Searrach strained upward to reach the portrait closest to her, then the next, struggling to pile the heavy works of art she could touch, one by one, on and against the settle blocking the hall doors. She stood back and looked at them for a moment: Lord Hargrave, Caris, Euphemia, Cordelia, and others Searrach did not and whose names she would never know. All dead. Like her da. Like her dreams.
The din within the hall went suddenly quiet. Black smoke was billowing up the throat of the west corridor and now toward her; surely it had begun wafting into the hall by the kitchen corridor. No more time for musing.
Searrach set the cushion of the settle well ablaze and then retraced her initial steps into the east wing to wait, touching a tapestry here and there—a chair, a portrait—with fire as she went. She heard the pounding against the hall door behind her like the faint sound of the sea.
* * * *
“Euphemia?” Caris Hargrave’s question was like a whistle of breeze through reeds.
The blond woman swept an arm before her middle and gave a gallant bow while, behind her, Padraig felt frozen in place. This woman before him, wearing tall boots and trousers and a cape; the woman who had shot Lucan, who had killed Lord Paget in the wood; this leader of the band of highwaymen who had terrorized the Darlyrede Road for years—this woman was the girl from the portraits in the hall.
“It is indeed I, Grandmother,” the woman said. “Although I am not Euphemia Hargrave, and I never was. That was simply the name you gave me after you cut me from my mother’s body. I prefer Effie now. Effie Annesley.”
Padraig’s heart skipped a beat. Euphemia Hargrave was alive!
“Euphemia, where have you been?” Lord Hargrave demanded gruffly. His face had lost its fish-belly cast, and was now rapidly deepening to scarlet. “Lady Hargrave and I have searched for you for years. We thought you dead.”
“Had I not gotten away when I did, I’m certain I would be dead by now,” Effie quipped. “And I’m certain you both very much wish I was dead. Neither of you monsters are worthy of being called family. The people I’ve been living with these past fifteen years are the only family I have known, and now—” She half-turned and met Padraig’s gaze. “Now, my blood family will return to Darlyrede. And you—”
She faced forward once more. “You both will pay for what you’ve done.”
“I’m very disappointed in you, Euphemia,” Hargrave said, his face now a terrible purple color. “All these years I had no idea it was you who had caused such anguish on Darlyrede’s lands.” Hargrave glanced about at the frozen, terrified faces of the nobles in the hall. “Did you all hear her?
“And now you are somehow convinced that this—this stranger is your true family? A man spawned by our own Cordelia’s killer? I am ashamed. And it will in fact be you who pays for your crimes.” He looked to his men-at-arms, still standing about the perimeter of the hall with an air of confusion. “Seize her. You heard her—she is the leader of these bandits. These murderers. They killed Lord Paget, and countless others have been robbed of their wealth.”
Effie threw back her head and laughed loudly. “It’s absurd that you think anyone here believes I am behind the grotesque crimes committed against the people of this land. Am I supposed to be frightened by your threats? Intimidated? You stupid, stupid man. I’m not afraid of you anymore. Why do you think I’ve come back now, after all these years? Why didn’t I flee south? Or to Scotland, like my father? To another country like brave Sir Lucan, at your side just there?” The way she spoke of the knight insinuated that she did not in fact hold him in high regard.
She turned suddenly to face Padraig once more. “Why did I risk my life to stay within a stone’s throw of this hell on earth, brother? I think if anyone can tell them, it is you.”
As Padraig looked into her eyes and he saw Tommy Boyd’s stubborn determination there, Padraig realized. Thomas Annesley had been injured, alone when he’d fled Darlyrede the night Cordelia was murdered, and for most of their lives neither Padraig nor his brothers had had any idea of their father’s history, their own connectedness.
Euphemia alone had escaped with the terrible knowledge of Darlyrede’s evil past. And she had waited.
“Because you knew he would come back,” Padraig thought aloud. “You knew we would all come back.”
Euphemia nodded. “I knew you would come back,” she repeated softly, and there was hard triumph in her eyes. She faced the dais once more. “And so here you are,” she announced loudly and extended her arms, the fingers of both hands clasped together into one fist, addressing the soldiers still standing surrounding her. “I’ll no longer evade the king’s men. Let them take me into their custody. I’ll happily remain under their guard to be brought before the king. Sir Lucan, perhaps you would like to do the honors?”
Clever woman, Padraig realized, amazed at Euphemia’s forethought. Under the protection of the king’s men—and Lucan Montague—Hargrave could not touch her. And everything she knew about Vaughn Hargrave would be laid bare before the king himself.
Padraig’s thoughts at once returned to Iris’s leather packet of notes and maps, still safe in the bag at his hip. The nobleman on the dais—his wife at his side, seeming to be stricken with panic and gasping for air—was finished.
They’d won.
The soldiers now looked to Lucan, who was staring down at Euphemia with an unusually dark expression on his ordinarily unimpressed visage.
“You shot me,” he blurted out.
Euphemia’s hands turned, palms up toward Lucan. “I admit, I shouldn’t have done that. It was a clean shot, though. I’m sure you’ll be fine. You seem fine. I’ve seen much worse.”
“You’re sure I’ll be—?” Lucan winced and shook his head and
