“Lass, I am so sorry. So verra, verra sorry.”
Confused, I pulled away.
“Why? What could you possibly have to be sorry for?”
“The boat, lass. ’Tis gone. I have no way to see ye to the mainland.”
How he thought this was his fault, I couldn’t begin to understand.
“What happened to it?” I asked the question, despite already knowing the answer.
“I doona know, lass. Mayhap ’twas the storm that tore it away during the night.”
“If it was the storm, the only one to blame is me. I was the one who secured it to the dock.”
He shook his head in a firm denial.
“No, lass. Ye did everything ye could that night to help me. The boat was not yer responsibility. I should have checked it before I allowed ye to help me inside.”
I reached up to gently cup his face to comfort him.
“You could barely stand upright. Let’s just agree that it is no one’s fault.”
I was entirely unsuccessful in calming him. He pulled away from my touch as he turned to march up and down the shore in front of me.
“Doona ye see, lass? Ye are stuck here. Ye doona belong in a place like this. What if…what if something happens to ye?”
I didn’t understand.
“No, I don’t see. I have nothing to go back to once you return me to the mainland. I have no plan. So if I’m delayed for a while longer, that’s just fine with me. It’s not as if I’m stuck here forever. You said yourself that a man will be here in a week to deliver supplies to you. I can return to the mainland with him, and he can see that a boat is brought to you to replace the one you’ve lost.”
I could tell by the way he halted his steps that he’d forgotten about the man who was due to arrive in a week. His shoulders visibly relaxed as he faced me again.
“A lot can happen in a week, lass. The week of my sister’s death, she was fine one day and gone the next. What if such a tragedy befalls ye before ye are seen safely off this isle? I should never have let ye come here.”
He was close to revealing something he kept secret—something that would help me solve the mystery that this castle would one day become.
I reached for his hand so that he would look at me.
“Monroe, you have to help me understand. What is it that you’re not saying? Your worries don’t make a lot of sense. The chances of something happening to me over the next week are slim. But even if something tragic happens, does it really matter?”
He pulled me to him with an intensity that surprised me.
“O’course ’twould matter, lass. Surely ye value yer own life more than that.”
I pulled away as I spoke. “I didn’t mean that it wouldn’t matter if I died. I only meant, is something horrible more likely to happen to me here than anywhere else? You’re not going to harm me, are you?”
He shook his head and closed his eyes in resignation.
“No, lass. I wouldna ever hurt ye, but ye must promise me ye will be careful. I must be the next and last person to die on this isle.”
He wasn’t going to elaborate further, I could tell.
“Is there any chance of you explaining that logic to me?”
He turned and walked away from me.
“Not today, lass. Not ever.”
Chapter 17
One Week Later
* * *
He’d gotten his wish—more time with Eleanor. He wasn’t sure if he would ever recover from it.
Once he’d resigned himself to the fact that she would indeed have to stay upon the isle until the next delivery of supplies arrived, he’d been unable to muster up the strength to keep her at arm’s length.
By her pure charm and kindness, by her thoughtfulness and wit, by the beauty of both her mind and body, she’d wormed her way into his heart.
It wasn’t loneliness that made her attractive. It was her. He knew it as surely as he knew that he would be lost once she was gone.
Today was meant to be the day of his man’s arrival, but as dusk descended over Castle Dune, he knew that she wouldn’t be leaving him today.
He had one last night. All he wanted was to make the most of it—to be the man he’d kept locked away for so many years.
A better man would have denied his own desires. He knew it wasn’t fair to her to give into his need for her if he couldn’t keep her. No doubt, it would only make their inevitable parting harder on him as well.
But tonight—for just one night—he didn’t want to be a better man.
He’d been a fool not to sleep with her the night before. That regret had been heavy on his mind upon waking.
Fortune had seen the vessel that would take her from him delayed for a second time.
He wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice.
I was failing in every possible way. A week spent in Monroe’s company had me no closer to finding out the truth. He was open in so many ways, but never on the one topic that would allow me to save him.
And what was worse, my own heart was betraying me, making me contemplate impossible things, imagine a future that could never be mine.
With each passing day, my treacherous heart yearned more for a man I could never have. As it did, my anxiety over leaving here grew.
What would I say when the merchant arrived with Monroe’s deliveries? I couldn’t get on the boat and leave here, but I was running out of time to tell him the truth.
The truth would ruin everything. He wouldn’t believe it, and it would cause him to question every minute of our time together.
Every hour of laughter and conversation, hours of cleaning and clearing the castle of years of dust and neglect, evenings spent eating wretched food before dancing and kissing and falling asleep by the fire—he would think it had all been an act to get him to tell me the truth.
It wasn’t an act. None of it. If I was honest, my desire to change this castle’s history felt like the lie. What lay between us—unspoken as it was—felt like the real reason I was here. I’d never been prone to dramatics. No one would ever describe me as a dreamy romantic, but something deep inside kept screaming at me that perhaps my whole life had been leading me to the point where I would meet him.
If that was true, how could I ever bring myself to leave?
I wasn’t sure that I could.
The delay of Monroe’s delivery was both a blessing and a warning, for surely the boat would arrive tomorrow.
I would have one more evening to spend with him.
I was officially out of time.
Dinner was tense. I sat silently, heartsick and terrified of all I no longer had the option of keeping from him, and Monroe did much the same. I couldn’t read his expression, but I knew there were unsaid words on his heart, as well.
It was only once we’d stared at our barely-touched food for as long as either of us could stand that Monroe stood and came to collect me for our nightly dance together.
“One last time, lass?”
I nodded and eagerly sought the comfort of his arms as I allowed the sound of his singing to ease my frazzled nerves.
“What are ye thinking, lass? Ye know ye may tell me.”
I smiled against his chest as he repeated my own words back to me. Somehow, they gave me courage.
“I’m thinking that if I thought there was any way I could ever convince you to truly let me in, I’m not sure I would be able to make myself leave you.”
He stopped spinning us. His intake of breath was shaky and rough against my ear.
His palm touched the side of my face as he coaxed me with his touch to look up at him.
“Do ye think I keep ye away because I doona want ye, lass?”
I kissed him, and his whole body quivered as I moved against him.
“I know you want me, Monroe. And God, how I wish you’d take me. In fact, I wish you’d taken me days ago so that I would have nights of memories to take with me when you crush my heart and send me away from here.
Once I started speaking, some dam opened up inside me, and there was no stopping all that was on my heart. I knew I would eventually have to tell him the whole truth, but I wanted him to at least know the most important truth first—that no matter what—I loved him.
“But wanting me and loving me are two very different things. I wish you loved me enough to let me in here.” I placed my hand over his heart, and once again, he shook beneath my touch.
I could feel his pulse speed up as his chest warmed beneath my hand. He was on the very edge of letting himself go, but he would have to make the leap himself.
“Do ye…” He could hardly get his words out. “Do ye love me that way, lass? Have ye let me inside yer heart?”
“Completely. You’ve taken me by surprise, but I’m helpless against you now, Monroe.”
“I doona know if I have the strength to allow ye to stay here, lass.”
“Because you’re frightened I might die?”
“Terrified.”
I reached up to brush one rogue tear from his cheek.
“Love and fear are like two sides of the same coin. If you’re not willing to possess them both, you’re not worthy of the prize.”
I could see the moment something shifted inside him, and the sorrow I felt began to give way to hope.
“I do love ye, lass. I thought I knew love once before, but it was an illusion compared to the richness ye have brought into my life. I will tell ye the truth, all of it. I promise ye, I shall. I will tell ye my secrets. Then ’twill be up to ye whether or not ye stay, but—”
I interrupted him by kissing him once more.
“I have secrets, too. Come morning, we can bare our souls and make our choices then. For now, I just need you with an intensity so great I’m afraid it might swallow me whole if it’s not satisfied.”
He smiled into my mouth as he lifted me into his arms.
“Allow me to oblige ye, lass. The morning and its secrets will come soon enough.”
Chapter 18
My dreams paled in comparison to the actual experience. After a night spent in each other’s arms, we woke ready to lay everything else bare.
“I need you to let me go first, Monroe, and I need you to listen with a wide open heart and mind. For it will break me if my story causes me to lose you.”
He pulled me in closer as he kissed my brow. “Lass, it canna be as bad as all that.”
It could, and I was terrified he would agree with me.
“Do you believe in magic?”
His expression grew strained in an instant, and a knot formed deep in my gut.
“What do ye mean, lass?”
“Magic? Do you believe it’s real? Do you believe in witches?”
His jaw was tight as he answered me. “I doona just believe in them, lass. I have seen proof with my verra own eyes that they are real. Doona tell me ye are a witch, Eleanor. Please doona tell me that.”
Despite the wariness that now laced his voice, the knot that settled inside me was able to relax at his answer. While there was clearly a story connected to his obvious prejudice against witches, the fact that he believed in them meant that it was plausible he would believe everything else that I had to tell him without thinking me mad.
After assuring him that I was entirely void of magical powers, I laid everything out before him. I told him of my chance run-in with a witch named Morna and all that I’d experienced in that horrifying first night in the castle.
I kept expecting him to interject, to argue against all that I claimed about his future. By the time I finished, his eyes were filled with tears.
“At least I know that in yer future, my plans werena for naught. It seems that I upheld my duty for centuries past my death.”
I hated my memories of him from that night. I could no longer stand the thought of him dead—in this century or any other.
“That was the future at the time I traveled back to you. It’s not the future anymore. We’ve already changed it.”
“Because before, ye were not here to treat my wounds and to give me the potion that saved my life?”
“Exactly.”
He sat silently for a moment, and I allowed him the space to think through everything I’d told him.
“Why were ye so frightened to tell me this, lass?”
“I didn’t want you to believe for a moment that I was just trying to get close to you to gain the truth.”
He smiled and rose to sit cross-legged in front of me on the bed.
“Eleanor, the goodness of yer heart shines through yer eyes. Ye doona have it in ye to be so manipulative.”
I laughed softly to keep from crying.
“Well, I know that I would never intentionally use someone like that, but why would I expect you to believe that? You didn’t really know me.”
He shook his head.
“I knew ye the moment I saw ye, lass. My mind may not have understood, but my heart recognized yers right away. Now, are ye ready for my story? Mayhap once ye know the truth, ye can find a way to bring this decade of horror to an end.”
I listened with the same attentiveness he’d given me. Slowly, piece by piece, everything began to click into place.
Monroe might have been the last ghost of Castle Dune, but the first was his mother, all thanks to a witch who tricked his father and sent Monroe spiraling into decades of unnecessary guilt over something for which he was not responsible.
“For years Castle Dune thrived. A full staff of workers lived here and helped my family. Ships came daily from the mainland. This isle was not the isolated place it is today.
“I was twelve when my mother first fell ill. When ’twas clear that she wouldna recover, my father lost himself in his search for a cure to what ailed her. Just before her death, he came to me, begging me to meet a woman in the village who’d promised him a way to keep his wife with him forever.
“We all knew she wouldna last another day, and since my father would no longer leave her side, I did as he bid. I met the witch, paid for the potion, and returned it to my mother’s bedside. I shall regret that day for the rest of my life, for the promise she made to him was false. She died within moments of consuming the liquid. Rather than keeping her here as a living human, it trapped her soul upon this isle.
“It took six more years for us to realize the true torment of the witch’s spell. Lost in his grief and guilt, my father drank himself to an early grave. It never occurred to any of us that he would befall the same fate as my mother. But not a fortnight passed after his death before we began to see signs that his soul lingered here, as well.
“At the age of eighteen, Castle Dune passed to me. I swore the day I became laird that I wouldna allow another soul to suffer the same fate as my parents. Ensuring all elderly workers would be cared for, I relocated them to the mainland. I hoped that by making sure all that lived here were healthy and young, everything would be well.
“Then, two years after my father passed, my sister caught consumption and died before I could see her to the mainland. The first time I saw her ghost here within the castle, I made the vow that changed my life forever. I sent everyone away, and until the day ye showed up in my boat, I lived alone. Since she died, I have held one task close to my heart. I would die here and spend the rest of eternity ensuring that no one else ever stayed here long enough to die.”
For the first time since he began his tale, I interrupted him.
“Well, you certainly did a good job of that. I can’t begin to tell you just how badly you frightened me the first night I saw you.”
He smiled, and the glint in his eye gave way to how much the notion pleased him.
“I’m sorry, lass.”
“No, you’re not.” I playfully punched h
im before leaning in to kiss his cheek.
“Well, I am pleased to know that I dinna fail.”
“And what of the woman from the village? You loved her, yes? Did she not ever live here?”
He sighed, but the agony I’d witnessed in his eyes the day I watched him speak with her in Morna’s vision was no longer there.
“Sorcha showed me kindness when the rest of the world shunned me. Five years alone is a verra long time. There was a time when I let loneliness take hold. In that loneliness I thought perhaps I loved her. I would meet her in the village, and only when the seas were calm, I would bring her here. I thought we would wed, but I couldna bind her to me in such a way.”
“Because you loved her too much or too little?”
“Because I needed her more than I loved her, lass. I needed the escape she provided me. I needed to be reminded I wasna the mad man those I’d known before believed me to be. But I dinna love her, no matter how much I cared for her. She deserved more than I could give her. I dinna understand all that lay between Sorcha and me until I met ye. The love I felt for ye illuminated that well enough.”
He paused and shrugged, and I couldn’t help but feel as if all the air in the room felt lighter now that we were both free of our secrets.
“That’s all of it, lass. Now, what is it we should do? Is there any way for us to change what has already happened?”
I could see only one way forward—or rather back.
Monroe wouldn’t like it at all.
Chapter 19
“No, lass. I canna allow ye to take such a risk. What if this Morna canna help ye? What if ye end up stuck there? I willna even be able to help ye. I was twelve years old in the year sixteen hundred and twenty.”
My mind was already made up. It was the only chance we had at changing history, and unless we could do that, I knew Monroe would never truly be free of the ties he had to this place.
“Exactly. You can’t go back. If Morna made anything clear to me, it was that it’s far too dangerous for anyone to travel back to a time in which they already exist. That’s precisely why I know she already exists in that time. If she is there, I will find her, and I will do whatever I have to in order to convince her to send me back to you.”
The Haunting of Castle Dune - A Novella: Book 10.5 of Morna’s Legacy Series Page 7