Pris didn’t turn to see. When, presumably reassured by Miller’s nod, Seamus looked back at her uncertainly, she pulled out the second chair at the table and sat. “Miller said you knew Paddy well.”

Seamus eyed her warily. “Aye.”

“So-where is he?”

He blinked, then went back to staring into his almost full pot. “Don’t know.” Before Pris could prod, he went on, “None of us do. He was here one night, a sennight gone it was, and he ambled off home come closing time, like he always did. But he never reached home.” Seamus glanced at her, briefly met her eyes. “The path to his cottage runs through the bogs.”

Pris tamped down a sharp surge of panic, tried to think of some other interpretation, and couldn’t. “You’re saying he was murdered?”

Returning his gaze to his glass, Seamus shrugged. “Don’t know, do we? But Paddy’d walked that path ten thousand times, man and boy, and he weren’t even drunk-barely tipsy. Hard to swallow that he’d lose his way and die like that, but no one’s seen hide nor hair of him since.”

Cold dread welled in Pris’s stomach. “My brother, Lord Russell, has taken Paddy’s old job.” She heard her voice, steady but distant, was aware of Seamus’s instant concern. “I wanted to ask Paddy about Cromarty’s stables. Did he say anything about the place-about the people, the work?”

The expression on Seamus’s face was a disturbing mix of worry and sympathy. He sipped, then in a low voice offered, “He’d worked there for three years. Liked the place well enough at first, said the horses were fine, but recently…he said there was something going on that he didn’t hold with. That’s why he left.”

“Something going on?” Pris leaned forward. “Did he say anything more? Give any hint as to what the something was?”

Seamus grimaced. “All he said was that that devil Harkness-he who’s head stableman at Cromarty’s-was in it up to his ears, and that it, what ever it was, involved some register.”