She nodded but didn’t look at him, still seemingly mesmerized by the fire that mirrored her secret musings. “Lach-lan-Blair. Lachlan. Lach-lan.” Her mouth turned down suddenly, and her next words were whispered. “Your eyes arejust like his.”
Thecolor of them.
Padraig too frowned, wondering at the truth of the woman’s ramblings. Indeed, Lucan Montague had reported that Padraig had a half brother named Lachlan Blair residing in the Highlands, but how had Searrach managed to make her way alone so far south to Darlyrede House? And why did the idea that this woman, so close to Vaughn Hargrave, had known Padraig’s brother cause the muscles along Padraig’s spine to stiffen?
People seemed to appear and vanish at will, and everyone—everything—was connected in some grotesque fashion. Padraig’s thoughts went back to the portrait of Euphemia Hargrave in the entry hall.
Lady Euphemia had become obsessed with the idea of Thomas Annesley and Cordelia Hargrave nearly to the point of madness…
Thomas Annesley is accused of returning to Northumberland and setting the blaze that killed my parents and destroyed Castle Dare. The same night Euphemia Hargrave disappeared…
Must be the English of youall. Your eyes…
Searrach, Lucan, Iris, Hargrave, Castle Dare…everything—everything—seemed to be connected by gossamer threads that were invisible at first glance. The only outlier seemed to be Euphemia Hargrave, who had turned up at Darlyrede apparently from nowhere—a motherless infant who’d had no other to care for her in the world save for Lady Caris Hargrave—and then vanished fifteen years later.
Padraig thought of the lambs he’d taken from their dying mother in the spring, and then he stilled.
It was madness, the ideas that were circling in his mind then, like carrion birds waiting for the opportunity to swoop down and devour the carcass of Padraig’s reality.
But Tommy Boyd was no liar. He was no murderer, andhe was no liar.
Could Euphemia Hargrave… have been Cordelia and Thomas’s baby? If it was true, the sad girl in the portrait had been Tommy’s firstborn child, and Padraig’s own sister.
He could see nothing in his mind now but the eyes in the portrait in the entry hall—unhappy, hopeless, frightened.
Even if the insane idea was true, there was no way Padraig could prove it. Euphemia Hargrave was dead, and Padraig knew too little of that long-ago time in Northumberland, had no facts, no station to call on to demand the truth.
But Lucan Montaguedid. Iris did.
The sudden touch of Searrach’s cold hand creeping around the back of his neck shook him from his reverie, and he realized that the woman had slunk closer to him, pressing against his arm, reaching up her face to nuzzle his hair.
“Do you think me beautiful, Padraig?”
“Searrach,” he began.
Her lips tracked along his ear, his cheekbone. “Your skin is cold,” she whispered. “Let mekeep you warm.”
“Nay,” he said, half turning and placing his hands on her arms to halt her progress. “It’s not like that between us. It will neverbe like that.”
“It will,” she countered easily. “You’re taking me to Caedmaray. I’ll be your woman there. I’ll take care of you.”
“Nay,” he repeated, more firmly this time even as she struggled against his restraining touch to move closer to him. Padraig released her and stood, looking at her from over the fire. Her face was bright with yellow light, turning her already dark eyes black. “I’m going backto Darlyrede.”
She stared at him with those black eyes for a long moment. “I canna go back there,” she said. “Nae even for you, Padraig. Lord Hargravewill kill me.”
“Then doona,” Padraig said. “But I must.”
“He’ll killyou,” Searrach insisted. “Are you so blind that you canna see what he’s been doing? He nearly succeeded while you were there.” She got up suddenly and walked toward him. “I’ve saved your life a dozen times already. And now you owe me mine, by takingme from here.”
“What do you mean, you’vesaved my life?”
“I made excuses. I took the punishment. Those scars you saw…” Her mind seemed to wander for the briefest instant, but then her brows lowered. “So now you will take me from here. Back to Scotland.”
Padraig shook his head. “I’ll nae force you to return to Darlyrede. Take the horse, go on if you would. But if anyone else figures out what I think I have, people could be ingreat danger.”
“Figures out what you have?” Searrach’s eyes narrowed and she fixed him with a derisive look. “You mean about your precious Beryl?”
Padraig didn’t respond. Something in Searrach’s eyes—perhaps it was madness—reminded him that he’d always known to be wary of the woman, and just now there had been a quiet whisper of something more sinister behind the words she’d spoken. And so Padraig held his tongue, sensing that she could no longer keep the darkness to herself.
