The masked man stopped his advance midway down the aisle, positioning his lean form, the very focus of both the hall and its occupants, but all the while the eyeholes in the leather mask remained trained on the dais, on Hargrave, and on Lucan. The slender boots.The short cape.
This was the man who’d shot him in the wood.
“Where is Padraig Boyd?” the criminal demanded.
* * * *
Padraig halted before Iris’s door and looked quickly in both directions before rapping softly upon it. The door opened easily, and heslipped inside.
The chamber was quiet, dark and cool. Iris hadn’t been here in some time, if, indeed, she had come here at all after their words in the chapel. This caused Padraig’s brow to furrow; she wasn’t in the hall for the evening meal, but Lucan had been given an obvious place of honor at the right hand of his deadly benefactor.
She must be taking refuge in the lady’s chamber, he realized, and it gave him a modicum of relief as he lit the short candle on Iris’s small table. Both Lucan and Hargrave had their hands full at the moment with the thieves from the forest, and that suited Padraig just fine.
A scratching at the window distracted him from his thoughts, and Padraig remembered Iris’s pet. He went to the stone opening and released the latch, allowing a snowy Satin to pour himself through the gap and leap silently to the floor to twist himself aboutPadraig’s legs.
“I’m nae she,” he warned the creature. “But I wish she were heretoo, you ken.”
“Meow,” Satin offered plaintively.
“I’ve got naught for you,” Padraig muttered in reply, even as the cat padded quickly across the floor to the wall and began rubbing the top sides of its forehead against the wood panel. “Mad beast.”
“Meow.” The cat glided back and forth against the wall pointedly, his head rubbing against the seam where the panels were nailed close together. He stopped and sat on his haunches, his tail swishing impatiently. “Meow.”
Padraig’s frown turned curious and he advanced toward the wall, crouching down as the cat gained his feet once more to stretch his front paws up on the paneling, paddling silently against the wood. The seam there was wide—wider than the other close-fit panels—and Padraig could feel a cold breath of air emanating from within the wall.
“Meow.”
He looked down at Satin, who was once more sitting patiently, although he had fixed Padraig witha pointed look.
Padraig curled his fingertips into the seam and pulled, and to his surprise, the panel fell away with a clatter. In a blink, Satin was nosing about the opening, instigating a metallic,ringing clang.
“Aye?” he said half to himself. He pulled out the little dish and set it aside, noticing the thick leather packet tucked into the shadows. While Satin nudged the empty bowl about, rattling it across the floor in an impatient fashion, Padraig withdrew the thick wallet.
He moved to the narrow cot along the wall and sat down, at once unwinding the thin leather strings holding the packet closed. He opened the stiff leather to behold a veritable fortune of parchment and vellum, each page scrawled over in neat, black writing. Padraig flipped through the topmost pages, his surprise increasing to shock with each sheet revealed. Lists. Inventories. Dates upon dates, going back at least a score of years. Some of the pages were cracked and dog-eared; some were so faded, Padraig had to hold them up toward the meager light to guess at the ghostly information that had paled over the years as the page itself had darkened.
This was not some lady’s simple diary full of mundane trivialities—this was Iris’s work, he realized, and the depth of it shook Padraig to his boots.
He flipped through several more pages, his gaze skimming the words until a lumpy object between the next two sheavesgave him pause.
It was a leaf, now faded and dry and brittle, its pointed tips fragile like butterflies’ wings. Padraig recognized it as the one he’d tucked into Iris’s hair when he had still known her as Beryl, and the memory of that sweet day pricked at his heart, even as he read the entries on the page.
Is called Padraig Boyd, from the Scottish isleof Caedmaray…
Crude, ill-mannered…
Funny, kind…
Devotedto his father…
Masterful with a sword…
Padraig looked up from the page then, letting the silence of the room settle on him like a cold blanket. Satin had abandoned his noisy efforts to make a meal appear in his empty dish, and now he leaped onto the cot, stepping daintily across the pages on Padraig’s lap until his white head was in charging distance of Padraig’s chin. Padraig reached up and stroked the underside of the cat’s jaw mindlessly as his eyes stared at the cold hearth and his mind was filled with memories of Iris.
Aye, she had played him false. But looking at this sampling of evidence she had amassed, considering the grave personal danger she’d risked every single day while living at Darlyrede, Padraig realized what a pigheaded fool he’d been. She’d wanted to tell him the truth, but by the time she knew she could trust him, the situation at Darlyrede had become so much more deadly for them all.
Iris had used her incredible ingenuity to come alone to Darlyrede from France and slip into the cogs of the household so intimately as to become invisible. Likely the information Padraig held in his hand, even if it did not exonerate his father, would incriminate Vaughn Hargrave and his cronies in a host of heinous deeds. Padraig had also come of his own volition into this dangerous situation, aye. But he was a man, and had counted on Lucan Montague’s aid. He had intended on fighting for the prize that was Darlyrede House.
What had Iris stood to gain from all her risk and effort?
