Padraig’s face on the night of his arrival at Darlyrede, remembered his tender assistance in picking her up from the floor, remembered his pride at excelling at his lessons, the clear love in his voice when he’d spoken of beautiful, wild Caedmaray. Surely after so many months in the very lair of Vaughn Hargrave, Iris could recognize evil when it was so close to her night and day.
Iris grew still for a moment, a tickle in her mind, a spreading irritation that an instant later had her riffling back through the pages from her portfolio. Her eyes scanned the notes, her fingers flipped through the sheets; she looked back and forth between the two pages and then raised her unseeing gaze.
Cordelia Hargrave had only been sixteen years old when she’d been murdered.
Almost exactly the same age Euphemia had been when she’d disappeared from Darlyrede House—ten and five.
He hasn’t touched you, has he? I don’t like it when he touches my girls…
Iris shuffled back through the pages to the list of known persons who had disappeared from Darlyrede and the surrounding villages. She traced the line of names with her forefinger, men and women. There was no pattern for the masculine names, but for the women…yes, some were older and hailed from other towns, but—
“Ten and six,” Iris whispered to herself, her gaze following her finger down the list. “Maid, ten and six; maid, ten and six; dairy, ten and five; kitchen, ten and six; maid, ten and four. All missing in winter. All from Darlyrede House.”
Fourteen of them. One for each year Euphemia had been gone, save one.
* * * *
Padraig crossed his arms over his chest and regarded the raven-haired woman swaying before him, a sly smile on her face. Her forefinger twirled the velvet of his tunic. “Why are your clothes off? And how do you keep getting in here?”
“That’s a lot of questions from a man standing before a naked woman,” she teased, her stroking forefinger giving way to smoothing both palms up Padraig’s biceps. “We can talk later. I need you.” Her hands came around the back of his neck, pulling his head down.
Padraig shook her off and crossed the room, where he picked up her discarded gown from the back of a chair. “Get out.” He tossed the gown at her, but it only landed in a pile at her feet.
She put her hands on her hips and gave him a rueful smile. “Are ye fashed your precious Beryl saw me?”
“Cletus is dead,” Padraig said bluntly. “Sir Lucan will be joining me in a moment, so nae matter what task Hargrave has set you to, I suggest you get yer things on an’ go.”
“Cletus is dead?” she repeated.
He turned to the decanter on the table and poured himself a drink without answering her. But as he raised the cup to his lips, he paused. Someone had just tried to poison him in a hall full of guests; could he truly trust that the drink set in his chamber for his own consumption was safe? Goddammit. He hurled the cup and its contents into the hearth.
Searrach was still standing in the middle of the floor, her eyes wide. She hadn’t flinched at his temper.
“Is the wine bad?”
“Aye. Nay.” Padraig turned away, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I doona know.”
He didn’t hear her bare footfalls, but a moment later Searrach’s arms slid around his middle from behind. He felt her lay her face against the middle of his back.
Padraig sighed and opened his mouth to command her once more to leave, but stopped as he noticed the faint scars around Searrach’s wrists. Thin, faded pink over white. As if she’d been repeatedly bound.
Beryl had said the woman had been attacked before coming to Darlyrede months ago, but the markings looked recent.
Very recent.
“Searrach,” he asked in a quiet voice. “How did you get the scars on your wrists?”
She was very still against him then; he couldn’t even feel her breathing.
; “The wood ’round Darlyrede are full of robbers. Have you heard?”
“Aye,” Padraig said. “Did they do that to you?”
She slid her arms from around his waist and withdrew. Padraig turned and watched her walk to the discarded gown. She slipped it over her head, not bothering with the ties so that it hung loose and sacklike on her frame.
Her expression was blank as she returned to his side, where she picked up the decanter and poured wine into the remaining chalice. She replaced the stopper and then picked up the cup deliberately.
“I doona want it,” Padraig said.
But the woman raised the cup to her own lips and drank the contents in one go.
“Ah,” she sighed, and then handed the chalice to him.
Padraig took the cup with a frown. “I know Hargrave sent you to spy on me.”
“Is that what I’m to be doing?” She looked at him with eyes that were flat, like a dog who has been kicked for so long, it no longer expects kindness, no longer fears the abuse. She picked up the decanter and poured the rest of the wine into the cup Padraig still held.
He waited a moment and then brought the chalice to his lips. Like Searrach, he drained the contents in several long pulls.
Searrach looked into his eyes. “You might do well to wonder what secrets your precious Beryl is hiding. I’m nae the only one indebted to a Hargrave.”
She left him in the silence of his chamber, the warmth of the wine in his stomach doing little to dispel the chill at the back of his mind.
* * * *
Iris stood from her seat at the wide window as the door to the chamber opened and Lady Hargrave entered. She was grateful for the interruption of her imagination running wild with thoughts of how Padraig was entertaining Searrach in his chamber. The lady paused in the doorway as her gaze fell upon Iris, and she brought a hand to her chest.
“Oh, Beryl,” she breathed. Caris pushed the door shut and slid the bolt without ever taking her eyes from Iris. And then she hurried across the floor.
Iris met her more than halfway, her hands reaching out. Caris Hargrave ignored them, instead taking Iris into her arms and embracing her.
“Oh, my dear,” she said near Iris’s ear. “Are you all right?” She leaned back and framed Iris’s face with her cool, slight palms, sliding her hands around as if feeling for fever.
“I am well, my lady,” Iris assured her, a lovely, warm feeling blooming in her chest. It had been so long since anyone had cared for her welfare, and Iris hadn’t realized how much she missed it. Perhaps her own mother would have done the same thing. “I came as soon as I had changed, so as not to be seen.”
“Good girl,” Caris praised. “But, my God. That terrible, dead man. You didn’t touch him, did you?”
“No.” Iris led Lady Hargrave to her usual post before the window, where the tray of milk and cheese was already laid. “Forgive me my prying, milady, but what is being said about Cletus’s death?”
Caris sighed again, closing her eyes briefly, as if the strain of remembering was nearly too much for her to bear. “Padraig Boyd, of course, is under suspicion. That savage interloper would do anything to shame this house.”
Iris hesitated, swallowed. “Do you think, perhaps, the meat was poisoned?”
Caris’s eyes went wide. “Who could know? Oh, it’s so distressing. At least the spectacle of it took away Lady Paget’s attention from you.”
“Did she notice me?”
“She did,” Caris said gravely. “I had to assure her that you were no one. You could in no way have a hand in the dastardly goings-on.”
Iris gasped. “She suspected me?”
“Oh, yes,” Caris confirmed. “She saw you stay Padraig Boyd’s hand.”
Iris’s stomach did a turn.
“But have no fear, my dear,” Lady Hargrave said with a gentle smile. “You were right. She did not recognize the face of her maid even after such scrutiny. I don’t think we’re in so much danger of being found out.”
Iris tried to calm her galloping heartbeat. “Milady,” she began. “May I ask you something…of a personal nature?”
Caris blinked but did not answer.
Iris knelt down at the woman’s side, clasping her shaking hands on her thighs. “Are you…afraid of Lord Hargrave?”
Caris Hargrave’s face was a pale mask of serenity in the flickering glow of the candlelight, and Iris wondered how many years of practice the woman had needed to steel herself from emotional response. It was as if Iris hadn’t spoken at all.
“Of course not, my dear.” She paused for a moment. “Why would you think me to be fearful of my own husband?”
“Forgive me, my lady,” Iris whispered. “But I think you know why.”
Caris broke gazes with her to look out the window, and it was several long, tense moments before she spoke. “I feared you would hear rumors once you were away from my protection.”
“I know you have tried to protect me,” Iris rushed. “And that is the only reason I now speak of it. I fear for you, milady.”
Caris turned her head to regard Iris once more, and now her eyes were wide with surprise. “For me?”
“Yes,” Iris insisted. “If you should…continue to try to protect me.”
“Ah,” Caris said with a sad little smile. “I see. Oh, my dear.” She sighed and then held out her hands, into which Iris placed hers. “You must listen to me very carefully, Beryl. And after I have said what I must say, you must promise me that we will never again speak of it.”
“But, milady—”
“No,” Caris interrupted. “I am still your lady, and I will have your word.”
Iris clenched her jaw. “I promise.”
“Thank you. I will hold you to that. Now, you have no experience with what it is like to be married. In fact I would dare say it is precisely because of men that you have ended up in your particular circumstances. And so you must allow me to advise you as I would advise my own daughter, were she here with me. Cordelia. Even Euphemia. So much alike. So much like you—ready to right the world.”
Iris nodded once but said nothing, letting the woman have her reminiscences.
“When one takes the vows of marriage, it can be convenient to forget that the person you are bonding yourself to may not always be the person you’d hoped for. They may possess…peculiar tastes, of which their spouse might be…dismayed upon learning. Bad habits. Undesirable urges. Perhaps even things that are…awful.” Caris paused, and her hands squeezed Iris’s as her eyes pleaded. “Sinful things,” she insisted.
“A spouse’s role, however,” Caris continued, “is not to judge. Only God can do that. And sometimes you are so enamored with...I don’t know. Their boldness, perhaps. Their daring to tempt God’s laws. Even natural laws. The horrible awesomeness, the recoil, it is an illness in itself for which there is no cure.
“And after so long,” Caris Hargrave continued. “So many years, you realize that whatever has been done with your knowledge you also bear guilt for.”
“No,” Iris whispered.
“Yes,” Caris replied fiercely. “A man and a woman cannot be married as long as Lord Hargrave and I and not bear responsibility for the other’s bad deeds. We are one flesh in God, are we not?”
Iris felt a tear escape down her cheek. “What if he one day kills you too?”
Caris’s voice was barely audible. “Don’t you see? He would never do that. He would never show me such mercy.”
Iris laid her head in Caris Hargrave’s lap, her heart breaking for the fragile woman who held her. Who could withstand such horrors and still gain their feet each morning, knowing there would never be escape for them outside death?
And Iris realized then that, no matter Caris Hargrave’s delicate body, even she had no idea of the lady’s immense strength.
She only hoped the woman wou
ld hold on to such strength when Vaughn Hargrave was finally accused of all the murders he’d committed.
“Now,” Caris said a little more briskly. “Let us discuss something more pleasant. We have had enough death and despair for one night, I think. You will accompany the hunt tomorrow?”
Iris raised her head with a sniff, resolved to give the lady whatever peace she could. “I suppose I must. What shall I do if I encounter Lady Paget?”
“Dear, resourceful Beryl.” She stroked the side of her face with barely tracing fingertips. “If there is anything that has come out of this tragedy, it is that I am now completely sure you will think of something wonderful.”
Chapter 13
The hunting party staged their breakfast outside the walls of Darlyrede House on a knoll overlooking the river. The air was crisp with the coming chill of winter, the leaves on the ground frosted sparkling white, crackling under the feet of the nobles who milled about to keep warm.
The atmosphere was festive, almost frenzied with the undercurrent of the unknown that had gripped the hold since the disastrous feast the night before. Cletus had been laid in the ground just after dawn, Padraig, Lucan, and a handful of servants the only mourners. And although Padraig wasn’t necessarily mourning the man himself, he could not discount the fact that Cletus had indeed given his life in service to Padraig.
Father Kettering had only glared at Padraig and escaped the graveyard after the last amen. He would let the man be this morning, but Padraig was determined to have his father’s pin back.
Now he stood in the midst of strangers on the hill, feeling both ignored and scrutinized amid the shouts of laughter, the baying of hounds, and the clanging of gear. An explosive report rang out over the river valley, causing Padraig to jump and turn as a roar of approval came from the group.
Vaughn Hargrave stood at the crest of the knoll, behind a fork rest on which a long arquebus was perched, smoke from the weapon hanging in the heavy air. The man met Padraig’s gaze for the briefest moment, then his grin broadened.
“Don’t worry,” said a voice at his side. “He daren’t bring it on the hunt with us. He’s only firing to boast. And to scare the game into the valley. The veneur has sent lads ahead to contain them.”
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