“Mistress Beryl,” Rolf said.“You’re early.”
“The events of the day seem to warrant it, Rolf. Is Lady Hargrave in her chamber?”
“She is,” the man answered. “You should know that Lord Hargrave has commanded that the family wing be closed to visitors until the thieves in the forest are apprehended.”
“I see,” Iris said. “I’ll go down for the tray myself later, then.”
“No need,” Rolf said. “It’s already beenplaced, miss.”
“Thank you.” She passed between the two men but then stopped. “Rolf?”
“Yes, miss?”
“If you should happen to see Master Boyd, will you tell him I would very much like to speak with him after my duties to her ladyship are finished for the evening?”
“Yes, miss.”
Iris turned and strode down the corridor, her slippers making no sound on the thick rug that ran down the center. Iris passed Euphemia Hargrave’s chamber and stopped at Caris’s door, considering this thing that had never seemed important to her before, although she had made note of it in the journals. This was the only carpeted corridor in all of Darlyrede. It pained Iris’s heart to think of the lady’s fragility requiringsuch a thing.
If Lord Hargrave ever struck her, the woman would crumple like a pillow of ashon the hearth.
Iris rapped softly on the door. “Milady?” she called out, and then engaged the latch, pushing the dooropen. “Milady?”
The plush, opulent room was empty, but the door leading to the connecting chamber stood open, and it was from there that Iris heard hercall answered.
“Beryl, is it you?”
Iris closed the door behind her and went through to find the lady already seated in her usual position at the window seat, although it wasn’t yet dusk. And just as Rolf had reported, the tray hadbeen delivered.
“You’ve experienced many trials lately, have you not?” the woman said with her sad smile. “Oh, Beryl, what would I do without your stalwart strength? Do go on and place the candles for us—it will be dark soon enough.”
Iris crossed the rug to the chest where the supply of beeswax tapers were kept. In her mind, she knew it was no longer necessary to keep a vigil for the girl who was in fact dead but was putting off that dreadful moment for just a bit longer, and Iris was glad for the reprieve. Her own heart needed some time to recover before dealing outthe next blow.
Tonight would be a memorial rather than a vigil; fifteen tiny flames for each year of Euphemia Hargrave’s young life.
And Iris would never light them again.
Once the room was golden and soft, the gray light through the window deepening to steel, Iris approached Lady Caris again.
“You’ve heard what happened during the hunt today,” she said.
Caris nodded up at her with a smile, and reached out to take Iris’s hand. “I have. And how you stood up to those awful criminals, for my sake.” She squeezed Iris’s fingers, but it was little more than a flinching pressure. “You were very brave to do so. Foolish, I must add.”
Iris shook her head and went down to her knees before the woman. “Perhaps it was foolish, milady,” she allowed. “But I would do it again a hundred times over. For I gained the information you have been sodesperate for.”
A faint frown appeared between Caris’s fine brows.
“The man I confronted,” she began and then then had to pause, swallow, take a breath. “He admitted it was he who met Euphemia the night she disappeared from Darlyrede House. She died at his hand.”
Caris’s expression never changed, and save for the single blink of her eyes, it was as though she had become amarble statue.
“Milady?” Iris asked softly. “Do you wish to lie down?”
Lady Caris’s lips parted, but shedid not speak.
Iris edged closer, rubbing the woman’s upper arm. “Breathe, milady.”
She heard the intake of air, swift and sudden, as if Caris had been held underwater these past moments, these past years. Perhaps she had felt as if she was drowning, Iris acknowledged.
