Her lips pressed together and her face continued to burn with humiliation, although she couldn’t have explained why—shehadn’t been caught naked in a corridor. She moved to her cot to unpack her supplies, wishing to set down the details in writing quickly, before they began to smudge together in her mind, although she realized that she would likely have more time than she’d anticipated now that Padraig Boyd was occupied withthe Scotswoman.
Iris began to list the guests as she remembered seeing them in the hall, but her hand was shaking in an annoying fashion. She paused and raised her gaze from the page, took a deep breath and blew it out. Immediately, her mind’s eye was filled with the image of Cletus, writhingon the stones.
“Argh!” She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head, hoping the image would be dislodged. But when she opened them, only tears escaped, leaving space for so many other undesirable memories to rush in. Lady Paget’s study of her, Padraig’s attentiveness, Lord Paget’s embarrassing accusations, Father Kettering’s bewildering outburst.
Searrach waiting for Padraig in hischamber. Naked.
Iris sniffed and swiped at her nose with the back of her wrist and then set to her notes again. This was no time for ridiculous self-indulgence. The facts wanted documenting.
The fact was, Cletus was dead. And it could have very easily been Padraig Boyd instead.
She forged ahead with an angry frown, detailing as best she could Lord Hargrave’s speech, Adolphus Paget’s tirade, the dishes Cletus had sampled from the platter on the table. Which servants had carried what dishes—she could remember very little clearly, it seemed; she’d been so distracted by Padraig Boyd.
It’s nae your dutyI want more of.
And all the while, Searrach had been awaiting his return.
Iris finished her notes and threw the quill to the floor in a fit of pique. She shoved the packet from her lap to the cot and gained her feet to pace the small chamber, as if she could escape her maddening thoughts.
Why did she care that he flattered her but slept with Searrach? He was obviously only playing with her. Practicing with her. Isn’t that what Lucan wanted her for, any matter? To teach Padraig Boyd how to behave as a noble?
And wasn’t that what noblemen did? Heap praise and petty flattery on those worthy of their station, while behind closed doors they sated their baser and terrible desires with women other than their wives?
Padraig Boyd is neither Adolphus Paget nor Vaughn Hargrave, she told herself.
No, but he is the son of Thomas Annesley.
Iris stopped in the middleof the chamber.
What had Father Kettering meant in the corridor? Why had he stolen Padraig’s brooch with such antagonism? The priest had been nothing but mild mannered sinceIris’s arrival.
What if Lucan was wrong, though? Not only about Padraig Boyd but ThomasAnnesley too?
Iris went back to her stack of papers, riffling through the bottom half until she found the information she sought. Euphemia Hargrave had disappeared from Darlyrede House the same year Lucan’s and her parents had perished in the fire at Castle Dare. It had been Lucan’s boyhood theory that if Thomas Annesley hadn’t died in Scotland all those years ago, as everyone thought, he had returned to Northumberland to take unfounded revenge on the Montagues, wedding guests at Darlyrede House the night Cordelia Hargrave had died. Lucan had vowed to track down Thomas Annesley and findout the truth.
What if Thomas Annesleywasguilty andhadpassed down his terrible traits to Padraig Boyd? Perhaps Lucan had dedicated his life to handing back the domain of a monster to his spawn.
Then she remembered Padraig’s face on the night of his arrival at Darlyrede, remembered his tender assistance in picking her up from the floor, remembered his pride at excelling at his lessons, the clear love in his voice when he’d spoken of beautiful, wild Caedmaray. Surely after so many months in the very lair of Vaughn Hargrave, Iris could recognize evil when it was so close to hernight and day.
Iris grew still for a moment, a tickle in her mind, a spreading irritation that an instant later had her riffling back through the pages from her portfolio. Her eyes scanned the notes, her fingers flipped through the sheets; she looked back and forth between the two pages and then raised herunseeing gaze.
Cordelia Hargrave had only been sixteen years old when she’dbeen murdered.
Almost exactly the same age Euphemia had been when she’d disappeared from Darlyrede House—ten and five.
He hasn’t touched you, has he? I don’t like it when he touches my girls…
Iris shuffled back through the pages to the list of known persons who had disappeared from Darlyrede and the surrounding villages. She traced the line of names with her forefinger, men and women. There was no pattern for the masculine names, but for the women…yes, some were older and hailed from other towns, but—
“Ten and six,” Iris whispered to herself, her gaze following her finger down the list. “Maid, ten and six; maid, ten and six; dairy, ten and five; kitchen, ten and six; maid, ten and four. All missing in winter. All from Darlyrede House.”
Fourteen of them. One for each year Euphemia had beengone, save one.
* * * *
Padraig crossed his arms over his chest and regarded the raven-haired woman swaying before him, a sly smile on her face. Her forefinger twirled the velvet of his tunic. “Why are your clothes off? And how do you keep getting in here?”
“That’s a lot of questions from a man standing before a naked woman,” she teased, her stroking forefinger giving way to smoothing both palms up Padraig’s biceps. “We can talk later. I need you.” Her hands came around the back of his neck, pullinghis head down.
