Lucan shrugged. “I don’t dare speculate. If he finds Thomas Annesley guilty, he could confiscate the entire barony for the Crown. Send our good Master Boyd back to Caedmarayempty-handed.”
Iris remained silent.
Lucan gave her a moment to sit with the idea. “Would that change your feelings for him? If he were to be nothing more than a simple fisherman for the rest of his life?”
She looked sharply at him. “What do you mean?”
Lucan raised his brows and looked away enigmatically as he staggered to his feet again, wincing as his injured foot touched the ground.
“I only mean that you might possibly be pressed into expressing your opinion on that very matter…ah, quite soon.” He gave her a grin and turned to limp away.
And Iris noticed Padraig standing nearby.
“Good morning, Iris,” he said with a bow.
She smiled. “Good morning, Master Boyd.”
“May I join you?”
“How could I refuse such a gentlemanly request?”
Padraig sat down with a groan and a sigh, tossing his crutch to the side. “Ah, well, I had the finest tutor.” He was quiet for a moment. “Wouldit matter to you? If I doona gain Darlyrede? If I leave Northumberlandwith nothing?”
He hadbeen listening.
“Do you know,” she said, looking back to the smoking rubble of the keep, “this is the second time in my life that I have watched a manor burn. Where people I held dear to me have perished, leaving me with no home. No possessions. No thoughts of a certain future. It’s only stones, Padraig. Why would stones matter to me,of all people?”
She met his eyes then, and if she had been standing, she thought her legs would have been unable to support her, his gaze smoldered so.
“Because all I can offer you with any certainty is more stones—a stone cottage on a poor fishing island. A hard life for a woman, even one who is not used to fine things. I watched my mother live it.”
Iris forced herself to swallow. “Do you admire your father?” she asked.
A slight frown creased his forehead. “Aye. Tommy Boyd—Thomas Annesley, whatever you wish to call him—he is the most honest, strongest man I have ever known. He loved my mother, he loved me. He taught me well. If none of this”—he waved his hand about the lawn—“had ever happened, I know that he would have lived out his days on Caedmaray as a good husband. A good father. A good man, if nae a noble one.”
“I cannot think of any finer thing a woman could ask for than a noble man—noble in character, ifnot in title.”
He stared into her eyes for a long moment. “Even if I win Darlyrede, it is a ruin now. It will be years before it will be rebuilt.”
“If there is anything else we are in certain possession of, it’s time,” Iris suggested, a smile beginning to creepalong her face.
“I love you, Iris,” he said. She opened her mouth to respond, but Padraig placed a finger against her lips. “Shh. Before you say anything, I will love you here at Darlyrede House, or on Caedmaray, or at Thurso, or in London. It is my thought that I might petition the king to enlist in his army. And then, regardless of his judgment, I can make a life for us. Whatever I must do from this point on, and nae matter where I must go to see it done, I will do that for you. For us. So doona vow it if you’re nae preparedto go with me.”
“Anywhere,” she whispered. “I’ll love you anywhere, everywhere. Always.”
Padraig kissed her gently then, and Iris felt the swell of happy tears behind her eyes.
But then he pulled away, causing Iris to rock forward and catch herself with one outstretched arm. He raised a hand toward the milling people and a sooty and weary-looking Father Kettering came forward, lugging a golden trunk on his thigh.
“A yes it is, then?” he called.
“Aye,” Padraig replied, using his crutch heavily as he helped Iris to her feet. “Let’s get the thing done before she changes her mind.”
“Padraig?” Iris queried.
He turned to her, taking both her hands in his while Father Kettering opened the little trunk now nestled in the snow. “As I said, I doona know what will happen later today, let alone a year from now,” he confessed with that smile that had melted her heart since the first night she’d seen it. “But I doona ever want to wonder if you will be by my side. Iris Montague, willyou marry me?”
Iris looked over to where Lucan was standing on the edge of the crowd, his own subdued grin on his face.
