Lucan chuckled. “Well, I say a bit of a tickle is a small price to pay for a maid as devoted as you.”
“It’s more serious an aversion than just a tickle, Lucan. It could truly kill her. I must be very careful. And now I’ll need to change my gown before I visit her tonight. Even one hair…”
Lucan sobered and looked down into Iris’s face. “It’s obvious that you have become attached to her, Iris. But you must remember, regardless of the danger that Lady Hargrave might be in, your safety is paramount. Tread carefully. Caris Hargrave was friends with our mother, remember.”
“Maybe that’s why I feel so protective of her,” Iris mused. “She is the closest thing I have to a parent. Will you tell Padraig Boyd I am your sister?”
Lucan shook his head. “It’s too soon. Everything here is too foreign, and he is yet too impulsive. We cannot trust that he would understand our motivations, nor that he might not slip at the wrong moment or with the wrong person. I don’t think he realizes just how deadly a place Darlyrede House is. But he will.”
Iris nodded and sighed, dropping her hand. “When shall I begin?”
“Today,” Lucan insisted. “Now that we have decided our path, we can waste not another moment. Upon my honor, we shall need each one.” Lucan took Satin to the window and prodded him out.
“I trust that I’ll not be receiving any more surprise visits from you in my chamber,” Iris said as she followed her brother to the door. She stepped around him to place her hand on the latch.
“We shall see enough of each other in Master Boyd’s presence, I think.” He leaned in to press a kiss to her temple. “I’m glad you are here, Iris.”
She smiled up at him. “As am I.” Iris opened the door and peered both ways down the dark corridor before stepping aside and letting him pass.
“Wait,” Lucan whispered, trying to turn back into the chamber. “The portfolio…”
Iris shoved the door closed and bolted it, resting her back against it with a grin.
Chapter 6
By the time Padraig was led back to his chamber by Lucan Montague, his head was spinning, and not only from being overwhelmed at Darlyrede’s prosperity—the place was indeed a veritable empire. The steward had walked him about the grounds within the tall stone walls, passing innumerable industries of the hold, and all the servants employed there were busy at their tasks, unsmiling, unfriendly. The majority of them wouldn’t raise their eyes to meet Padraig’s gaze, and those who did regarded him with outright suspicion.
It was a rich man’s home, that was certain. Padraig guessed the whole of the habitable part of the island of Caedmaray could be set down neatly within the walls, with no risk of rubbing up against the stone. Padraig had asked stupidly where the grazing animals were, and Rolf’s confused expression before he composed himself to answer that they were with the shepherds in the fields had prompted him to keep any further rash inquiries to himself for the time being. But as they strolled briskly between cottages and stalls and canopies housing the trades of Darlyrede, Padraig’s worry increased.
This had been his father’s home. All this wealth had belonged to Thomas Annesley, third Baron Annesley. How could that be reconciled with Tommy Boyd—the gruff, strong, quiet man Padraig knew simply as Da. Darlyrede still belonged to him. Or belonged perhaps to Padraig now.
What was he to do with it all? Padraig knew only sheep, and fishing, and the weather, and the sea.
They were walking back along the wall toward the keep when the projectile glanced off Padraig’s skull from above. His vision flickered, he staggered, and Rolf grabbed his arm. The servants gathered nearby gasped in fright.
“Lord, are you all right?”
Padraig brought his hand away from his bloody scalp; he could feel the gash beneath his hair. He looked down at the burst wooden pail at his feet, its load of stones spilled in the dirt. He and Rolf looked to the top of the wall in the same moment, but there was nothing to be seen along the walk.
“Fell off the ledge, you think, Rolf?” Padraig muttered.
The steward didn’t answer, although his expression was dark with anger.
The knight didn’t seem surprised. “And so it begins,” Lucan mused grimly.
A thorny lump had grown in Padraig’s stomach—along with the throbbing ache in his head—by the time Rolf made his excuses and left Padraig with the English knight once more.
They were not truly alone, though—the chamber held a handful of the servants Padraig had met earlier in the barracks and, after Padraig’s head wound had been tended, they all seemed bent to some task; the chamber was a quiet hive of activity.
“We shall commence with your wardrobe,” Montague announced in a businesslike tone, moving around the bed to set up his ever-present packet of ink and quill and parchment on the small table, as if Padraig hadn’t just nearly been killed in the bailey.
The matronly woman Lucan had chosen in the hall, whom Padraig now knew was called Marta, approached him, a long ribbon stretched between her hands.
“If you’d be so kind as to hold out your arms, Master Boyd?” she queried. Upon Padraig’s hesitation, she demonstrated, lifting her thick arms to her sides like a seabird coasting on a warm current of air.
Padraig cautiously raised his arms to shoulder height, and the slip-slip sound of the ribbon between Marta’s fingers sliced the air like swallows over a field.
She called out a series of seemingly random numbers and then said to him, “Turn ’round, please.” Another series of numbers. Padraig tried not to jump when her plump arms came about his waist from behind, then his hips. But he could not help flinching when her fingertips came between his thighs with a firm prod.
“Step apart, please.” Slip-slip.
Marta called out more numbers, and then Padraig noticed her daughter at the bedside, a
