“Lucan!”
It was Rolf, though, who heard Padraig and turned his head to notice them standing on the high wall, Rolf who grabbed the arm of Ulric. They ran to a tall ladder lying in the trampled snow behind the crowd and trotted to the base of the wall where they leaned it against the stones.
Iris reached the ground in moments, Lucan arriving in time to receive her. It took Padraig a bit longer, for while he knew the shock had taken much of the pain of his injured leg, putting any weight at all upon it was akin to torture.
He and Iris, Lucan, Rolf, and Ulric joined the silent crowd watching Darlyrede House burn, while liberated animals roamed the lawn in confused freedom. Marta cried silent tears, wiping at her face occasionally with her apron. Peter and Rynn clung to each other.
Iris broke the solemn silence with a wary question. “Where is Lord Hargrave?”
Padraig looked to Rolf, who only shook his head, his mouth set in a grim line within the dark frame of his beard.
* * * *
Searrach staggered through the blazing pillars of the great hall from the eastern corridor, the grand space so bright, so hot now with flames. The rippling, hungry sheets of fire crawled across the ceiling, turning the cavernous room into a chamber of hell, its roar that of a multitude of insatiable demons released from the very walls of Darlyrede House by the flames and now crying out for their victims.
Even so, she heard the weak yelp coming from the rear of the hall, from the floor before which the lord’s dais now crackled with wicked fire, resembling some hellish altar. She walked toward the sound and soon saw Vaughn Hargrave lying amid the wreckage of the flight of people, the broken table legs and planks of benches. His torso was twisted, his legs lying oddly thin and awkward on the stones, as if he’d dragged them behind him. He was bloodied and black with soot, his usually coiffed hair falling over the side of his face, revealing the bald spot Searrach had never known existed.
He looked old. But he was old, she supposed. He only looked his age, now—his skin sagged on his face, his eyes nestled in a pool of recently acquired wrinkles, deepened by soot.
He saw her, and his bloodshot eyes widened. “Searrach. Searrach, my dear girl,” he gasped. “Help me. My back—”
Searrach only stared at him and shook her head.
“Please,” he sobbed in his warbly, old man’s voice.
She was fascinated by what he had become, this man who had hurt her, tortured her so. He was just a man now. No demon, as she’d thought. He’d been able to hurt her because she had offered herself up to his depravity in vain hopes of a future. But the only future he had brought her to was a painful death in this strange land. She walked toward him, wanting to better see the agony on his face.
“Please,” he repeated as she drew near. “We can escape this together, you and I.”
“I’m nothing to you,” she reminded him, kneeling near his head.
“No, no, that’s not true at all,” he rushed. “It was our plan all along, remember?”
She leaned down. “I’m going to watch you die.”
“No,” he said on a quavering breath. “We can escape if you help me.”
Searrach shook her head. “I doona want to escape. I’ve naught to escape to.”
Hargrave gave an animal cry of rage and frustration. “Help me!” Then he quivered with fear, the stench of it rolling off him, and Searrach leaned even closer to smell it fully, wondering if this moment was what he craved from his victims. Searrach would not have thought it pleasing before, but now…
“Help,” he repeated in a whisper.
“I am helping,” Searrach replied, equally as quietly, as above their heads the unmistakable sound of a beam cracking exploded through the roar of the flames. “I’m just nae helping you.”
Hargrave’s hands shot out then, and his fingers tightened around Searrach’s throat, pulling her down to him with all his remaining strength. She remembered then how strong he had always been, unusually so for his age. And so although his legs may have been rendered useless, his iron fingers tightened around her throat.
Searrach stared into his eyes as she grasped at his wrists, but she knew she had not the strength to free herself, and so she satisfied herself with the knowledge that she was succeeding where so many before her had failed.
Lachlan Blair.
Lucan Montague.
Thomas Annesley.
Padraig Boyd.
Countless men had sought to put an end to Vaughn Hargrave’s terrible reign. But it was she—a poor, beaten Highland lass who had naïvely allowed herself to be used in such heinous ways by this monster—Searrach, who was here now. Alone. She was the representative of all those other girls, all the forgotten people Hargrave had used and tortured and then discarded as rubbish. No matter the things she had done in the past, no matter her own mistakes, Vaughn Hargrave would never hurt another soul, and she could be proud of that at least.
Her vision was dimming now, and she worried that she would be dead before she saw the proper end of him.
But then another crack sounded above their heads—a loud creaking and moaning of timbers. A shower of sparks rained down like fae fire with a triumphant roar, and then a shuddering crash filled the hall as the entire ceiling collapsed.
Chapter 20
The sun came up slowly over Northumberland, as if it was loath to see the carnage its rays would reveal.
Iris sat against the same tree under which Padraig had deposited her hours before, the effects of the poison lingering after the energy her fear had given her was spent. Padraig still limped through the crowd on a makeshift crutch, speaking to soldiers, to servants, to the king’s men, to Lucan. She watched him with a bittersweet pain in her heart, a combination of pride in his caring for the people of Darlyrede and sorrow for what was left of his birthright.
Darlyrede House was a blackened, smoldering shell in the gray light of dawn. The center of the tall keep seemed to have been cleaved down the center, as if with a mighty blow from some mythical ax. The crown had been broken; the building within still seethed. Somewhere beneath the fuming rubble, Vaughn and Caris Hargrave lay dead.
Lucan limped over to collapse to a seat at her side once more. She hadn’t seen him since after she and Padraig had escaped the fire, when they’d all exchanged information about what had happened during that horrific night.
“How are you feeling now?” he asked.
“Heartbroken,” she answered at once, without thinking that he was likely referring to her physical health. She turned her head to look at her brother. “I loved her, Lucan. I defended her. Nearly forsook Padraig for her. And all that time, she intended to kill me.” Her throat constricted again and the tears wanted to come, but her body had nothing more to give.
“Caris Hargrave was mad,” Lucan said in his matter-of-fact manner. “Being married to Vaughn Hargrave for so many years perhaps contributed to her insanity, but nothing you did or didn’t do could have changed what she truly was. You had no idea what she was capable of.”
“I don’t know that her choices were because of Lord Hargrave,” she mused. “We’ll never know, now. But I do think they found the perfect match in each other.”
“Well-paired, certainly,” Lucan mused darkly. “But far from perfect. Now, you and Padraig Boyd…”
She turned her head to look at him. “Lucan, I love that man.”
Lucan grinned. “Pleased at last that you’re no longer bothering trying to deny it. I feel rather indebted to him myself. I only wonder what will happen with”—he waved his hand in his decidedly Lucan fashion about the lawn—“all this once the king receives word.”
“He’ll have to give it over to Padraig, won’t he?” she asked with a frown. “Hargrave is dead. There is no one else entitled to it.”
Lucan shrugged. “I don’t dare speculate. If he finds Thomas Annesley guilty, he
could confiscate the entire barony for the Crown. Send our good Master Boyd back to Caedmaray empty-handed.”
Iris remained silent.
Lucan gave her a moment to sit with the idea. “Would that change your feelings for him? If he were to be nothing more than a simple fisherman for the rest of his life?”
She looked sharply at him. “What do you mean?”
Lucan raised his brows and looked away enigmatically as he staggered to his feet again, wincing as his injured foot touched the ground.
“I only mean that you might possibly be pressed into expressing your opinion on that very matter…ah, quite soon.” He gave her a grin and turned to limp away.
And Iris noticed Padraig standing nearby.
“Good morning, Iris,” he said with a bow.
She smiled. “Good morning, Master Boyd.”
“May I join you?”
“How could I refuse such a gentlemanly request?”
Padraig sat down with a groan and a sigh, tossing his crutch to the side. “Ah, well, I had the finest tutor.” He was quiet for a moment. “Would it matter to you? If I doona gain Darlyrede? If I leave Northumberland with nothing?”
He had been listening.
“Do you know,” she said, looking back to the smoking rubble of the keep, “this is the second time in my life that I have watched a manor burn. Where people I held dear to me have perished, leaving me with no home. No possessions. No thoughts of a certain future. It’s only stones, Padraig. Why would stones matter to me, of all people?”
She met his eyes then, and if she had been standing, she thought her legs would have been unable to support her, his gaze smoldered so.
“Because all I can offer you with any certainty is more stones—a stone cottage on a poor fishing island. A hard life for a woman, even one who is not used to fine things. I watched my mother live it.”
Iris forced herself to swallow. “Do you admire your father?” she asked.
A slight frown creased his forehead. “Aye. Tommy Boyd—Thomas Annesley, whatever you wish to call him—he is the most honest, strongest man I have ever known. He loved my mother, he loved me. He taught me well. If none of this”—he waved his hand about the lawn—“had ever happened, I know that he would have lived out his days on Caedmaray as a good husband. A good father. A good man, if nae a noble one.”
“I cannot think of any finer thing a woman could ask for than a noble man—noble in character, if not in title.”
He stared into her eyes for a long moment. “Even if I win Darlyrede, it is a ruin now. It will be years before it will be rebuilt.”
“If there is anything else we are in certain possession of, it’s time,” Iris suggested, a smile beginning to creep along her face.
“I love you, Iris,” he said. She opened her mouth to respond, but Padraig placed a finger against her lips. “Shh. Before you say anything, I will love you here at Darlyrede House, or on Caedmaray, or at Thurso, or in London. It is my thought that I might petition the king to enlist in his army. And then, regardless of his judgment, I can make a life for us. Whatever I must do from this point on, and nae matter where I must go to see it done, I will do that for you. For us. So doona vow it if you’re nae prepared to go with me.”
“Anywhere,” she whispered. “I’ll love you anywhere, everywhere. Always.”
Padraig kissed her gently then, and Iris felt the swell of happy tears behind her eyes.
But then he pulled away, causing Iris to rock forward and catch herself with one outstretched arm. He raised a hand toward the milling people and a sooty and weary-looking Father Kettering came forward, lugging a golden trunk on his thigh.
“A yes it is, then?” he called.
“Aye,” Padraig replied, using his crutch heavily as he helped Iris to her feet. “Let’s get the thing done before she changes her mind.”
“Padraig?” Iris queried.
He turned to her, taking both her hands in his while Father Kettering opened the little trunk now nestled in the snow. “As I said, I doona know what will happen later today, let alone a year from now,” he confessed with that smile that had melted her heart since the first night she’d seen it. “But I doona ever want to wonder if you will be by my side. Iris Montague, will you marry me?”
Iris looked over to where Lucan was standing on the edge of the crowd, his own subdued grin on his face.
“He’s already asked my blessing,” Lucan said. “Of course I granted it—I’ll no longer have to worry about what country you’re in.”
“Well?” Padraig’s prompt drew her attention back to him. “Will you?”
“Yes,” Iris said, her heart pounding in her chest. “Yes, I will. But…now?”
Father Kettering cleared his throat, and when Iris looked at the priest, she saw that he had set up the pieces for the service, saved from the blaze in the gilded box.
But he moved forward to stand before Padraig and held out his hand. In the center of his palm lay the small wooden pin.
“I believe you,” Father Kettering said.
Padraig’s throat convulsed, and he reached out and wrapped his large fingers around the priest’s outstretched hand, closing Kettering’s over the pin.
“Your father gave his life for mine,” he said in a low, choked voice. “Without him, I would not be here. I am proud to have returned this to you, and I know—I know—Tommy would want you to have it back.”
Father Kettering’s face was strained, his chin flinching as he nodded, and he laid his other hand atop Padraig’s. “Thank you.”
They parted with much clearing of throats, and after Father Kettering had swiped at his face with a kerchief, he turned back, making the sign of the cross before them.
“In nomine Patris, et Fillii, et Spiritus Sancti…”
Iris went to her knees in the snow at Padraig’s side. “Amen.”
“Wait,” a woman’s clear voice rang out, and Iris looked around toward the fringey finger of wood separating the lawn from the wide moor beyond.
“Och, what now?” Padraig muttered.
A woman dressed in the garb of the woodland rebels stepped from the trees, surrounded by her band. The men to either side of her had their bows readied, and yet the weapons were aimed at the ground.
Padraig struggled to his feet again, his fingers sliding free from Iris’s. “Euphemia.”
Iris’s stomach tumbled as proof of the fantastic story Padraig had told her manifested before her very eyes; it was without a doubt the girl from the portrait.
The first girl to have escaped Caris Hargrave, but Euphemia was a woman now.
“Effie, if you please.” She walked up to Padraig, her right hand clenched into a fist. “You didn’t think I’d miss my brother’s wedding, did you?” she asked.
Lucan snorted. “I don’t think anyone shall require being shot.”
Euphemia rolled her eyes. “Is he always such a baby?”
“A wee bit demanding,” Padraig admitted.
Euphemia held out her fist. “I thought you might like this.” She glanced at Iris and gave her a saucy wink.
Padraig looked down into his hand and then back up at the woman.
“Good God, Padraig,” Lucan exclaimed. “Do you wish to be thrown into jail as soon as the king arrives? You surely understand it’s stolen?”
Euphemia ignored him. “It’s not stolen,” she assured Padraig. “It was my mother’s. I want you and…well, you’re not Beryl any longer, are you, miss?”
Iris gave her a hesitant smile. She wasn’t sure what to make of this wild woman wearing the fantastic leather trousers and long blond braid. Some woodland Boadicea.
“Thank you, Effie,” Padraig said. “Will you stay on?”
“When the king comes, perhaps.” Euphemia’s gaze skittered away. “I’ll be nearby until then.”
“I should think you’d avoid the king at all costs,” Lucan interrupted. “You killed a noble in the wood, after all. There are witnesses. I should have you arrested at once.”
“He only wishes to arrest me as a balm to his pride.” Euphemia lifted an eyebrow. “But I daresay he wouldn’t be able to rest with no criminal to chase after, so I shall do him a favor and resist.”
“Mama, Mama!” a child’s voice called, and then a young boy ran from behind the armed men to catch himself around Euphemia’s legs. “I want to see too!”
The clearing was completely silent as everyone’s gaze fell on the lad, perhaps seven or eight years, his red hair soft and curling about his ears. Iris recognized him as the lad from the woods, on the day of her and Padraig’s picnic.
“Your son?” Padraig asked quietly.
Euphemia nodded.
Padraig squatted down and held out his hand. “Padraig Boyd.”
The child came away at once and placed his hand into Padraig’s much larger one. “George Thomas Annesley. How do you do?”
“Come along now, George,” Euphemia said. “Uncle Padraig is rather busy right now.”
“He’s my uncle? Oh, look, Mama—the kitten I told you about!”
Iris brought her hand to cover her mouth. Satin—more black than white now, dirty and skittish—crouched in the brush, his tail swishing low.
Padraig rose as the child ran along the edge of the wood toward Satin, and there was a strange look on his face. Iris glanced at Lucan and saw a similar expression there.
But Padraig came back to where Iris still knelt and held open his hand. A ring boasting a bright, square emerald lay in the center of his palm.
Father Kettering cleared his throat. “Shall we continue?”
The impromptu guests milling about like weary orphans witnessed the wedding with proper solemnity, but after the Scotsman had slipped the large emerald onto Iris’s finger and kissed her gently to seal his oath, they cheered. Several came forth offering both their congratulations and various odd trinkets from what little was left of their possession. It was strange and touching.
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