“I’ll keep her safe,” Padraig interrupted, pulling her to his side. Although the sentiment behind his words was genuine, it pained Padraig to make the pledge to the knight under false pretenses. It was true that he had no intention of letting Beryl out of his sight after they had both come so close to death at an unknown hand. “I suspect everyone will be gathered in the hall for some time aftersuch an event.”
Beryl pulled free. “Neither of you understands,” she insisted. “Lady Hargrave is fragile. She will be greatly disturbed by a death at the feast. She’ll want me. And if shecan’t find me—”
“There will be disquiet, no doubt,” Lucan acknowledged. “But I suspect that’s what Hargrave wishes. I’ve the feeling he intends to somehow use the opportunity of Cletus’s death againstyou, Padraig.”
“He ate frommyplate,” Padraig said. “Whatever killed him wasmeant for me.”
Lucan nodded, his noble face a grim mask. “And so I really must go.” He again looked to the beautiful woman who had distanced herself equally between the two men in the corridor. “Please,stay with him.”
She watched the knight return in the direction of the hall until the shadows had swallowed him, and then she turned and walked past Padraig. He caught up with herin two strides.
“I’ll wait with you,” she allowed. “But only after I go to my chamber. There is aught I must do.”
“I’llaccompany you.”
“No.”
“Aye.”
She was silent until they stood before his door, and then Beryl stopped and spun to face him.
“I must see to Satin. If Lady Caris is in a state, I could be gone all night.”
Padraig opened his mouth, but Beryl forged ahead.
“You can’t come with me. Idon’t wish it.”
“Sir Lucan said—”
“Do you always do what Sir Lucan says?” she tossed at him. “It shall take some time to change my costume, and it would do your reputation no favors to stand about in the corridor outside my door.”
“I doona care for my reputation. You shouldna be alone.”
“I’m not the one in danger, Padraig,” she said sternly, but her cheeks flushed, and that was the second time she’d called him by his given namethat evening.
“You would have eaten from thesame platter.”
Beryl’s gaze did not waver. “It wasn’t meantfor me. I’ll—”
The door at his back opened suddenly, and both he and Beryl turned wide eyes to it.
“You’ve returned sooner than I expected.” Searrach was just visible through the slender opening, but what could be seen of her was shocking in the dim light of the corridor; she was veryclearly nude.
“Couldna wait to get back to me, I see. Och, Beryl,” she said in a dramatic gasp, and then moved herself behind the door. “I didna know you were there.”
Padraig knew his mouth was agape and he looked betweenthe two women.
Beryl’s mouth was pressed into a thin line. “I wish you a good evening, Master Boyd.” She turned and strode down the corridor on swift feet, escaping Padraig painlessly with the unlikely aid of the naked woman currently residingin his chamber.
“Dammit, Searrach, what are you doing here?”
But Searrach only opened the door wide with a matching smile, revealing the whole of her body.
“I’m your afters,” she said, and then took her bottom lip between her teeth as she seized Padraig’s hand, pulling him into the room and then slamming the door.
* * * *
Iris felt as if her entire head was afire by the time she pushed through her own chamber door and bolted it behind her. She went at once to the panel in the wall to retrieve her writing materials.
