The Darkling Bride

by Laura Andersen

  To hell with that. Pacing idly in circles after she talked to Francis, Carragh went to the IKEA bookshelves where her grandmother’s collection of novels rested and pulled out Evan Chase’s first novel—The Wandering Knight. She didn’t open it, but like a ten-year-old, she crossed her fingers and wished for the luck she wanted. Who wouldn’t want to know what happened at Deeprath Castle with Evan and his beautiful, insane wife? What book lover wouldn’t jump at the chance to look for a lost novel?

  Her inarticulate prayers must have worked, for the phone rang twenty minutes later and the voice was unmistakably that of the imperious Nessa Gallagher.

  “Miss Ryan, you may have the position.”

  Clearly the woman was not one for unnecessary conversation. Carragh was glad Nessa couldn’t see her mouth hanging open. She snapped it shut, then said simply, “Thank you.” She did not think she sounded as matter-of-fact as she intended.

  “I will send you a train ticket and necessary information for your time at Deeprath Castle. You understand that the castle has not been lived in for more than two decades. That, combined with its location, means you shouldn’t expect reliable Internet service or mobile phone signals. I assume a woman interested in libraries is capable of entertaining herself without such conveniences.”

  “Of course.” Carragh would give up almost anything for this chance. Though she wouldn’t mind if the castle had a decent availability of hot water.

  “You will technically be answerable to my great-nephew, Lord Gallagher, though it is possible Aidan will not even be at Deeprath Castle while you are. Nevertheless, I have given him your information should he care to contact you in advance. I think it unlikely. Aidan has always trusted my decisions.”

  Carragh made some noise that she hoped signaled agreement or interest or whatever the hell Nessa wanted to hear.

  “And I trust,” Nessa continued without a pause, “that you are not disturbed by ghosts.”

  Utter silence. “I beg your pardon?”

  Surprisingly, there was a hint of humor—or at least mild amusement—in the old woman’s answer. “Deeprath Castle is more than seven hundred years old. Where there is long history, there are ghosts. Ours are none of them particularly troublesome, so long as you do not provoke them.”

  Carragh somehow managed to assure the woman that she had no intention of provoking anyone—living or dead—during her time at Deeprath. When she rang off, Carragh stared at her phone for a long, blank moment before the sense of it all penetrated.

  She had gotten the job. For three weeks, she would live at Deeprath Castle. She would spend her waking hours surveying a library that had taken centuries to build. The library where surely Evan Chase had read and researched and written during his brief tenure. Impulsively, she returned to the bookshelves and pulled out the rest of his novels.

  “You’re returning to Deeprath,” she announced to them all, as though the books stood in place of the writer himself.

  And maybe, she added silently, I’ll find out what happened to drive you away from writing forever.

  She dared not articulate, from instinctive superstition, her deeper hope…that somewhere deep in the castle’s library might be found some fragment of the lost Darkling Bride tale.

  * * *

  —

  There were only two things on earth that could have persuaded Aidan Gallagher to return to Ireland. As one of those would have involved people rising from the dead, he generally lived without an inordinate fear of having to go home.

  He should have known better.

  “No.” Aidan had said that three times now, but it made little difference to his sister. Kyla just kept talking.

  “The deeds must be signed before April thirtieth,” she reiterated. “The Irish National Trust requires your signature. More probably twenty of your signatures, considering the amount of paperwork needed to donate a property like Deeprath.”

  “Send them to me. I’ll sign and have it all notarized in London.”

  “I thought you were anxious to divest yourself of our heritage,” Kyla said remorselessly. “You’re not telling me you suddenly want to keep the place? That you’ve been stricken by a belated sense of family responsibility?”

  “I have no issues with the donation.”

  “If you were having second thoughts, there’s still time to consider creating a heritage trust and letting me turn the castle into a center for visitors.”

  He’d already turned his sister down four times. Aidan had no more interest in turning Deeprath into a guest house or historical studies retreat than he did in living there. Let the National Trust do what it would, but he had just enough family pride left to shudder at the thought of tourists tramping through the castle.

  “Kyla, just send me the paperwork—”

  “Nessa wants it done here.”

  “I don’t answer to Nessa,” Aidan said flatly. No matter how old he got, his great-aunt continued to treat him as a child who required direction. For eighty-eight years Nessa Gallagher had considered herself the steel spine of the Gallagher family, and the kindest word for her temperament was tenacious. A more accurate description was bloody-minded.

  There was silence on the line, and Aidan hoped Kyla had finally accepted his refusal.

  And then she spoke one of the two things guaranteed to gain his compliance. “The library will be opened once the trust takes possession. Nessa is hiring someone to do a cursory cataloging of its contents beforehand. Do you really want to leave that task entirely to a stranger?”

  Damn, damn, and damn again. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t known the library would be opened. Its contents could hardly be donated without people entering the room and digging through its collection of books, documents, and family history. But like so many other unpleasant things in his life, he had kept that knowledge firmly out of mind.

  “The notary is scheduled for April twenty-ninth, little brother. That gives us almost a month. I’ll be going down next week. You should come as soon as you can.”

  With false brightness, she continued remorselessly. “I’ll have Ellie and Kate with me part of the time. You could pretend you’re a normal uncle who doesn’t dislike every other Gallagher on the planet.”

  Because he was upset and tired and overwhelmed at the thought of going home, Aidan let himself be cruel. “But Ellie and Kate aren’t truly Gallaghers. They are Grants, like their father.”

  His sister’s reply was all sharp glass and brittle control. “Then you’d best be at Deeprath to ensure they don’t sully the precious Gallagher heritage by pretending they belong. You can use your lord of the manor voice, Viscount Gallagher. I’ll pretend it intimidates me.”

  If this were twenty or thirty years in the past, they both could have relieved their tempers by slamming down a phone. Aidan very nearly threw his across the room, but he didn’t want the bother of buying a new one. Instead, he resigned himself to the paperwork on his desk and made a note to speak to the superintendent in the morning.

  Under normal circumstances, a Scotland Yard detective inspector would find it difficult to take substantial time off with so little notice. But Aidan was about to be transferred from the downsizing Arts and Antiquities division to Sexual Crimes and Exploitation. As he was replacing a not-quite-retired officer, there was a lag time in which he knew he could manage to eke out at least two weeks in Ireland.

  But that meant clearing his desk of last minute tasks a bit sooner than planned. Even as Aidan worked with outward diligence, he was conscious of a dim roaring that seemed to reverberate from the base of his skull through his eyes and ears. Deeprath, it beat a tattoo, Deeprath, Deeprath.

  And beneath that, in echo: death, death, death.

  * * *

  —

  He was in the grimmest of moods when he got home that night and found Pen in the kitchen helping herself to leftover curry. Penelope Costa could eat an awful lot for a woman who had modeled seriously for five years before taking her degree as a psychologist
. She still did something or other in the fashion world from time to time…Aidan wasn’t quite clear what it was, besides attending a number of events that required her to look glamorous. An easy task for the half-Spanish, half-Jamaican Londoner who looked equally at home in bikinis or ball gowns and who spoke three languages fluently.

  She took one look at his face and sighed. “So much for a pleasant evening at home.”

  Home was overdoing it, for Penelope did not share the London townhouse with Aidan. He had never lived with a woman and had no plans to start in the near future—but she was the first woman to whom he’d given a key, along with his tacit agreement that she could come and go as she pleased.

  “I’ve got to go to Ireland,” he said abruptly, removing his tie and helping himself to the white wine on the marble countertop.

  “Ireland?” Penelope asked with extravagant surprise. “Your family will be turning in their graves.”

  As she realized what she’d said, she added, “Shit. Sorry.”

  Her apology was genuine, for all its brevity, allowing Aidan to skip over the matter if he chose.

  Which he did. “Deeprath Castle is going to the Irish National Trust, but the library’s contents are marked for the National Library. There are still plenty of personal papers and volumes that I don’t intend to give into the hands of strangers. The professionals will do the real archival work, but I need to make a general catalog of things first.”

  Pen remained standing even as Aidan seated himself at the counter. Her face looked particularly striking when, as now, it was stripped of her usual irony.

  “Then I guess it’s time to return this.” From her jacket pocket, she took the key to the townhouse and laid it on the countertop before him.

  Aidan stared at it, then at her. “Why?”

  “Because I knew from the first that Ireland would divide us. Now it’s come, there’s no use prolonging the inevitable.”

  “I don’t understand…are you upset that I didn’t invite you? It’s not that kind of visit, Pen. And you’d hate my family anyway.”

  She smiled at him fondly. “I like you, Aidan. I’ll always like you. But I knew better than to fall in love with you. You may live in London, but you don’t belong here. Your heart is in Ireland.”

  The headache he’d been fighting all day now threatened tears of pain. Aidan gritted against it. “You could not be more wrong.”

  With an elegant shrug—Pen did everything elegantly—she came around the counter and rested a cool hand on his cheek. “You’re a lovely man, Aidan Gallagher. Or you will be one day when you’ve dealt with your demons. Someday you will walk in your Irish mountains with a woman, and that woman will be the one you love. I think I like her already.”

  He turned his head and caught her hand to his lips. “Will you stay?” he asked. “One last night?”

  She laughed. “Better not. Why make it harder for you to let me go?”

  But she kissed him before she went, leaving Aidan with the bleak sense of having failed once again.

  CHAPTER THREE

  1992

  IRISH TIMES

  6 September 1992

  Breaking News: Irish businessman Cillian Gallagher (16th Viscount Gallagher) and his wife, Lily, found dead in their Wicklow County home. Police say only that the deaths are not considered natural.

  IRISH TIMES

  7 September 1992

  A statement released today by the Garda in Rathdrum confirms violence in the deaths of Cillian and Lily Gallagher. “Lord Gallagher died of head injuries in the family library where his body was found. Lady Gallagher died of injuries consistent with a fall. We are actively pursuing lines of inquiry.”

  A police source claims valuable items were in the library of Deeprath Castle at the time of the deaths—items that have vanished. Police are searching for any strangers seen in the vicinity of Laragh or Glendalough on the afternoon in question.

  IRISH TIMES

  14 September 1992

  An inquest held today in Rathdrum into the deaths of Lord and Lady Gallagher returned an open verdict and was adjourned indefinitely. Lady Nessa Gallagher, aunt to the deceased viscount, issued a statement through the family solicitor:

  “My nephew and his wife will be greatly missed. My sole concern moving forward is the care and protection of their children. I would appreciate your discretion in giving them space and time to heal.”

  The title passes to the only son, Aidan Gallagher, age ten. Lord and Lady Gallagher are also survived by a fifteen-year-old daughter, Kyla.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  September 1879

  The Wicklow Mountains were a revelation of stone and sky. Considering the mist that kept shading into rain, it would have been wiser to hire a carriage, but Evan Chase had not become a popular gothic novelist without understanding the importance of presentation. How romantic to arrive at an ancient castle on horseback, greatcoat swinging. More romantic, of course, if one did not also have cold rainwater worming its way down one’s back. But, though he may not always be sensible, he did possess the ability to laugh at himself.

  Eighty years ago, determined to break the back of the Irish stronghold, English soldiers had forged a military road across the spine of the Wicklow Mountains. Today, Evan saw little more than the stark landscape, the high moorland and bog of Featherland Peak, until he reached the village of Glencree. Turning directly south there, he passed the old military barracks that now housed several hundred young male offenders and felt a pang of empathy. If not for his mother, he might have landed in such a place himself.

  From Glencree, Evan rode through a vista of gentle slopes and sharp peaks. He’d never imagined that the color brown could be so varied and so lovely; black-brown streams wending through the dark chocolate peat, the light brown grass drooping heavily with raindrops. After passing through Sally Gap, the road began to slope down and the greens most commonly associated with Ireland gradually reasserted themselves. Six miles after the gap, he reached a crest and below him lay Deeprath in the shallow, bowl-shaped valley where, in 1196, Thomas Gallagher had erected a Norman keep.

  Through the autumn light, Evan traced the angular lines of that keep, rising distinctly at one end of the castle. For generations the heart of the castle had been that rectangular structure: at once a storehouse, living quarters, and the defensible retreat where an entire estate could take refuge in times of battle. There were Norman keeps of this type dotted all over Ireland and the rest of the British isles, though not many were still roofed and livable, as was the one at Deeprath. The remainder of the castle was a jumble of stone and brick and rooflines, wall walks and battlements, with two circular towers framing the Tudor construction that comprised the front façade of today’s living quarters.

  The road to the grounds entered through a crumbling gatehouse whose central gate hung permanently open. The iron, wrought in fanciful swirls that almost resolved themselves into woodland creatures before fading away when Evan tried to pin down the design, had grass and wildflowers growing up and around it. Perhaps it was the tremble of the growing things, silvered by rain, that gave off the sense of a sentient welcome.

  The drive wound through the remnants of an ancient forest. Mixed with birches and poplars and pines were older trees, trunks twisted with age. Might some of them, he wondered, have stood long enough to have witnessed—if not the earliest Gallaghers—the impetuous, violent woman who had passed into legend centuries ago? Might the Darkling Bride have passed this way on her desperate flight? Having come here seeking her legend, Evan felt more than ever the rightness of his choice.

  After nearly a mile the path abruptly veered to the left. Without warning the trees ended and Deeprath Castle rose up before him, seeming to block the entire sky. He swallowed the last notes of the tune he’d been whistling and reined in his horse to stare.

  Deeprath stared back with perfect indifference. Closer to, and despite the jumble of styles and materials, he saw an overall unity—as though centuries of habit
ation had imbued the castle with a personality of its own. Aloof, not easily impressed…watchful, perhaps?

  All those impressions passed through him in the moment before a groom appeared to take his horse and the housekeeper materialized in a swirl of black. She chatted easily and volubly, so Evan had only to nod and smile with half his attention as he trailed after her, eyes roaming the castle interior.

  “Lord Gallagher is with his manager in Rathdrum…back by dark…bedroom at the top of those stairs, second door on the right…see the library first.”

  The library cut cleanly through the architectural jumble of Evan’s impressions, and he drew in a sharp breath of appreciation. Built as a private chapel, the space had been deconsecrated a hundred years ago, but its past lent an air of special grace even to a Protestant like him. Though the afternoon was late and the skies clouded, the wide windows marching down either side of the long room gave a sense of air and light. Actual light was provided by a single lantern set on the circular table ten feet in front of the door. For a moment he wondered at the wisdom of leaving a lamp burning in an empty library full of irreplaceable books. Then the shadows clinging to one of the bays broke and reconfigured into a woman’s shape as she stepped away from the shelves.

  Her face was a perfect oval, with a wide brow above deep-set eyes, framed by hair as black as the darkest night. In the uncertain light, without the identifying details of dress and grooming, she looked timeless and enduring. Evan had once described a character of his as “amaranthine”: ceaseless, deathless, everlasting. Here, without the slightest warning, stood the word’s living embodiment.