Iris released her sob with a pained gasp. “Milady! Thank God,” she croaked. “Hurry! If he catches you here, he’ll kill us both!” Her voice sliced her throat like a knife.
“Shh, shh. I’m sorry. There is no escape for us,” she wheezed through her smile, her red-rimmed eyes bright with unshed tears. She brought her hand beneath Iris’s head and lifted it, setting the rim of a chalice against her lower lip. The whoosh of air around the woman smelled strongly of smoke. “Here, drink this foryour comfort.”
Iris nearly choked on the tepid, milky substance, but Caris kept tipping the cup, flooding Iris’s throat with the drink until she must swallow or drown. It tasted somehow green, but it was smooth and cool and seemed to fill in the deep, bloody fissures Iris imagined lined her throat.
Lady Hargrave’s grip failed as a spasm overcame her, and the cup nearly tumbled away into the darkness as she coughed and choked against the slab, each breath sounding like a strained whistle.
As ifshe was dying.
“Milady!”
After what seemed an eternity, Caris straightened slightly over her and brought her pale, shaking hand to stroke the hair back from Iris’s forehead, her cheek, and she realized the drink had done more good than she’d expected; her throat was almost numb.
“Milady, hurry,” she rasped.
“I will…release you, Iris. Only…do be patient…a moment,” she chastised with a rasp. “Do.”
Iris stared up at her in confusion, her mind seeming to catch on something the woman said. And then she realized that Lady Hargrave had addressed her as Iris. Her face must have given it away, for the woman’s smile deepened knowingly.
“Yes, I know. It pains me…to admit that I did not realize the truth on my own, especially after…you spoke of your brother.” The woman’s words broke off as she struggled to catch her breath. “I was so enamored of you. So…trusting. Lady Paget was your undoing…after all.”
Caris gasped, and Iris didn’t know how any air at all was getting into the woman’s lungs at the tight whisper of sound. “There is no use…denying it. What happened to…Beryl? I must know.” She pulled a kerchief from her sleeve and held it to her mouth, and again Iris was struck by the strongsmell of smoke.
It could not only be Satin’s recent presence that had brought on such difficultiesfor the woman.
Iris swallowed with some strain herself now, she realized. The numbness in her throathad increased.
“She died. After the birthof her child.”
Caris’s eyes narrowed over the kerchief.
“I had nothing to do with her death,” Iris breathed. “I swear. I did everything I could to help her. But I was desperate to gain Northumberland, and her death was the perfect opportunity to return.”
Lady Hargrave lowered the kerchief, gasping weakly. “Toreturn…to me?”
Iris was confused. “To return to the land of my family. I didn’t yet knowyou, my lady.”
“You did,” Caris rebutted, her chest heaving pointlessly. “You…don’t remember.”
“Perhaps I don’t,” Iris acknowledged. “I find that I am muddled just now. I—my lady, I’ve only tried to protect you. But we must go.”
“Protect me from what…sweet Iris?”
“From Lord Hargrave,” Iris insisted, her voice sounding hollow and echoey. “I know about the people he’s murdered. The young girls he’s taken.”
Caris nodded weakly. “Do you? I’ve already told you…Lord Hargrave would never harm me.” She leaned close to Iris’s face, her breath bitter and faint against Iris’s mouth. The woman’s nose was running unchecked. “When your parents…died, I wanted to take you. Lucan. Mostly you. I have…fond weakness…orphans.”
Iris felt her mouth going slack, but it wasn’t from surprise; her entire face seemed to be going numb, creeping down her neck to the top of her chest.
The drink. The drink in Euphemia’s chamber.
A dead girl’s meal…
“My lord forbade it. Too suspect. I let you go…pretty child. All…dark hair.” Her forearm moved as though she were stroking Iris’s head again, but Iris couldn’t feel the woman’s touch as Caris seemed to collapse more heavily against the table. “Euphemia fled to…fire…at Castle Dare. To find…Thomas…she thought. She left me…for him.” The words ended on a wheeze. Caris paused, looking deep into Iris’s eyes as she struggled to draw breath. “Her father.”
“Iss true?” Iris slurred. “Cordelia?”
“Cordelia.” Her words were little more than breathy squeaks. Caris lifted the heavy-looking cup and drank from it, choking as she tried to swallow, spraying Iris’s face with a fine mist of the green-smelling liquid.
