by Lila Dubois
As they entered the dining room, the muscles in Séan’s back and shoulders went tense. He could feel the darkness that clung to the walls, despite the impressive chandeliers overhead. It happened every time he entered the castle proper and was a constant reminder that under the polish and success of the hotel lay something unholy that no one would acknowledge.
He’d tried to protect everyone by shutting the place down. He’d failed, and looked like a fool doing it. He’d even convinced himself that he hadn’t seen the ghost, but the impression of darkness lingered. The tragedy he’d been prepared for—sure that something bad would happen—still hadn’t come. In his optimistic moments, Séan imagined that meant that the castle wasn’t haunted, but then he’d step inside. As soon as he did, the feelings of dread crept over him, and he knew that someday this house of cards would fall.
“Sit there,” Tristan ordered. “Give me only a moment and we will be ready.”
Séan dropped into a seat, fidgeting a little as he looked at the elaborate spread of silverware in front of him. He went to rest his arms on the table, but then thought better of it. He’d gone right from the barn to James’s butcher shop in town and then out here. He’d washed his hands somewhere along the way, but that didn’t mean the rest of him was clean. He could only imagine what Tristan would say if he got blood or manure on the starched white tablecloth.
“Hello, Séan.”
Sorcha approached, stopping on the other side of the table, hands resting on the back of the chair. She wore a black blazer with a small gold nametag on one lapel. Under that she wore a trim dress of spring green with a black belt. The dress made her hair seem redder, her eyes bluer. Séan rose, nodding slightly, but didn’t offer his hand.
His heart leapt at the sight of her. It always did, and he suspected always would.
Sorcha smiled her greet-the-guests smile. It was easy to hide behind.
Séan was standing awkwardly by the chair he’d risen from. He was rumpled, his shirt, pants and jumper showing signs of wear and even some old washed-in stains. There was a piece of grass stuck to the wool on his shoulder, his hair was a mess and his beard needed to be trimmed. He was out of place in the elegant and polished dining room, like he should be out in a field, green at his feet and blue sky above.
He looked good enough to eat.
Sorcha’s smile wavered, but she held it in place. She wanted those rough, work-worn hands on her skin. Wanted to rip the clothes from his body and feel the muscles beneath. With any other man, she’d take him home, get what she wanted and then walk away. But with Séan, she wouldn’t, couldn’t do that.
Her gaze traveled up to his face. His hazel eyes were flecked with green and when his gaze met hers, Sorcha felt it all through her body, as if he’d touched her.
“Good, good.” Tristan bustled back to the table, the maître d’ and a gaggle of servers following him. “We have new servers. Since you are here, they can train on you.”
Sorcha turned to Tristan, paying more attention to what he was saying than was needed, using it as an excuse to stop staring at Séan as if she were going to take a bite out of him.
“Sit, sit.” Tristan waved his hands, then barked something at the maître d’ in French.
The maître d’ and Séan both moved to pull back her chair. The maître d’ made it there first, and Sorcha thought she saw Séan’s hand clench in a fist. At Tristan’s shooing, Séan sat too, looking more uncomfortable by the moment.
Tristan disappeared, and they were introduced to each of the new servers. Sorcha took careful note of their names. As guest services manager, she steered guests to the pub and restaurant when they checked in and more than once had escorted VIP guests to the restaurant, passing them over to the staff there with the care that was the mark of a true hotelier.
As they were introduced to Séan, he shook each person’s hand, giving them a hearty slap on the arm, which made most of them jump. Sorcha chewed the inside of her lip to keep from laughing.
One of the current servers was brought in and the three new staff huddled behind him as he started his introduction. Séan and Sorcha were handed menus and a wine list, though they wouldn’t be using either. Their server recited the special, which they both ordered. When he offered them wine to go with the meal, Sorcha accepted. She’d started work at six that morning and her shift was done. She was never really off the clock, especially since she lived on the Glenncailty grounds, but after this she planned to go back to her little cottage, make a nice cup of tea and put her feet up.
Nothing said she couldn’t have a glass of wine first, though it was only half-four.
“None for me, thank you,” Séan said. “But if you’ve a cup of tea, I’d have that.”
The server’s eyes widened in what Sorcha recognized as horror.
“He’ll have a bottle of water, sparkling,” Sorcha interjected.
Séan sighed. “No, I’ll have wine, then.”
The server nodded and shooed the trainees away, talking under his breath about what they were going to do next.
“Made a hash of that, did I?” Séan sighed, rubbing his whiskered chin. His eyebrows were drawn together, his mouth turned down.
Sorcha realize that she’d made him feel bad by correcting his order. “No, not at all,” she half-lied. “But normally people have tea or coffee at the end of a meal, not with.”
“People.” Séan crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. He was looking everywhere but at her.
She could have smacked herself. She was saying everything wrong—she, who normally never said anything wrong. “I mean, the people who normally come to The Restaurant.”
“So, not people like me.”
“Séan, I’m sorry, clearly I’m making you uncomfortable. Perhaps it would be best if I wasn’t here.” She set her napkin on the table, ready to leave.
Séan reached across the table. His palm hovered over her hand, and for a moment she held her breath, wondering if he’d touch her, but he didn’t.
“I’m being rude. I’m sorry.”
“You’re not, truly.”
“I am.” He sighed. “I hadn’t planned on this today, and I was thinking about the work I’ve yet to do.” He sat back, and for the first time seemed to really relax. “James will be sad he missed a fancy dinner with a beautiful woman.”
A little thrill went through her that he’d called her beautiful. “You mean James, the butcher’s son?”
Séan smiled and Sorcha almost fell out of her chair. He was a good-looking man when his face was set in its normal stony expression. When he smiled, he was magnificent—his eyes sparkled, his whole face coming to life.
“James is the butcher and has been for years, and he’s plenty angry that no one calls him that.”
“Ah, I didn’t realize, I’ll change—”
“No, don’t. It’s good craic to watch him grumble.”
“You must be friends, or enemies.”
“Friends it is. With this,” he motioned around the restaurant, “I see him near to every day.”
Sorcha looked around, not sure what he was talking about.
“The meat,” Séan clarified. “I supply beef to Tristan. James’s butchering a cow or two of mine almost every other day.”
“Of course, I’d forgotten.” She’d noticed that she’d started seeing Séan around the castle more but had refused to let herself think too long about why. When she did think about it, all the reasons were elaborate fantasies about him wanting to see her.
Just another reason to keep her distance from this man who enticed her so—she was dreaming about some great love story based on one encounter and one kiss.
A kiss she’d never forgotten.
Sorcha realized they’d fallen into silence while she brooded, so she gave herself a little shake and plastered a smile back on her face.
“And how is your farm?”
“Well enough. I’m raising more beef now, and I’ve brought in some lamb too.”
“Normally you have dairy cows, correct?”
The maître d’ and their server returned, along with their entourage. “My apologies for the delay,” the server said. “Our sommelier did not have time to identify the perfect wine pairing for this dish. We hope you’d be able to help us with that.”
“Of course,” Sorcha answered.
“We have two selections, and we’d like you to identify which you think is the better pairing.”
Sorcha and Séan watched as the server went though the elaborate procedure of opening the bottles. Before Sorcha could stop him, he poured the tasting sip into Séan’s wineglass. She bit her lip, not wanting him to feel out of place again, when he’d only just relaxed, but not sure how to get the wine from him without being rude.
Séan took the glass, swirled the wine, examined the color, smelled and sipped. After a moment, he nodded to the server.
Sorcha blinked. It seemed he didn’t need her help at all.
When they’d each been given two different glasses of wine, the staff melted away.
“You’re just full or surprises, aren’t you?” She motioned to the wineglass.
“Ah, not really. The first time I brought meat out, Tristan cooked up two of the steaks to test the quality. He brought out wine and taught me to taste it while the steaks cooked and then we ate steak and drank French red sitting in the kitchen.”
“That sounds delicious.”
“It was. And damned the man if he wasn’t right about all those flavors he said would be in the wine.” Séan shook his head, making Sorcha smile.
Taking his glass, Séan raised it over the center of the table. “A toast?”
Sorcha raised her own glass. “What are we toasting to?”
“Lady’s choice.”
“Well, then how about to Glenncailty Castle?”
His glass dipped and his face hardened. “I won’t toast to that.”
Sorcha remembered the wild-eyed man he’d been that night as he dragged her away, demanding that she leave because it wasn’t safe.
“To the people who work here,” he said, face still grim. “May God watch over you.”
Sorcha tapped her glass to his, then raised it to her lips and took a long drink, with less appreciation than the fine wine deserved.
The servers appeared with appetizers, though they hadn’t ordered any. Sorcha mulled over Séan’s words as the server taught the new hires how to introduce the dish, serve it and then follow up.
She had a citrus salad with roasted parsnip and Séan had salmon brûlée. He inspected the dish from several angles before shrugging and picking up his dinner fork. After a second, he sighed, put it down and picked up the salad fork.
They ate in silence for a moment before Sorcha cleared her throat.
“There’s something I want to ask you.”
He looked up, gaze a little wary. “Yes?”
“Maybe it’s not a question, but I want to understand something.” She took a moment to gather her thoughts and roll them into a sentence, not sure how to say what she wanted. “You don’t like this place—the castle, I mean—because you’ve had encounters with the ghosts.”
There was a long silence before he said, “Yes.”
Sorcha waited, but it was clear he wasn’t going to say anything else. She needed to know more—needed to know what he knew.
“I don’t know if you remember, but not long after I moved here, you warned me about being here.” She spoke hesitantly, not sure how to describe their mad flight through the garden or the punishing kiss on the front drive.
“I remember that night.”
The way he looked at her made it clear that he wasn’t talking about his warning, but about the kiss that followed.
She dipped her chin, looked at him through her lashes. “So do I.”
He examined her, his gaze intense and heat-filled. A thrill went through Sorcha.
After she’d run from him, she’d been angry with him—for months, even going so far as to avoid him in town. She’d been angry because he’d swooped in and tried to take her away from something she loved, dared to tell her what to do, then he’d kissed her. She barely knew him, and the idea that he thought he had the right to tell her what to do and then use their attraction to manipulate her pissed her off.
Her feelings about the kiss were mixed. It had been the most intense kiss of her life, coming at a time when she was sure that there was nothing she didn’t know about kisses. She both craved and feared the feelings he’d raised.
But that anger had changed to something else after she met one of Glenncailty’s ghosts.
“I’ve owed you an apology,” he said.
“For what?”
“For that night.”
Sorcha looked away. Was he was apologizing for the kiss? The next thing out of his mouth would probably be an explanation that he’d been drunk or hadn’t been himself.
“It’s grand,” she said, not wanting to hear any more. “I was the one who insisted we dance.”
“Eh?” Now Séan looked confused. “I was apologizing for the way I acted, hauling you along like that.”
“Oh.” Sorcha forked up the last bite of her appetizer, pausing to chew and swallow before saying. “I thought maybe you were apologizing for kissing me.”
Séan’s eyebrows went up and he sat back. He seemed surprised that she’d mentioned the kiss and Sorcha wondered if she’d read this entire conversation wrong. Normally she was so good at reading men, and with Séan all her charm and skill seemed to go out the window.
Séan smiled. It was a slow smile, one that took its time to work across his face. “That I’d never apologize for. Were you wanting one?”
“No, not at all.”
“I’m glad for that. I want—” he paused, took a sip of wine, “—wanted to kiss you, and I did. Maybe the doing of it wasn’t exactly what I would have planned, but the kiss was no mistake.”
Sorcha felt herself blush as she smiled. She’d caught his slip up—he’d said want before correcting himself to wanted.
“I wanted to kiss you too.”
“It’s a pity, then.”
“That the night ended the way it did?”
“Yes.”
Their dinner arrived. Tristan accompanied the food and described the dish before demanding their harshest criticism. They were left with plates of lemongrass rice and Tristan’s Irish curry—made with local, organic vegetables and thin strips of highly seasoned beef.
After she’d taken a few bites, Sorcha returned to the conversation. As interesting as she found their discussion of the kiss—as well as the fact that Séan clearly still wanted her—that wasn’t what she needed to talk to him about.
“I want to ask you something about that night, and not about the kiss.”
He nodded around a mouthful of curry.
“You saw a ghost that night, didn’t you?”
Séan swallowed and took a sip of wine, taking his time. He set his fork down and leaned back in his chair, meeting her gaze.
“I saw a ghost, the second time I’d seen her.”
“Her.” Sorcha sighed. “One of the maids, then. Wearing chains?”
Séan’s eyes fixed on her. “You’ve seen her.”
Sorcha looked away. The food was sitting heavy in her belly and the wine was making her lightheaded. “I’ve seen them all.”
“Mary Mother of God. Sorcha, you should—”
“Leave Glenncailty?” Sorcha took a breath. “I’ve thought about it, but I love this place and this job.”
“You said ‘all.’” Séan reached across the table and this time he touched her, just two fingers on the back of her hand. “How many ghosts are there?”
“There’s the gray maid in chains, the wolfhounds, the man and woman in the garden and the lights. Actually, that’s not all the ghosts—Caera saw one near the chapel I’ve never seen, and I think Seamus has seen some things, but he won’t tell me about them. But I’ve seen the ones that haunt the
castle and the gardens closest to the building. I’ve seen the ones the guests talk about.”
Séan cupped her hand in his. She hadn’t realized her fingers had curled into a fist. “They’re appearing to the guests?”
“Not all the time, but I’d say once a month someone will report seeing something.”
“You shouldn’t be here. No one should. Seamus is a fool and a bastard for bringing anyone to this cursed place when he knew it was dangerous.”
“That’s what I need to know—you keep saying it’s dangerous. Why?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s frightening, but I wouldn’t say they’re dangerous.” She pulled her hand from his to press both against her belly. “At least I wouldn’t have until Caera was attacked by one.”
“She was attacked?”
“By the ghost she saw near the chapel. Seamus found her.”
“And that’s why she left?”
“She didn’t leave—she’s just on leave, while she and her boyfriend, Tim, tour in America.”
Séan made a noise of disbelief in his throat.
“I need to know why you say it’s dangerous. I talked to Seamus, and he says that he’d never heard of anyone but Caera being attacked by a ghost. I want to know if he’s wrong, if you were attacked too, if that’s why you say it’s dangerous.”
Séan nodded and sat back, clearly considering what she’d said. Instead of answering right away, he took another few bites. Sorcha felt better now that she’d asked, now that she’d voice her fear. She too dug into the curry, with more enthusiasm than she’d had five minutes ago.
When Séan wiped his mouth, she set her fork down.
“I first saw a ghost ten years ago.” He told her about being part of a team searching for a teenage girl who’d gone missing, about finding her body.
“That must have been hard. I’m so sorry.”
“It was. I knew, everyone knew, that there was little hope of finding her alive. And it was the fall that killed her, there’s no doubt of that. But I had to ask why she was in the building—she would have known it was dangerous, known she shouldn’t be on that floor.
“I went through the whole castle, taking bits of wood to board up the windows and doors. I went to the west wing second floor, hugging the wall and praying for safety. I saw the ghost then—a young woman with white hair. She didn’t have eyes, just great empty holes in her face.”