by Lila Dubois
Then the woman’s dress faded away, leaving her in a ragged undergarment ripped at one shoulder, revealing her left breast. As Séan watched, long black scratches appeared on her exposed flesh. It was both familiar and freshly horrible. Her shoulders hunched and she curled her arms around her belly. Thick chains crawled out of the darkness behind her. The chain moved as if it were a living thing—a snake of linked iron that climbed her body, wrapping around her ankles, wrists and neck.
“Holy Mary Mother of God,” Séan whispered. The longer he looked, the more solid the woman became. He could no longer see through her, and the wounds that covered her were now more burgundy than black.
She was coming alive before him, and it was a terrible thing to see.
“Missus,” Séan said voice gruff with fear and alarm, “who are you?”
Her head jerked up, and just like the ghost he’d seen all those years ago, there were no eyes, only empty sockets. She raised her chain-draped hands to her face.
He couldn’t watch this again. “Don’t, please. I’ll help you.”
Her eyeless face turned toward him. “Imigh anseo mo, chol cathair.” Her voice echoed as if she were speaking at one end of a long pipe, as unholy a sound as he’d ever heard.
Séan hesitated, struggling to translate the strong country Irish. Her raised hands reached out to him, the fingers curled into claws. “Imigh anseo mo, chol cathair!” Her scream sent spikes of pain through his skull.
Séan slapped his hands over his ears. Every instinct told him to run, but he wouldn’t turn away from someone in need. He wouldn’t fail her again.
The ghost turned her head, as if she looked over her shoulder with those sightless eyes. Séan took a step to the side, stomach heavy with dread at what he might see behind the apparition.
The woman whipped back around, and Séan heard the chains clank. “Rith!” Her scream was an assault on his senses, freezing him in his tracks, but it wasn’t until she came at him, fingers clawed, mouth open wide, that he ran.
Séan stumbled down the steps, racing through the garden along the back wall of the main wing. He skirted the construction zone for the new kitchen, headed toward the lights and noise of the pub. As he skidded to a stop on the smoking patio, the door opened.
Sorcha was silhouetted by the light, her hair glowing like fire. A smile lit her face as she closed the door, muting the sounds of revelry.
“Ah, there you are. I’m very sorry to make you wait, but now the night—”
“You cannot stay here.” Séan grabbed her hand, dragging her off the concrete slab into the garden, where he ignored the path and headed away from the castle.
“Séan, where are we going?” Her voice lilted with a laugh.
The fact that she was so terribly unaware of the danger around her made him all the more determined to get her, and then the rest of them—every person in that pub—away from this place.
“As far away from this place as we can get.”
“Are you well?” The laughter was gone from her voice, replaced by uncertainty.
“I will be when you’re safe.”
They’d rounded the corner of the east wing. He could see the front drive, and the parking lot beyond that. The need to leave this place was a raging in him.
“Séan, wait, I don’t understand.” Gravel crunched under their feet as they crossed the drive.
“You’re not safe here.”
“What are you talking about?” Sorcha’s hand wiggled out of his hold.
Séan turned to her. There wasn’t enough light to see her face, but her silhouette was visible. She stood with her hands on her hips, head high.
“It’s haunted.”
“That’s hardly news.” She tossed her head, strands of hair catching the starlight. “I know it’s haunted.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because it’s my job. Actually, this is my dream job. And ghosts aren’t real. The stories about it being haunted are priceless as far as giving the hotel character.”
“No job is worth this.”
“Worth what?” Sorcha shifted. “It wouldn’t be a proper old building if there weren’t a few ghost stories.”
“They aren’t stories. The ghosts are real, the danger is real.”
“You’re afraid of the ghosts.”
There was a note of pity in her voice, and Séan gritted his teeth. He wanted to tell her that he wasn’t scared of the ghosts, but this was too important to lie. “Yes, I’m terrified of them. Whatever’s in there is so tortured that even a priest’s blessing didn’t help. The souls left here have suffered. They’re suffering still and anyone who stays here might end up like them.”
She fell back a step, and Séan realized he’d raised his voice, something he almost never did.
“You seriously believe the ghosts are dangerous.”
“I’ve seen the bodies of people who didn’t believe this place was dangerous.”
“You mean the people who died in construction accidents? We’ve had more engineers than I can count out here, and we know where there are structural issues and what’s dangerous. Everything’s being repaired.”
“That may fix the building, but it won’t touch the ghosts.”
“The ghosts didn’t kill anyone, and the building is something—”
“I’ve seen the ghosts.” His word cut through the night. He heard Sorcha take a breath, waiting for more. “I saw one just now, while I waited for you. It’s a woman, tortured and wearing chains. And I’ve seen another one, a woman in gray, eight years ago. It may even be the same being. That woman—ghost—is in the castle right now and I know there’s worse things than her in there.”
Sorcha’s arms dropped to her sides, her fingers tugging the fabric of her pants. “You saw a ghost, just now?”
“Yes.”
She turned her head away, hair hiding her face. “There are a lot of scientific explanations for people seeing ghosts—”
Séan grabbed her by her arms, jerked her against him. He wanted to shake her, make her understand, but as her quick breathing made her breasts brush against his chest, his need to shake her changed into something else. His blood was up, as his mother would say.
Séan wrapped one arm around her back, the other hand cupped the back of her head. He kissed her.
For a moment she was stiff with surprise, their lips pressed hard together, but then she melted against him, her body soft in his arms. She tasted like apples, and her lips were willing. The kiss lasted a minute, an hour. Séan lost himself in her, until all he could feel was the heat of desire, no more cold dread and fear.
He shifted the arm at her back and her hands wrapped around his waist. Soon the kiss wasn’t enough and he slid his hand down, finding the hem of her sweater. She gasped when his fingers touched the warm skin of her back.
Her gasp was like a splash of cold water, reminding him of where they were and what they were doing. Séan released her.
Sorcha raised a trembling hand to her mouth, touching her lips.
Séan wondered if he’d hurt her, grabbing her like that, wondered if he should apologize for kissing her without her permission.
But he said nothing. He felt empty now, as if the encounter with the ghost and now the kiss had drained him of energy and feeling.
Of the two, it was the kiss that had him more rattled.
Kissing her had been more than he’d imagined—more powerful, more enticing. What might have been only an infatuation, a moment of silliness in his otherwise staid and boring life was now a real, burning desire. He wanted her.
Sorcha fell back one step, then two. With a jolt, Séan realized she was leaving.
“Sorcha.” He raised his hand.
“No.” She held up both of her hands, palms out. “No,” she said again.
Séan watched as she turned away from him and ran back to the castle.
Chapter Two
Well Met
Present Day—Two Years after the Grand Opening<
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Séan lifted the packed cooler out of the back of his truck. James had been too busy to make the delivery today, so Séan was delivering today’s meat to The Restaurant at Glenncaily Castle.
As he did each time he came here, he took a moment to examine the windows, the shadows at the base of the buildings. There were no ghosts on this bright and cold Tuesday afternoon. Spring had come to Ireland, though it was chilly enough at dawn, when Séan got up.
Hefting the cooler, Séan started for the castle.
There were people coming and going—guests exiting the front door, maps in hand, locals headed into the pub for a bit of lunch. In the years since Seamus had returned to the glen with his grand plans to turn his ancestral home into a luxury hotel, many things had changed. Séan’s dislike and suspicion of the place wasn’t one of them. After the grand opening, he’d gone to Seamus and demanded that he close the hotel, that he protect all the people who he’d brought here by sending them away. Seamus had called a halt to renovations. He’d asked everyone in Cailtytown who’d had an encounter with a ghost to walk through and see if they felt or saw anything. Everyone, including Séan.
Séan spent hours in the castle, even sleeping in one of the newly constructed rooms in the east wing. And yet he’d felt and seen nothing. Once, in the west wing—which was still under construction at the time, with stacks of wood and other materials blocking off most of the second floor—he thought he’d heard something, but the harder he tried to hear it, the fainter it got.
In the end Seamus had the castle blessed, the new parish priest having no idea that the church had already done its best to help the souls here. Séan had attended the blessing, hanging back and scanning the shadows, tense as a cat in a boot factory as he waited for the horrifying ghost to reappear. But nothing happened, and when he caught sight of Sorcha, she was looking at him with a mix of anger and pity.
Years had passed, and yet he was still wary of Glenncailty—and still longed for Sorcha every time he saw her. Séan carried his cooler around the outside of the pub to the kitchen.
The pub took up the whole first floor of the east wing, which was connected to the central wing by a short stone and glass hallway. Guests who went between the buildings got a look at the weather and the gardens behind the castle. The view of the gardens was somewhat obstructed by the kitchen, which had been built off the back corner of the main castle. The one-story structure was out of place, though they’d tried to make it fit in by adding stone facing. No matter what they did, it would always be a glaring modern addition to a centuries-old structure.
It was the one place Séan felt truly comfortable.
He nodded to a couple he knew who were smoking on the back patio of the pub. He tried not to think about what could have happened there, if only he hadn’t gotten it into his head to go wandering.
When he reached the kitchen door, hidden by a prickly shrub, he balanced the cooler on his knee and knocked.
“Hello there,” he greeted Jim, who held the door open for him. As always, Jim smelled like chips and other delicious fried things.
“And hello to you. James busy?” Jim held the door open with one hand while Séan entered.
“Spring’s always busy for him. Plenty of people looking to butcher now that calves are weaned.”
Séan headed for one of the prep tables. The kitchen was immaculate, from the gleaming silver counters to the white walls. The only spots of darkness were the heavy rubber mats on the floors that cushioned the chefs as they stood for hours, preparing food for both the pub and restaurant.
“Tristan here?” Séan asked.
“He is. He’s in the dining room, let me find him for you.”
“Thanks, Jim.”
Séan looked around, hoping for someplace to sit, but there was nothing. With a sigh, he leaned back against a counter and scratched his jaw. His beard needed a trim and had for a week now, but there’d been too much to do—he’d fallen into bed each night too tired to move, and last night he hadn’t even made it to the bed, falling asleep in a chair with paperwork on his lap.
“Séan, such a pleasure,” a man said in an elegant French accent. He looked up to see the head chef, Tristan, walking toward him.
Séan straightened and held out a hand, pretending not to notice when Tristan quickly examined his hand before shaking. It seemed Tristan still hadn’t forgiven him for the time he’d come in covered in slurry.
“What do you have for me today?” Tristan’s French accent deepened as he turned to the cooler. He stroked the top with all the care a child gave a pretty box on Christmas morning.
“Good beef, plenty of fat in the meat.”
“No lamb?”
“The ewes and lambs are happily eating and getting fat.” Séan grimaced.
Tristan must have heard it in his voice. “You still don’t like the lambs?”
“Sheep are a waste of grass for my cows.”
“Aw, but they are so cute, and so tasty.”
Personally, Séan liked beef better and thought sheep were stupid. When Tristan arrived from Paris with expectations that he’d turn the restaurant into a major culinary destination, the chef had approached Séan about supplying meat.
Séan was a dairy farmer. His creamery had been in his family for over one hundred years, and he had seventy-five pedigree dairy cows. He’d always done a bit of beef, since there wasn’t use for bulls in the milking parlor, and he had the land. He also kept non-pedigree suckler cows, and all their offspring were reared for beef. He, like his father before him, sold the animals to Ruins’ butcher shop, where James butchered them and sold them to local markets. He’d never planned to raise animals for meat in a more serious way, but Tristan had changed that with his request. He and Tristan had struck a bargain and he now had more beef than dairy cows. He was raising and feeding the beef cattle organically and providing the meat—butchered by James—to the castle.
“You’ll have the first lamb in a few weeks. The ones born in January will be ready soon.”
“And the mutton?” Tristan asked. “It will make stew.”
At Tristan’s request, Séan now also had a small flock of sheep and two rams. He hadn’t sponged them—artificially inseminating them—so rather than having all the sheep pregnant and lambing at the same time, he’d had lambs born New Year’s Day and some born only a few weeks ago in the traditional spring lambing.
“I won’t butcher them until the summer. There’s only a few that are too old to get pregnant again.”
“Good, good.” Tristan wasn’t really listening. He’d taken the top off the cooler and pulled out the first of the vacuum-packed bags. There were the best cuts off two sides of beef in the cooler. The lesser cuts were back at James’s waiting to be sold if Tristan didn’t want them, though they’d dry-aged long enough that they’d be more tender than most.
“Beautiful, beautiful.” Tristan crooned at each piece as he pulled it out. When all the packs were laid out, Tristan shook his head. “How can an animal so big make so little meat?”
Séan raised his eyebrows. “There’d be more meat if you’d take it all.”
“I need more steaks, not flank meat. I want to have steak on the menu, not only as a special.” Tristan sighed, picking up the porterhouse and examining it. Tristan had demanded that James hang his meat for at least two weeks, and the dry-aging time showed in the color.
“You’ve said that before. Several times. You could get meat from one of the big—”
“No. No.” Tristan motioned to the meat and a flurry of chefs descended and began hauling the packs away. “I’m fine with my eight steaks per cow. Steak will be a special only for now. I have roast on the menu, and that’s all you Irish people seem to want. We are not open enough to need more. Plus, what is most important is that I know where my food comes from, that I can touch the cow that I will cook if I wish.”
Séan had no idea what was wrong with a nice roast and still didn’t understand the “local sourcing” Tristan was
always going on about, but so far he’d made good money selling his beef to Glenncailty, so he hadn’t argued.
“I have something I want you to taste,” Tristan said, herding Séan out of the way of his chefs.
“I don’t go in for fancy—”
“It’s not fancy, I promise you. It’s an Irish curry. You are the simplest man I know, and I want your opinion.”
Séan looked at Tristan. The chef was a few years younger than him, and his glossy dark hair, perpetual tan and dark eyes made him seem as foreign and European as he sounded. Séan wasn’t sure if Tristan had meant to insult him or if it had been a translation issue, so he let it slide.
“Come into the dining room and try it. If you like it, I will use the lesser beef and make it a special tomorrow.”
Séan hadn’t eaten anything since he’d gone home for tea after the morning milking, and his stomach was letting him know that bread, butter and an extra strong two-teabag cup of Barry’s Irish Breakfast were not enough to hold him until dinner. A nice, hot curry did sound good.
He followed Séan through the maze of the kitchen to the swinging doors that led onto the dining room.
The Restaurant—Séan thought it was stupid that it didn’t have a proper name, but no one asked him—took up almost a third of the main floor of the castle. The large space was divided up by little half walls, and there was a bar toward the front, though he’d never heard of anyone popping in here for a pint, when the pub, with its relaxed atmosphere, was only a few steps away.
The muted colors and sparkle of glass and silver made Séan nervous. He rarely went someplace as nice as this. The last time he’d put on a tie had been for a wedding, and the time before that to take his mother to dinner for her birthday because his sister, a successful therapist in Dublin, had been out of the country, leaving it to Séan to make their mother feel special. He could have brought her here, but he’d gone to Navan instead.