“He only wishes to arrest me as a balm to his pride.” Euphemia lifted an eyebrow. “But I daresay he wouldn’t be able to rest with no criminal to chase after, so I shall do him a favor and resist.”
“Mama, Mama!” a child’s voice called, and then a young boy ran from behind the armed men to catch himself around Euphemia’s legs. “I want to see too!”
The clearing was completely silent as everyone’s gaze fell on the lad, perhaps seven or eight years, his red hair soft and curling about his ears. Iris recognized him as the lad from the woods, on the day of her and Padraig’s picnic.
“Your son?” Padraigasked quietly.
Euphemia nodded.
Padraig squatted down and held out his hand.“Padraig Boyd.”
The child came away at once and placed his hand into Padraig’s much larger one. “George Thomas Annesley. How do you do?”
“Come along now, George,” Euphemia said. “Uncle Padraig is rather busy right now.”
“He’s my uncle? Oh, look, Mama—the kitten I told you about!”
Iris brought her hand to cover her mouth. Satin—more black than white now, dirty and skittish—crouched in the brush, his tail swishing low.
Padraig rose as the child ran along the edge of the wood toward Satin, and there was a strange look on his face. Iris glanced at Lucan and saw a similar expression there.
But Padraig came back to where Iris still knelt and held open his hand. A ring boasting a bright, square emerald lay in the center of his palm.
Father Kettering cleared his throat. “Shall we continue?”
The impromptu guests milling about like weary orphans witnessed the wedding with proper solemnity, but after the Scotsman had slipped the large emerald onto Iris’s finger and kissed her gently to seal his oath, they cheered. Several came forth offering both their congratulations and various odd trinkets from what little was left of their possession. It was strange and touching.
“We must all, to a man, carry on to Steadport Hall,” a dirtied and disheveled Lord Hood announced. “Lady Hood and I shall be honored to be your hosts as we celebrate these fine young people and our rescue brought about by MasterBoyd. Huzzah!”
At the kind lord’s invitation, Iris looked around to where Euphemia and her band had been standing, but it was as if the wood had swallowed them up without a sound, leaving only trampled snow and Satin sitting regally where the woodland group had stood only moments before, watching them with his cool disinterest. Her gaze found Lucan and saw that he wore a dark expression as he too stared toward the shadowed, empty wood as the tired cheers rang around them.
Iris thought it very likely that her brother wasn’t at all finished with Euphemia Hargrave.
Nor she with him.
* * * *
Padraig waited in the luxurious depths of the bed in a chamber in Steadport Hall. Iris was just out of his sight behind the silk screen, and it seemed as though she’d been there for hours. There were no more sounds of water splashing, however, and the maid who had brought a length of creamy silken cloth hadlong departed.
He was nervous, now that they were married. Would he disappoint her as her husband? Would she regret her choice tomorrow?
Would she regret it tonight?
“Meow.”
Satin leaped onto the bed at Padraig’s side and stepped daintily onto his middle, breaking the cycle of worry that had begun to turn in his mind. Padraig strokedthe cat’s head.
“You’re nae so bad for a cat, Satan,” he admitted. “You still reek ofhell, though.”
“It’sSatin,” Iris called.
Padraig turned his head and saw her standing there, her dark hair damp and brushed long over her shoulder, her body touched by the soft, thin, silky material of her robe. Padraig shoved the cat aside—ignoring his offended yowl—and sat up further in the bed.
“That’s what I said,”Padraig argued.
She walked toward the bed, a small smile on her shapely lips. “That’s not what you said. You said Satan. And don’t tell me it’s only youraccent again.”
Padraig grinned at her. “I’ll need some more tutoring if I’m to survive in the king’s army past my first day,” he said wryly. “The other soldiers will nae likely be pleased with a Scot in their ranks.”
