She must be taking refuge in the lady’s chamber, he realized, and it gave him a modicum of relief as he lit the short candle on Iris’s small table. Both Lucan and Hargrave had their hands full at the moment with the thieves from the forest, and that suited Padraig just fine.
A scratching at the window distracted him from his thoughts, and Padraig remembered Iris’s pet. He went to the stone opening and released the latch, allowing a snowy Satin to pour himself through the gap and leap silently to the floor to twist himself about Padraig’s legs.
“I’m nae she,” he warned the creature. “But I wish she were here too, you ken.”
“Meow,” Satin offered plaintively.
“I’ve got naught for you,” Padraig muttered in reply, even as the cat padded quickly across the floor to the wall and began rubbing the top sides of its forehead against the wood panel. “Mad beast.”
“Meow.” The cat glided back and forth against the wall pointedly, his head rubbing against the seam where the panels were nailed close together. He stopped and sat on his haunches, his tail swishing impatiently. “Meow.”
Padraig’s frown turned curious and he advanced toward the wall, crouching down as the cat gained his feet once more to stretch his front paws up on the paneling, paddling silently against the wood. The seam there was wide—wider than the other close-fit panels—and Padraig could feel a cold breath of air emanating from within the wall.
“Meow.”
He looked down at Satin, who was once more sitting patiently, although he had fixed Padraig with a pointed look.
Padraig curled his fingertips into the seam and pulled, and to his surprise, the panel fell away with a clatter. In a blink, Satin was nosing about the opening, instigating a metallic, ringing clang.
“Aye?” he said half to himself. He pulled out the little dish and set it aside, noticing the thick leather packet tucked into the shadows. While Satin nudged the empty bowl about, rattling it across the floor in an impatient fashion, Padraig withdrew the thick wallet.
He moved to the narrow cot along the wall and sat down, at once unwinding the thin leather strings holding the packet closed. He opened the stiff leather to behold a veritable fortune of parchment and vellum, each page scrawled over in neat, black writing. Padraig flipped through the topmost pages, his surprise increasing to shock with each sheet revealed. Lists. Inventories. Dates upon dates, going back at least a score of years. Some of the pages were cracked and dog-eared; some were so faded, Padraig had to hold them up toward the meager light to guess at the ghostly information that had paled over the years as the page itself had darkened.
This was not some lady’s simple diary full of mundane trivialities—this was Iris’s work, he realized, and the depth of it shook Padraig to his boots.
He flipped through several more pages, his gaze skimming the words until a lumpy object between the next two sheaves gave him pause.
It was a leaf, now faded and dry and brittle, its pointed tips fragile like butterflies’ wings. Padraig recognized it as the one he’d tucked into Iris’s hair when he had still known her as Beryl, and the memory of that sweet day pricked at his heart, even as he read the entries on the page.
Is called Padraig Boyd, from the Scottish isle of Caedmaray…
Crude, ill-mannered…
Funny, kind…
Devoted to his father…
Masterful with a sword…
Padraig looked up from the page then, letting the silence of the room settle on him like a cold blanket. Satin had abandoned his noisy efforts to make a meal appear in his empty dish, and now he leaped onto the cot, stepping daintily across the pages on Padraig’s lap until his white head was in charging distance of Padraig’s chin. Padraig reached up and stroked the underside of the cat’s jaw mindlessly as his eyes stared at the cold hearth and his mind was filled with memories of Iris.
Aye, she had played him false. But looking at this sampling of evidence she had amassed, considering the grave personal danger she’d risked every single day while living at Darlyrede, Padraig realized what a pigheaded fool he’d been. She’d wanted to tell him the truth, but by the time she knew she could trust him, the situation at Darlyrede had become so much more deadly for them all.
Iris had used her incredible ingenuity to come alone to Darlyrede from France and slip into the cogs of the household so intimately as to become invisible. Likely the information Padraig held in his hand, even if it did not exonerate his father, would incriminate Vaughn Hargrave and his cronies in a host of heinous deeds. Padraig had also come of his own volition into this dangerous situation, aye. But he was a man, and had counted on Lucan Montague’s aid. He had intended on fighting for the prize that was Darlyrede House.
What had Iris stood to gain from all her risk and effort?
Nothing, Padraig realized. She would never have her parents returned to her, or her childhood home. Even if Castle Dare were rebuilt, it would take years, and it would be Lucan’s by rights. She had risked her very life for nothing more than the truth—the truth for her brother and their parents, and for Caris Hargrave, and for Padraig.
And Padraig had punished her for it.
I’ve never lied about how I feel about you.
Padraig realized it was true. And he also realized that after his foolish pride had faded away, the whole truth about who Iris really was and what she stood for only made Padraig love her more.
He stilled then. Aye, he did love her. He could no longer deny it. And rather than be frightened by the further realization as the scales fell from his eyes, they settled around him like his da’s old plaid—fitting and comfortable and absolutely correct. He was not fighting for Tommy Boyd to regain Darlyrede House, or even to win it for himself. Perhaps he never had.
Padraig was fighting for the very idea of Northumberland.
For home. For Lord and Lady Hood and Lucan and—yes, hopefully—for himself and Iris. For his brothers, yet strangers to him, and for the future of all their families. Thomas Annesley had been a frightened, injured, devastated young man with no family, no friends, the night he escaped from Darlyrede, and in Padraig’s mind, he reached back through the decades to speak to that young man.
We’re here, now, Tommy. Let us help you.
The reign of terror visited upon this land—both from Vaughn Hargrave and the bandits currently infesting the hall—would stop, if it was the last thing Padraig did.
But first, he needed an army.
Chapter 18
Iris screamed until her throat was raw, and now even the shallowest breath of damp, cold air seared her throat like fire as she lay shivering on the table. She realized now that no one could possibly hear her. The sizzling of the torch had grown louder as her ears strained for the smallest sound, but that hissing was broken only by the random, faint percussion of water dripping in some darkened corner.
Iris thought she had at last discovered where all the missing girls had gone.
All this time she had assumed that Hargrave had stolen away with his victims to another location, or kept them prisoner in his own rooms, but she realized now that it would have been impossible to remove her from Lady Caris’s wing without the guards at the stairs seeing them, Rolf in particular. To keep her mind from breaking altogether with madness and fear, she sought to recall with the greatest detail the maps she had drawn in her notes. She must be somewhere beneath the west wing, under the oldest part of the hold. The far, dark end of the corridor, then—the entrance to this subterranean hell must be located there. Perhaps in one of the rooms on the opposite side of the passage—a secret door, perhaps, like the one in Iris’s own chamber, where the maps themselves were hidden.
She stifled a sudden sob. She should have given the portfolio to Lucan when he’d asked for it. No one would ever find it—or her—now. All her work, all the evidence, hidden away until, by the time it was discovered—years from
now likely—none of it would matter any longer. Everyone would be long dead and the grief caused by Vaughn Hargrave would be nothing more than terrible, frightening fables.
She thought of Lady Hargrave and squeezed her eyes shut. She remembered the last hazy words she’d heard the noblewoman speak, how she’d sought to protect Iris from the monster that was her husband. How she had always sought to protect her, keep her close and away from the unpleasantness that swirled just beneath the glittering façade that was Darlyrede House. She thought of the locks on the doors to hers and Euphemia’s rooms, Caris’s bittersweet relief at learning that Euphemia was dead. She must have suspected her husband in the disappearances; she must have known all this time, at least partially, of his sick appetites. And still she had tried to save Iris.
What had Lord Hargrave done to silence her this time? The pain of not knowing was almost too much for Iris to bear.
A short squeak of hinges echoed in the stone vault like a scream and Iris felt her blood turn to ice. She waited for the sound of footsteps, her ears strained until she thought her skull would explode. But there was no sound, no shadow in front of the torchlight to indicate anyone had entered.
Iris’s heart seized in her chest as a weight dropped onto her abdomen, and her fear was so great that for a moment she thought she had fainted again.
Satin had leaped onto her body from the floor and was now staggering to keep his balance on Iris’s heaving stomach.
“Satin,” she croaked as he carefully stepped up her chest toward her face. “How did you find me?” The cat butted and rubbed his head against her chin, and then in his careful, deliberate way, lay down, tucking his paws beneath his chest and looking about the room with slow-blinking disdain. His heavy warmth soaked into her skin like sunshine.
She remembered Padraig’s skepticism of the animal. I prefer a dog meself.
“Fetch Padraig, Satin,” she whispered, and then gave a harsh, delusional giggle as he ignored the request to instead lick at the inside of his elbow.
Iris closed her eyes as the chuckle died away, and thin tears leaked from the corners and ran down the sides of her face into the cups of her ears.
“Good boy. Lovely boy.” Her whisper was a mere creak now. “Don’t leave me. Don’t leave…”
* * * *
Padraig accompanied Ulric at the fore of the wave of men who crept up the eastern corridor, staying just beyond the torchlight, where one of the thieves from the wood stood as guard, facing the hall beyond. He was impressed by the manner in which so many of the king’s men moved soundlessly into place.
They stood in silence several more moments, giving the other half of the company ample time to circle the courtyard and approach from the kitchen passage. Ulric looked back at the soldiers directly behind him and Padraig and gave a series of hand gestures that were quickly relayed to the readied company.
Padraig understood the plan, and he flexed his fingers around the hilt of the sword Ulric had found for him, waiting, eager. Iris’s portfolio was secured in his satchel at his back, and although he’d allowed Satin to escape the chamber, Padraig doubted the cat’s presence would be noticed in comparison to what he and Ulric and the king’s soldiers were about to instigate.
The air was tense, heavy with the anticipation of battle, as Ulric held his open hand in the air and began to move forward, the company following on whispering feet.
Padraig felt alive with anger, with purpose, with determination, as part of the advancing troop. Tonight, good would overcome evil.
Ulric curled his hand into a fist and the company halted, perhaps three paces behind the villain guarding the mouth of the corridor. Padraig could see the glittering candles on the table, the pale, shocked faces of the nobles shining in the light. He looked to Ulric in the same moment that the captain turned to him, a question in his eyes.
Ready, lord?
Padraig gave a single nod.
Ulric slashed his arm down through the air with a shout, and the soldiers surged forward with battle cries, matched by echoing shouts from the company entering the hall from the opposite corridor. The captain himself took down the guard at the mouth of the passage, incapacitating him with one deadly thrust. Padraig darted from the corridor to the right and brought up his sword just in time to parry a slashing blow from a short blade. His wounded shoulder burned, but Padraig did not care—he barely felt it beneath the rush of battle fever coming over him.
A whisper of hot air rushed by his cheek, brushing his hair: an arrow.
Padraig dismissed the averted danger and brought up his sword again, swinging through a block and slashing at the underside of his opponent’s arm, causing the man to cry out and the sword to fall to the ground. Padraig shoved the man over, where he collapsed against the wall. Padraig kicked his sword out of reach as he turned, ready to strike again.
Arrows were flying through the hall now, slicing through the screams of the people ducking beneath the tables, servants diving for the relative safety of the floor as the king’s soldiers stormed the room. Some warriors climbed atop tables to gain the center aisle, some ploughing along the perimeter, buffeting aside Darlyrede’s own men.
One of the woodland bandits rushed past him in an attempt to escape, but Padraig seized him and swung him toward a pair of the king’s soldiers who were holding a clutch of the invaders at sword’s point. Padraig looked around again, ready, wanting someone else to fight.
But it was over. The king’s seasoned men had secured the hall in moments, leaving the dead where they lay and holding the prisoners, including the red-bearded leader. Only a single, masked villain remained standing in the center of the aisle, his bow yet in his hand but the quiver on his back empty, a trio of the king’s soldiers circling him at sword’s point.
And then Padraig realized the ruse that had been thrust upon them all in the wood—the distraction. Gorman, the bearded man from the wood, was not the leader of the gang of criminals at all; it was this smaller, trim man with the quiet, raspy voice. The man who had shot Lucan. A man who was perhaps forced to wear a mask because otherwise he would be recognized.
Padraig would know who he was.
He stepped upon the nearest bench, to the tabletop, then down the other bench to the floor, his gaze fixed on the masked radical. The king’s soldier stepped aside, allowing Padraig to pass.
“Drop the bow,” Padraig commanded the man. “Now.”
After only an instant’s hesitation, the leather-clad arm tossed the weapon aside with a motion of surrender. It skittered to the stones some distance away.
Padraig sheathed his sword and strode forward again until he was standing before the man, who was even smaller than Padraig had guessed from afar. Surely this could be no mere adolescent who had caused such chaos? He reached out and grabbed the top of the leather mask at the crown and yanked.
“Ow!” A gloved hand shot up to rub at where Padraig had grasped the disguise, and as the mask was swept away a long, blond plait unfurled like a tolling rope. Accusing blue eyes Padraig recognized burned into his own. Only these eyes were no longer flat, despondent, defeated. These eyes snapped with life, crinkles at the corners brought on by age, the lashes longer, thicker.
“My God,” Padraig breathed.
“Ah. Just who I was looking for,” the woman said with a wry smile. “A moment, though, if you please.” She turned nonchalantly on one bootheel to face the lord’s dais.
Vaughn Hargrave’s face went the color of curdled cream and Caris gave a choked cry.
“Hello, Uncle Vaughn,” Euphemia Hargrave said lightly. “Or should I say Grandfather?”
* * * *
Searrach slid off the horse before it had come to a halt, and the beast, perhaps sensing the madness of the woman who had commanded it, reared and turned at once, speeding off into the muffled darkness as the snow fell as fast and thick as down from a burst cushion.
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She didn’t care that it left her; she would no longer require the use of it.
Two guards lay tangled together in the moat to the left of the entry, but Searrach paid them no heed as she pulled the door open and slipped inside. They were the lucky ones. She crossed the entry, hearing the shouting commotion coming from the direction of the hall. It sounded as though everyone at Darlyrede was gathered inside.
Good.
She quickly found the corridor that led to the east wing, and then the doorway that spilled her out into the dark courtyard. The snow had driven even the basest servant to shelter and there was naught to be seen in the open space of cottages and workshops within the wall. Only the white blanket of accumulating snow, set to a golden glow by the single torch outside the quiet soldiers’ quarters at the far end of the bailey. Searrach was drawn to the source of that light as surely as any moth—there would be no interference from the king’s men. She wrestled the torch free of its holder and ducked inside the barracks.
The cots, the blankets, the clothes all made easy fuel. As she backed out of the doorway, the single shuttered window and doorway showed an almost cozy glow within, and Searrach stopped and watched it. But even its lovely warmth brought no smile to her blank expression. She turned around and walked toward the chapel, the torch in her hand sizzling through the delicate crust of snow as she carried it along, held down by her calf.
No aid either, from their imaginary god.
Moments later, the smell of smoke followed her from that holy structure and into the curtain wall corridor in the west wing, up the slight incline toward the hall. She heard the maids in the kitchen exclaiming to each other as she passed, but their panic did not trouble Searrach. They would investigate where she had already been, and by then it would be too late.
She passed a tapestry hanging on the stone wall and touched her torch to a bottom corner of it on a whim. The ancient threads curled with flame at once. Searrach walked on, while behind her, shouts of alarm were like musical whispers in the back of her mind.
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