The Scot's Oath

by Heather Grothaus

  Padraig didn’t respond. Something in Searrach’s eyes—perhaps it was madness—reminded him that he’d always known to be wary of the woman, and just now there had been a quiet whisper of something more sinister behind the words she’d spoken. And so Padraig held his tongue, sensing that she could no longer keep the darkness to herself.

  And he was right.

  Searrach walked toward him slowly. “He already knows,” she whispered through a smile. The snow fell on her dark hair, turning it white in the flickering light. “He knew before you. And so did I.”

  “What are you talking about?” Padraig managed to croak.

  She walked closer to him, another pair of steps. “Your precious Beryl was supposed to have been a servant—a very special servant—of Lady Paget’s. Only,” she was just a hand’s breadth from him now—“Lord Paget didn’t know her. Wherever she’s come from, it’s nae from Elsmire Tower. He told his good friend, Lord Hargrave, just after their arrival.”

  Padraig was as still as the stone monoliths rising out of the earth around Darlyrede.

  “Lord Hargrave told you this, did he?” Padraig asked at last. “It doesna seem like the sort of information he’d share with a servant.”

  “He’s shared lots with me,” Searrach said. “I’ll nae forget any of it. And now neither will Beryl. Or whatever her name is. My lord was quite put out when he found out she’d been lying all this time, in such close quarters with his sickly, pathetic wife.”

  Searrach reached out and grasped a fistful of his cloak. “There is naught you can do to save her now. You must believe me. She’s gone. Vanished, like all the others. We must leave this place.”

  He pulled away from her with a jerk, and after a confused blink, her brows drew downward and she gave a furious shriek.

  “You’ll nae leave me here!”

  Padraig caught her wrists as she struck out at him, not feeling the pain from the pulling of his wound on his ribs, but the sensation of warmth took over his flank. He wrested her to the ground and then stepped away, leaving her in the flattened snow.

  “I’m sorry, Searrach. I’ve no wish for harm to come to you. Take shelter here for the night,” he said as he retrieved his mount from where it was tied and led the animal in a circle away from the fire. “Then, in the morning, if you haven’t changed your mind, take the horse and go while you can.”

  “You can’t save her! She’s already gone!” Searrach insisted in a hysterical screech. “Come back!”

  But Padraig did what his young father hadn’t had the strength to do those thirty years past. He mounted and turned the horse sharply back in the direction of Darlyrede. It reared with an affronted scream and then bolted into the storm, carrying Padraig back to that house of the damned and the bigger storm that waited for him there.

  Chapter 17

  Iris first became aware of flickering light beyond her eyelids, and then cold seeping into her aching bones. She wondered if she had somehow managed to escape Lord Hargrave and wandered out of doors before she fainted, for she was lying on her back on what must be frozen ground. It was so very cold…

  Her eyelids felt weighted as they fluttered open, and she saw what she thought was the black sky above her, sparkling with starlight and a nearby fire. Was she in the courtyard? But no, her vision began to clear, and she realized it was a ceiling she stared at, pulsating with dazzling torchlight. Her head ached so, she raised a hand to try to shield her eyes.

  But her arm stopped not even halfway to its intended destination, the dull clang of a chain sounding out. She jerked her arm in an attempt to free it while her eyes sought out the reason for her impeded movement.

  She was restrained.

  Her other arm too was hampered by a cuff of iron about her wrist, attached to a clinking chain. She kicked her feet, digging in her heels in an attempt to gain a seated position, but they were clamped to whatever sort of slab on which she lay. Iris stilled, trying not to gasp for breath in the frigid air, the pain in her head like searing icicles through her brain with each strangled inhalation.

  Where was she? What had happened to her?

  The last thing she could recall was Vaughn Hargrave breeching the sanctity of Euphemia’s chamber.

  What had happened to Lady Caris?

  “Hello?” she called out, the words scratching along her parched throat like a sledge through dry summer fields. “Can anyone hear me?” Her voice recalled back to her, indicating that the dark ceiling was not very far above her.

  Iris turned her head to locate the source of the light, and saw oddly striped flickering on a faraway wall. Several blinks of her eyes revealed that it wasn’t the flame itself that was striped, but that she was viewing the torch through a set of iron bars.

  She was in a cell.

  “Help!” she cried out toward the door. “Help me! Is someone there? Help!”

  The only answer was the crackle of the torch that didn’t so much as flutter. No breeze. The cold air around her smelled metallic, like sharpened steel or…or blood, somehow.

  Where was she? How had she come to be here?

  Iris turned her face back up to the ceiling with a strangled sob. She drew in a deep breath.

  “Help!” she screamed. “Help!”

  * * * *

  Padraig saw the men-at-arms when he was yet some distance from Darlyrede’s grand entry, the snow turning them into hazy, dreamlike figures beneath the miniature suns above their heads. There had been no guards at the door when he’d left.

  Padraig’s gaze traveled up at the façade of the estate, the glowing windows high above the moat.

  “Iris,” he whispered, her name being manifest on the icy air for an instant before disappearing into the night.

  He thought it likely that the guards would admit him, and nearly spurred his horse forward, but then reconsidered. It was safer for everyone if Hargrave believed Padraig had left Darlyrede and was gone; if the men-at-arms had been stationed there to alert the lord of Padraig’s return, it could set into motion things not yet begun. Better to let Hargrave continue to think Padraig had shaken Darlyrede’s dust from his boots.

  And yet, how then was he to get inside the fortress and find Iris and Lucan?

  The question was answered for him in the next moment, as the guard to the left gave out a sudden cry and then crumpled to the ground. His comrade drew his sword, shouting something unintelligible at that distance into the quietly falling snow. But Padraig saw the arrow find its mark in the opening beneath the man’s helm, and then that soldier too collapsed.

  Padraig held his breath as slinking shadows separated themselves from the storm, creeping stealthily toward the entry—more than a score of them, from what he could tell, carrying bows. Some of them appeared to be wearing helmets or…

  “Masks,” he breathed in the shelter of the trees.

  The last pair of robbers paused before disappearing into the hold, taking time to ensure that each of the fallen guards was dead, and then relieve them of their weapons. In a blink, they had rolled the two men into the moat and then closed the tall doors after them.

  Padraig let out the breath he’d been holding. The stakes had just gone up in this mission to warn Iris and Lucan Montague. Padraig wasn’t certain what the thieves intended for Darlyrede House, but their mission had already proved deadly, and would only likely become more so the deeper into the hold the band managed to penetrate.

  He swung down from his mount and left it in the shelter of the trees before running as fast as he could across the open expanse of ground before the hold. There were likely only so many moments he could count on the distraction of the bandits, and he took advantage of every spare bit of strength he possessed, ignoring the strain in his ribs and shoulder as he pulled up, breathing hard, before the doors. He grasped the handle and eased the door open the slightest crack, peering through the slit and listening.r />
  The entry was empty, but somewhere deeper inside the castle—the hall, he thought—Padraig heard shouts, a single scream.

  He slipped through the door and ran at a crouch toward the sounds of commotion. He flattened himself against the stones as the hall doors came into sight, closing before his eyes. In the next moment the sound of the heavy beam being slid into place sealed the fate of those within the hall. Padraig approached carefully, peering through the crack while holding his breath. Lucan, Hargrave, and Lady Caris—but where was Iris?

  Padraig turned away from the door and ran back through the entry toward the right-hand corridor, leading deeper into the castle. As he passed beneath the portraits towering over his head, he had the eerie sensation that Euphemia Hargrave was watching his every move.

  * * * *

  Lucan sat at the lord’s table, his throbbing foot propped on the tufted stool Lord Hargrave had so courteously provided. Although in truth he wished to be anywhere but in Darlyrede’s hall, Hargrave had so pressed Lucan to attend, and the man seemed in such a pleasant humor and behaved so accommodatingly—the seat at the lord’s table, the servants to wait upon his every wish—Lucan knew that something potentially calamitous was stirring.

  A handful of the more cautious noble guests had departed Darlyrede posthaste at the news of Lord Paget’s death, and yet far more of the attendees had remained, their thirst for gossip proving stronger than any fear for their safety. Lucan sat at Hargrave’s right, and he noted crossly that Iris was nowhere to be seen. And while he hoped that she was with Padraig, somehow convincing him of their sincerity, it was more likely that Lady Caris had made more demands than usual upon his sister’s time and sympathy, while Padraig had simply deigned it unnecessary to attend the feast.

  Padraig was angry. And hurt. And Lucan understood that he bore responsibility for those injuries.

  Lord Hargrave, however, appeared as though there was nothing at all wrong in the world. In fact Lucan couldn’t remember a time in which the man had appeared more contented, and with each passing moment, each smile, each shout of laughter, Lucan’s unease increased.

  Father Kettering entered the hall then, and cast a pointed, questioning look toward his injured foot.

  All right?

  Lucan nodded. He was well enough, he supposed, for having been shot clean through his boot and then exposing himself as a would-have-been traitor to Thomas Annesley.

  Where have you gone to now, Thomas? Lucan thought crossly to himself.

  But then Vaughn Hargrave stood, clearing his throat genially and looking about the hall with a broad, sparkling smile.

  “Good evening,” he said crisply. “Let us first have the blessing.” He nodded toward Father Kettering, who obliged with an unusually brief but seemingly heartfelt prayer. After Kettering’s final “amen,” Hargrave picked up his chalice.

  “And now, let us remember our friend, Lord Adolphus Paget, who lost his life in a senseless act of cowardice and treachery. I vow that I will do everything in my power to rid our lands of this pestilence once and for all, and avenge the death of so great and honorable a man.”

  Lucan had to steel his face against a reactive expression. Everyone gathered knew Adolphus Paget to be a greedy, boot-licking lecher.

  Hargrave raised his chalice. “To Lord Paget.”

  Lucan lifted his cup along with the others as the hall answered the toast, but he only pretended at drinking and set the wine back on the table untouched, the memory of the bastard who’d shot him still clear in his mind.

  His riches are made from the sale of slaves ...

  “And now,” Hargrave continued, “let us proceed with happier news. I am pleased to announce that the man who had come to Darlyrede House to challenge my right to it has departed without reservation.”

  A collective gasp raced through the hall, and Lucan turned his head quickly to look up at the man standing at the side of his chair.

  “Yes, I was quite surprised too,” Hargrave conceded. “But after some thought it only made sense; Padraig Boyd was perhaps the source of much treachery within the hold these past months, and it is my thought that—even if the Scotsman wasn’t directly involved, of which I am not entirely convinced—the death of Lord Paget at least pricked at his conscience. He knew he would be held accountable before the king, and far from being granted our beloved Darlyrede, Padraig Boyd would have wound up losing his life for the crimes he’d orchestrated and the accusations he’d prepared against me. And so”—here Hargrave gave a slight shrug and gestured with his chalice.

  “It was the wisest thing for him to do, really. And although he has put his signature to a document releasing all claims to his supposed father’s title, I think it likely that he will be pursued by the Crown’s soldiers in his flight, as he’s absconded from Darlyrede with a pair of servants. Whether the women went willingly or nay, I cannot say at this point.”

  Lucan felt a cold chill creep along his spine at these words, and he was once again very aware of Iris’s absence from the hall.

  Hargrave turned to Lucan then, his face bright with optimism. “I am certain it shall be none other than Sir Lucan who pursues him, as Boyd has left with the Scottish maid Searrach and our own Beryl.” Hargrave paused with a concerned frown on his face. “You know, I’m sure, how treasured the girl was to Lady Hargrave. She’s simply inconsolable, aren’t you, my dear?”

  Caris Hargrave stared unresponsively over the heads of the guests.

  Vaughn Hargrave continued as if nothing at all were amiss. “But if anyone can track him down, I’m quite certain it shall be one of Northumberland’s own.”

  Hargrave’s smile never wavered as he regarded Lucan with something akin to pride, and though perhaps he was only imagining it, Lucan thought he could see a fury behind that noble façade, made all the more dangerous by its indiscernibility.

  Lucan was well aware how Padraig felt about his sister, and he also knew that Iris had been shocked at his own admission this afternoon. Could the pair of them have reconciled and left together? Without so much as a word to Lucan?

  If so, why would they agree to take Searrach with them?

  And where was Iris’s packet of damning information?

  Lucan caught sight of Rolf then, standing against the wall behind the lord’s table, his expression one of unabashed surprise. Rolf then looked to Lucan, the alarm on his face clear.

  There was more to this tale than Hargrave was revealing, and Lucan had the urge to get up from the table and leave the hall in that moment. But he remained where he was as Hargrave was now giving the floor over to him with a gracious wave of his palm.

  “Forgive me if I do not rise,” Lucan addressed the hall and gestured toward his injured foot, which set a ripple of good-natured, sympathetic chuckles through the guests. “Of course I will do whatever duty calls me to, to assist the Crown in its continued investigation.”

  “Such loyalty,” Hargrave said, a hushed admiration in his tone, but there it was again, Lucan was sure—the danger. “Allow me to say on behalf of all, we have the utmost faith in your abilities.” He placed one palm over his heart and again raised his chalice. “To Sir Lucan!”

  The crowd answered back, and Lucan acknowledged their honor with a nod of his head, although inside his guts were twisting.

  The hall doors burst inward then, and the sounds of angry shouts bounced off the stone walls as a flood of leather-clad invaders swarmed into the room.

  “Sit down! Sit down!” they shouted as some of the men rose.

  A scream rang out, and Lucan saw a guest collapse to the bench, an arrow pinning the hem of his tunic to the seat.

  “I said, sit down!” the red-bearded man shouted again with finality. Lucan recognized him: Gorman.

  Around the perimeter of the room, the few Darlyrede men-at-arms lining the walls swiveled their weapons, as if unsure whom to make their
target.

  Incompetent, Lucan thought with bitterness. While the kings’-trained men linger, unaware, banned to their courtyard barracks.

  “Don’t do it, mates,” Gorman warned the men ringing the room. “If you do, the deaths of at least a score of these good people are on your heads. Drop your weapons and none of them will be hurt.”

  The men-at-arms hesitated.

  “Do what he says,” Lucan commanded.

  “No, do not do what he says,” Hargrave demanded, no trace of fear in his voice. “What in the bloody hell is the meaning of this? How dare you!”

  Two of the brigands hung back to either side of the hall doorway as the last masked member of the band entered the room, his arrow knocked, his boots clicking ominously on the stones as he walked down the center aisle toward the lord’s dais. The bandits closed the door behind him and reached at once for the long beam to bar the entrance from the inside, as if they’d been inside the hall a hundred times and knew the exact protocol to secure the room. Lucan glanced to either side of the wide hall and saw the single-passage portals already guarded by the forest criminals; no one was getting in or out of the room in the immediate future.

  The masked man stopped his advance midway down the aisle, positioning his lean form, the very focus of both the hall and its occupants, but all the while the eyeholes in the leather mask remained trained on the dais, on Hargrave, and on Lucan. The slender boots. The short cape.

  This was the man who’d shot him in the wood.

  “Where is Padraig Boyd?” the criminal demanded.

  * * * *

  Padraig halted before Iris’s door and looked quickly in both directions before rapping softly upon it. The door opened easily, and he slipped inside.

  The chamber was quiet, dark and cool. Iris hadn’t been here in some time, if, indeed, she had come here at all after their words in the chapel. This caused Padraig’s brow to furrow; she wasn’t in the hall for the evening meal, but Lucan had been given an obvious place of honor at the right hand of his deadly benefactor.