Padraig tossed the quill onto the page, where it skittered and sputtered ink, like a spurt of black blood across the words. “You did,” he acknowledged, and his heart was so heavy it felt like cold lead in his chest. He looked to Searrach and thought he glimpsed compassion in her dark eyes.
She knew the pain of Darlyrede too.
“Neither one of us belongs here.” He saw her throat convulse as she swallowed, and then she whispered, “Take me with you.”
And Padraig’s hurt and disillusionment, his betrayal, was so deep, so blindingly painful in that moment that he nodded.
Chapter 16
Iris left Lucan in the chapel annex, ignoring his harshly whispered demands to return. She swiped angrily at the tears that ran in rivers down her cheeks, each one like a silent condemnation that she only now realized the truth of.
Padraig had been right all along. Even Iris herself hadn’t understood how indebted to Hargrave her brother had become, hadn’t understood the depths of what he’d agreed to. But now that Padraig had revealed the truth to her, Iris couldn’t believe that she’d failed to see it herself. How else had Lucan Montague, a young orphan boy forgotten in France, managed to secure a position of authority under the king of England? Was there no place safe, no office sacred enough, to be out of Hargrave’s reach?
But now Iris knew the truth. And Padraig knew the truth. And Lucan knew the truth.
There was just one more person who must be put through pain today, and Iris knew that duty could fall only to her.
She made her way up the long, wide flights of stairs to Lady Hargrave’s wing, and was surprised to find Rolf and another house guard standing to either side of the corridor.
“Mistress Beryl,” Rolf said. “You’re early.”
“The events of the day seem to warrant it, Rolf. Is Lady Hargrave in her chamber?”
“She is,” the man answered. “You should know that Lord Hargrave has commanded that the family wing be closed to visitors until the thieves in the forest are apprehended.”
“I see,” Iris said. “I’ll go down for the tray myself later, then.”
“No need,” Rolf said. “It’s already been placed, miss.”
“Thank you.” She passed between the two men but then stopped. “Rolf?”
“Yes, miss?”
“If you should happen to see Master Boyd, will you tell him I would very much like to speak with him after my duties to her ladyship are finished for the evening?”
“Yes, miss.”
Iris turned and strode down the corridor, her slippers making no sound on the thick rug that ran down the center. Iris passed Euphemia Hargrave’s chamber and stopped at Caris’s door, considering this thing that had never seemed important to her before, although she had made note of it in the journals. This was the only carpeted corridor in all of Darlyrede. It pained Iris’s heart to think of the lady’s fragility requiring such a thing.
If Lord Hargrave ever struck her, the woman would crumple like a pillow of ash on the hearth.
Iris rapped softly on the door. “Milady?” she called out, and then engaged the latch, pushing the door open. “Milady?”
The plush, opulent room was empty, but the door leading to the connecting chamber stood open, and it was from there that Iris heard her call answered.
“Beryl, is it you?”
Iris closed the door behind her and went through to find the lady already seated in her usual position at the window seat, although it wasn’t yet dusk. And just as Rolf had reported, the tray had been delivered.
“You’ve experienced many trials lately, have you not?” the woman said with her sad smile. “Oh, Beryl, what would I do without your stalwart strength? Do go on and place the candles for us—it will be dark soon enough.”
Iris crossed the rug to the chest where the supply of beeswax tapers were kept. In her mind, she knew it was no longer necessary to keep a vigil for the girl who was in fact dead but was putting off that dreadful moment for just a bit longer, and Iris was glad for the reprieve. Her own heart needed some time to recover before dealing out the next blow.
Tonight would be a memorial rather than a vigil; fifteen tiny flames for each year of Euphemia Hargrave’s young life.
And Iris would never light them again.
Once the room was golden and soft, the gray light through the window deepening to steel, Iris approached Lady Caris again.
“You’ve heard what happened during the hunt today,” she said.
Caris nodded up at her with a smile, and reached out to take Iris’s hand. “I have. And how you stood up to those awful criminals, for my sake.” She squeezed Iris’s fingers, but it was little more than a flinching pressure. “You were very brave to do so. Foolish, I must add.”
Iris shook her head and went down to her knees before the woman. “Perhaps it was foolish, milady,” she allowed. “But I would do it again a hundred times over. For I gained the information you have been so desperate for.”
A faint frown appeared between Caris’s fine brows.
“The man I confronted,” she began and then then had to pause, swallow, take a breath. “He admitted it was he who met Euphemia the night she disappeared from Darlyrede House. She died at his hand.”
Caris’s expression never changed, and save for the single blink of her eyes, it was as though she had become a marble statue.
“Milady?” Iris asked softly. “Do you wish to lie down?”
Lady Caris’s lips parted, but she did not speak.
Iris edged closer, rubbing the woman’s upper arm. “Breathe, milady.”
She heard the intake of air, swift and sudden, as if Caris had been held underwater these past moments, these past years. Perhaps she had felt as if she was drowning, Iris acknowledged.
“She’s…dead,” Caris said quietly.
Iris nodded. “Yes.”
“How?”
“I don’t know, milady.”
Her eyes were wide but dry as she nodded absently again. “It’s over. At last.”
Iris gathered the woman to her, embracing her gently through the
