The Scot's Oath
Page 25
“We must all, to a man, carry on to Steadport Hall,” a dirtied and disheveled Lord Hood announced. “Lady Hood and I shall be honored to be your hosts as we celebrate these fine young people and our rescue brought about by Master Boyd. Huzzah!”
At the kind lord’s invitation, Iris looked around to where Euphemia and her band had been standing, but it was as if the wood had swallowed them up without a sound, leaving only trampled snow and Satin sitting regally where the woodland group had stood only moments before, watching them with his cool disinterest. Her gaze found Lucan and saw that he wore a dark expression as he too stared toward the shadowed, empty wood as the tired cheers rang around them.
Iris thought it very likely that her brother wasn’t at all finished with Euphemia Hargrave.
Nor she with him.
* * * *
Padraig waited in the luxurious depths of the bed in a chamber in Steadport Hall. Iris was just out of his sight behind the silk screen, and it seemed as though she’d been there for hours. There were no more sounds of water splashing, however, and the maid who had brought a length of creamy silken cloth had long departed.
He was nervous, now that they were married. Would he disappoint her as her husband? Would she regret her choice tomorrow?
Would she regret it tonight?
“Meow.”
Satin leaped onto the bed at Padraig’s side and stepped daintily onto his middle, breaking the cycle of worry that had begun to turn in his mind. Padraig stroked the cat’s head.
“You’re nae so bad for a cat, Satan,” he admitted. “You still reek of hell, though.”
“It’s Satin,” Iris called.
Padraig turned his head and saw her standing there, her dark hair damp and brushed long over her shoulder, her body touched by the soft, thin, silky material of her robe. Padraig shoved the cat aside—ignoring his offended yowl—and sat up further in the bed.
“That’s what I said,” Padraig argued.
She walked toward the bed, a small smile on her shapely lips. “That’s not what you said. You said Satan. And don’t tell me it’s only your accent again.”
Padraig grinned at her. “I’ll need some more tutoring if I’m to survive in the king’s army past my first day,” he said wryly. “The other soldiers will nae likely be pleased with a Scot in their ranks.”
“I doubt they’ll have little untoward to say to you once they see how you handle a sword,” Iris said with more than a touch of pride in her voice, and it made Padraig love her all the more. “Ulric has promised to take you under his wing. You won’t be the low man long.”
“I only hope it shows the king my sincerity,” Padraig confessed.
“The king could have no more noble a man than Padraig Boyd serving him. He’ll be pleased. And we’ll be fine.” She laid her forearms on his shoulders, her fingers stroking the hair at the nape of his neck. “Once you’re settled, we can begin helping Lucan search for your father.”
“I wish Tommy could have been here today, to see us wed. To know about Euphemia.”
“We’ll find him, Padraig,” Iris promised quietly. “There is no reason for him to be afraid now. The truth will all come out, and Thomas Annesley can come home at last. But for tonight…”
Iris drew away from him and undid the belt of her robe as she stood. It fell apart slightly, revealing the cleft between her breasts, the navel in her flat stomach, the dark triangle of hair at the juncture of her legs.
* * * *
Padraig reached out for her again, taking her waist in his hands and pulling her into the bed once more, this time across his bare chest. Their lips met at once, and his hands—strong and wide and rough—smoothed the robe from her shoulders, turned her onto the mattress, held her while he rose over her.
He broke away. “You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in all my life,” he said hoarsely. “I knew it the first moment I saw you. And I’m so proud that you are mine. I’ll never be prouder of anything.”
“You honor me,” Iris whispered, smoothing back his hair from his forehead.
He kissed her again, and then his hands suddenly were all over her body as his wide frame shook with desire. It was obvious that Padraig was trying to go slowly with her, and she loved him all the more for it. Her nerves were raw even as he touched her breasts, suckled her, dragged his hands down her body to between her legs.
In moments she had forgotten her nerves as Padraig brought her passion to life. She had wanted him for so long—this man she loved. And now as he moved between her legs surely, his trembling gone, she was ready to receive him as a woman, as his wife.
His thrusts were slow at first, short; then growing deeper, surer, as her body relaxed around him. Iris did not think she would gain her pleasure this first time, but her discomfort faded, and her peak was swift. Padraig’s strokes rocked her, and the feeling of her breasts jarring with each thrust brought her just to the edge again.
And then he was pulsing within her, burying his face in her neck, cradling her head in his hands.
“I love you,” he whispered over and over. “I love you, Iris.”
Iris could not think of words with meaning enough to convey the depth of her love for the man who was now her husband, and so she answered him the only way she could think of in the moment, with her passion still so high—she rolled over atop him, still joined together, and began another lesson.
This time, as his wife.
Epilogue
Effie stood in the fringe of the wood for a long time after the last of the refugees from the burned-out manor had trudged over the moors toward Steadport Hall. The stones would smolder for weeks, and even the birds were still silent in the fading light of afternoon. She could just make out the only remaining window ledge of the large opening of what had been her chamber. The chamber where she had suffered for so many years.
And somewhere in the rubble beyond, her tormentors’ bodies lay.
A mad part of Effie longed to stalk to the ruined house and dig through the smoking carnage like a madwoman until she found their blackened bones—she wanted to see the evidence of their deaths with her own eyes, needed it. She forced herself to swallow down the tears that threatened. She was no longer that weak, unsure girl who needed the guarantee of a thing already done. They were both dead. It was over. That was good enough for her.
It must be good enough.
Padraig Boyd, her brother, had come. He was a good man, Effie thought; she’d certainly seen enough evil to be able to tell a keen difference. Perhaps one day she would see that goodness reflected in her own father.
And yet Effie had not waited all these years, suffered for so long just to turn over the house, the people, she had looked after for so long to Padraig Boyd. Caris and Vaughn Hargrave had killed her mother and then ripped Effie from her womb. They had stolen from her not only her parents but her home, her life. She should have grown up knowing the joy of Darlyrede House, not its darkness. Even Lucan Montague had cowed to Vaughn Hargrave’s evil power, allowing his home to remain razed, conferring with the king on Hargrave’s behalf.
She was glad she’d shot him.
And, of course, there was George to consider. Effie was determined that her son would enjoy the benefits of the life denied to his mother. She would stop at nothing, and no one—not her brothers and certainly not Lucan Montague—would prevent her from doing it. Even if George was so very excited at the idea of having an uncle.
And an aunt too now, Effie supposed with a slight smile.
She turned away to circle back through the wood to the caves, treading through the snow. She stopped in the fading gray light halfway through to the stream, noticing the second set of small footprints tracking her initial trail, and crouched down with a wry smile. She’d told him no.
She looked around her through the dark slashes of trees. “George Thomas?” Her chi
ding inquiry was met with silence.
“George, where are you?” She rose and followed the prints. “It’s all right—I’m not cross that you followed me. Only come out now so we might go home before it’s dark. George?”
Effie walked faster now through the twilight until the footprints halted in a jumble of trampled black mud, contrasted with—
Hoofprints.
Effie turned her head to follow the black, dragging scuffs through snow now tinged pink from the last bursts of the setting sun. Horse tracks. A single horse, coming from the direction of the smoldering rubble that was once Darlyrede House. Effie’s heart stopped in her chest as her head snapped up.
The tracks headed north.
And George’s footprints were gone.
George was gone.
Effie screamed up into the treetops as the sun slipped behind the far-off, rolling hills of Northumberland. She screamed and screamed, but the silence around the moors swallowed up her agony with an indifferent sigh of wind.