“Stop,” he commanded in a low voice. “He’s baiting you before everyone gathered and you’re playing right into his hands.Stop,before he turns you into a fool. I assure you, he will.” Lucan turned. “Gentlemen, may I remind you that there will be a time and a place to present your cases before the king? We have gathered this morning to do no more than determine the division of the hold.”
“Gentlemen—ha! Ah, well—the voice of reason, as always, Lucan,” Hargrave condescended, but Padraig could tell by the man’s smug expression that he felt he had already scored a point. “You will be happy to know that while we were waiting interminably for your arrival, I chose a suitable staff for your ambitious indigent.” He waved a hand toward a nearby table, and a trio of brawny and scowling men stood from the benches.
“You should be quite pleased.” Hargrave smirked. “They are most suitable to your…specific needs.”
“Thank you, Lord Hargrave,” Lucan said. “We shall certainly begin with these three.”
“Oh, they’re all I can spare, I’m afraid.”
“Master Boyd shall require personal attendants for his chambers. I do doubt any of these lads has experience asa chambermaid.”
“I can throw out me own piss,” Padraig muttered.
“Very well,” Hargrave agreed quickly. Too quickly, in Padraig’s mind. “Searrach?”
A raven-haired woman seated at a table near the first six men rose. She was shapely of body, but her features were sharp.“Aye, milord.”
“Are you amenable to serving our guest for the remainder of his—very brief, I’mcertain—stay?”
“As you wish,Lord Hargrave.”
Padraig felt his eyebrows raise. The woman was a Scot.
Hargrave looked back to Lucan, a thin smile on his face. “There you are. Happy now?”
Padraig suspected he was the only person in the chamber to hear Montague’s curt sigh before he strode through the hall, weaving between the tables and benches. He stopped in the center of the gathering, turning ina slow circle.
“You,” he said, pointing to a large, somber-looking young man. “And you, there. Yes. You, mistress—is that your daughter with you? Very good; the pair of you, if you please. You,and…also you.”
Now Lucan looked back to Hargrave. “That should be a sufficient number for now. I reserve the right to reevaluate in the coming days once Master Boyd becomes settled.”
“You reserve the—?” Hargrave grasped both arms of his chair and leaned forward with an incredulous expression. And then he laughed.
“Wait,” Padraig interjected, crossing the floor to where Lucan stood and drawing the attention of all in the hall. He cleared his throat. “I’d have my say.”
Lucan Montague fixed Padraig with a glare full of daggers.
Padraig ignored him, turning toward the dais fully and pointing toward the woman sitting rigid as a post next to Lady Hargrave. Her gaze seemed fixed on some point away from where Padraig stood at Montague’s side.
In the daylight of the hall, Padraig knew she was the most beautiful woman he’d had ever seen. Quite possibly the most beautiful woman inall the world.
She would give him herattention now.
“Her,” he said clearly. “Beryl, you called her. I want her.”
* * * *
Beryl raised her head so quickly the bones in her neck crackled. She knew her eyes were too wide, her expression full of shocked abhorrence.
“What?” she blurted out and then looked quickly to Caris Hargrave. “My lady,” she pleaded quietly.
But Lady Hargrave was already smiling serenely and laid a cool, comforting hand on her arm, even as she spoke toward the hall in her soothing,melodic voice.
“I’m afraid that’s not possible, my dear Lucan. Beryl is wholly a lady’s maid, and her duties are such that I simply cannot do without her. I’m sure you understand.”
Beryl silently let out the breath she’d been holding.
Lucan nodded deferentially. “Of course, my lady. Perhaps someone else, Master Boyd,” he suggested.
