The Darkling Bride

by Laura Andersen

  Afterward, lying twined together, she answered the questions he had not asked her. “I have had these spells since I was thirteen. My mother was also…unstable. She died when I was ten. My father has had two wives since then, you know, both of whom died in childbirth along with their girl children. Finally he decided he was cursed. He put all his efforts into ensuring I would remain healthy enough to marry and breed.”

  “That sounds rather cold.”

  “He loves me, I know. But he loves the Gallagher in me more than the Jenny. When I bear you a son, Evan—when I bear him a grandson—he will leave us be.”

  “And what then? When you can have what you want, my love, what will it be?”

  She sat up and took his face in her hands, her black hair spilling over bare shoulders. “I want you. I want children. I love Deeprath and the mountains, I do. But I want a chance to love it on my own terms! Without my father and everyone waiting and watching me all the time. Maybe I will have to start small. Maybe I cannot go far, or for long. But I want to try, dearest. I don’t want you to lock me up in your head the way everyone else has. Let me be Jenny. And if Deeprath is truly the only place I can be well, then when we have a son, I will ask my father to go away and leave the castle to us.” She paused, then added in a rush, “Oh, Evan, I’m truly sorry that you are getting more than you bargained for. I know you must have wanted a London wife, a woman more fit for society…”

  For all his storytelling glibness, Evan was never careless with his words to her. “I swear to you, Jenny, that my first care for the rest of my life will be your happiness and well-being. I will strive to never act against your will. And if Deeprath is to be our home forever, you must not mourn that on my account.”

  He kissed her and whispered, “Wherever you are, my bride, is home.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Carragh woke still undecided about when and how to approach Aidan with his mother’s unsolved treasure hunt. She decided to wait and see what sort of mood he was in this morning. Probably not a great one, if dinner last night was anything to go by. As had become her habit, she went straight to the library to avoid the family.

  When she opened the library door, she heard voices.

  “It’s the story of Seamus and Eileen and a magical donkey who takes them on adventures.”

  “Like Harry Potter?”

  “By no means. This is Ireland, child, we have stories enough of our own. Does Harry Potter have Finn and the Salmon of Knowledge?”

  For a disconcerting minute, Carragh thought her ghosts had manifested themselves in a discussion of children’s fantasy literature. But before she cleared the concealing shelves, she had identified the speakers: Nessa and the skeptical Ellie.

  At the long library table, Nessa sat with Ellie on one side and Kate on the other, a book held with obvious care in the old woman’s hands. She looked up at Carragh’s arrival and, surprisingly, smiled. “Perhaps you can convince Ellie of the story’s merit, Miss Ryan. Do you know The Turf-Cutter’s Donkey?”

  “By Patricia Lynch,” Carragh answered readily. “Yes, my grandmother read it to me often. I still have the copy.”

  “And you enjoyed it?” Nessa slanted her eyes in Ellie’s direction, a hint of the answer she wanted.

  “Very much. My favorite was always the talking teapot.”

  “See, girls?” Nessa asked. “Just because a story isn’t new or popular doesn’t mean you won’t like it. I used to read this to your mother when she was little. Perhaps she will do the same for you.”

  Kate, who seemed to speak only when she was prepared to render judgment, said, “Will you read it to us?”

  It was impossible to miss the surprise and grief and affection that briefly painted Nessa’s face. But her voice never faltered. “Perhaps. But now it’s time for you to report to your au pair. You must never keep others waiting, particularly those whose livelihoods depend on you.”

  Surely that speech went right over the heads of the two little girls, but it gave Carragh a glimpse into Nessa’s sense of responsibility. It was easy to look at her and deride the upper-class arrogance, the privileges of wealth and family that she clung to so stubbornly. But there were virtues to the old aristocracy: virtues of duty and public service and an obligation to use one’s position for good. Those virtues might be well hidden—and did not erase centuries of a problematic class system—but Carragh considered for the first time that Aidan must have gotten his sense of responsibility from somewhere. And no matter how wonderful his parents had been, Aidan spent almost half his childhood with Nessa as his guardian and guide.

  When Nessa did not follow the girls out of the library, Carragh said awkwardly, “I was going to work, but I can come back later if you like.”

  “Not at all. I was simply going through the shelves of children’s books to see what might be worth keeping. For the girls. Someday Ellie and Kate may wish to own a piece of Deeprath.” Nessa stroked the cover of the Lynch book, with its depiction of two innocent children and one slightly alarming donkey. Her hand was shaky. “I wish Aidan understood that I am not trying to force him to hold onto the castle for pride’s sake. I fear he will regret it someday. A day when he will wish he could walk in the steps of his parents, could touch the walls that hold all his own earliest happiness, a day when Aidan will realize that people and places can be inextricably bound.”

  Nessa laid down the book and fixed Carragh with her usual cool expression. “But I suppose the young rarely understand such things.”

  “I understand it,” Carragh retorted. “I know you think I cannot have any real family feeling since I do not share their genetics, but I loved my grandmother and her Dublin house as much as anyone could.”

  A moment’s silence, then Nessa said, “I did not realize I had insulted you quite so much. I apologize.”

  Carragh pulled out Ellie’s discarded chair and sat. “I’m actually having the opposite problem with my family. My grandmother died in January, and she left me the house that has been in her family for two hundred years. My parents want me to sell it. They think there’s too much work that needs doing, that I’m in over my head, that I shouldn’t be saddled with a relic of the past.”

  “And what do you think, Miss Ryan?”

  “I love it,” Carragh said simply. “I love everything about it. Well, maybe not the plumbing or the rotting roof, but every time I open the door, I’m surrounded by love. Not just my grandmother’s, but family I never even met. Those who died generations ago. It doesn’t feel right to walk away and let strangers invade their home.”

  Nessa regarded her thoughtfully, as though seeing her for the first time. “I underestimated you. I thought I was bringing you to Deeprath to catalog books. But if you could speak to Aidan as you just spoke to me…It’s no secret young men pay rather more attention to attractive young women than they do to ancient relatives. Perhaps he would listen to you.”

  Carragh didn’t know which part of that was most surprising—that Nessa would contemplate using her to change Aidan’s mind or that she considered her attractive enough to do it. Picking her way cautiously, she said, “I doubt Aidan could be persuaded to do anything he doesn’t want to do.”

  “And that is why, for centuries, women have learned how to make men think that a particular course of action was their own idea.”

  She tried—and failed—to imagine manipulating Aidan Gallagher into keeping his family castle. She couldn’t even convince her own family that keeping the Dublin house was a good idea.

  Nessa rose with the aid of the cane that had been leaning against the table. She picked up The Turf-Cutter’s Donkey and handed it to Carragh.

  “Would you like me to reshelve it for you?” Carragh asked.

  “No, my dear. It’s a gift. I think you will appreciate it more than the girls.”

  “I can’t take this—”

  “It’s a first edition, and signed by the author. Valuable, I suppose, but you seem a girl to treasure a book for something other
than its price. It pleases me to think of it in your grandmother’s home.”

  Carragh fumbled her way through a thank-you that Nessa waved off. The old woman paused at the door, and looked slowly around the library with the expression of someone seeing more than was actually there. As though the past had unwrapped itself and spread its layers over bookshelves and cabinets and leather and paper. Did she ever see Jenny Gallagher? Carragh wondered. Or did Nessa have other ghosts?

  * * *

  —

  Aidan woke with an unaccustomed hangover, as much a result of last night’s tension-filled dinner as the wine he’d drunk. Wine, and half a bottle of scotch. No wonder he felt like shit. And it wasn’t as though drinking had erased any of the unpleasantness. He remembered clearly the sarcasm and malice he’d directed at his sister, and wondered just how far he’d have gone if not interrupted by the blackout. Was he really prepared to accuse Kyla of—

  His mind snapped shut on the unspoken word and propelled him out of his bedroom looking for distraction. He found himself in the kitchen, as though he were a ten-year-old once again taking refuge from Kyla’s tantrums with the equable Mrs. Bell.

  It seemed all children had the same impulse, because he found his nieces elbow deep in bread dough and chattering like magpies. Until they noticed him. It was insulting how fast they shut their mouths and stared at him as though he were a strange dog who might bite.

  Mrs. Bell spoke as if everyone was behaving normally. “Make room, girls. Your Uncle Aidan has shaped a few hot cross buns in his time. Let’s see if he remembers.”

  He stood frozen for a moment, but his godmother fixed him with a fierce stare until he joined them. Kate continued to watch him sideways, but Ellie was as naturally friendly and outgoing as her mother had been and her reserve didn’t last long.

  “Is it true you lock up people in London?” she asked. “Like murderers?”

  “I investigate art crimes. Thieves who steal paintings and things like that.”

  Ellie was unimpressed. “That doesn’t sound very dangerous.”

  Leaving aside the threats of mobsters and terrorists who financed their work through stolen art, but he wasn’t going to explain that to a nine-year-old. “It’s not. Mostly talking to people and writing things down.”

  “Like the police who came here about Gran and Granddad,” she said matter-of-factly.

  “Right,” he agreed cautiously. What had Kyla told her children about their grandparents? Enough, it seemed.

  It was Kate, finally speaking, who surprised him thoroughly. “I heard Mama say you want the police to take Papa away.”

  “I don’t—where did you hear that?”

  Maire Bell shushed Aidan quietly, reminding him to gentle his tone. But the six-year-old answered straightaway. “I’m very small. There’s lots of places here to hide and listen.”

  Like the minstrel’s gallery above the Great Hall and various alcoves that might once have been meant for prayer or private study or even—because the past was not always so different—for spying. Aidan had made use of them in his own childhood. It was how he’d learned so much about Philip and Kyla and his parents’ dislike of the relationship during that last summer.

  One memory in particular came to his mind now, an afternoon spent wandering around the lesser-used parts of the castle. It had been raining for three days and he was bored. There was a little-used staircase in the Tudor wing that served only to join the portrait-filled long gallery with the private chapel above. Commissioned by a long-ago viscount for the delicate French Catholic wife who was now rumored to haunt the music room, the angular stairs were nearly hidden by the wooden fretwork that rose from ceiling to floor. Aidan had spent a listless half hour counting the different animals carved into the fretting when he was startled by voices below.

  “They just want to keep the perfect family image intact.” It was Philip Grant, whom Aidan did not like, no matter how often the young man turned a forced joviality in his direction.

  He peered between the fretwork, knowing that as long as he remained still—and they didn’t decide to use the stairs—he would be unseen by those below. Kyla was with Philip, of course. She clung to their father’s intern whenever she could manage, with an eager air of wanting to please that made Aidan squirm.

  “They don’t need me for their image,” Kyla said now. “Maybe two or three hundred years ago when daughters were needed to make necessary alliances. But today, all they need is the heir. I’m nothing but an inconvenience—and I can be extremely inconvenient when I want to.”

  Philip’s low laugh was swallowed up when they kissed. Aidan squeezed his eyes shut. Go away, he implored them silently. Kyla would never forgive him if she knew he’d been watching.

  They did, finally, go away. But not before he heard Philip say something else about their parents. “Why run away when you can get everything you want with just a little patience?”

  “Uncle Aidan?” His full awareness snapped back into the kitchen, with two pairs of bright, suspicious eyes watching him. Ellie had taken over again as the sisters’ voice. “If you arrest Papa, does that mean we’ll never see him again?”

  Dark, bitter grief flooded him. He hadn’t asked for any of this. If they’d all just left him alone in London, none of this need be said aloud. “I can’t arrest anyone in Ireland,” he told his nieces bluntly. “It’s nothing to do with me.”

  With that half-lie, Aidan escaped, leaving behind a disapproving godmother and two little girls who would probably never dare speak to him again. How had he become this man who snapped at children and whose only remaining family members either disliked him or didn’t even know him? This wasn’t him. And it wasn’t who he wanted to be.

  Leaving aside the question of who he did want to be, Aidan headed for the drawing room. But discovered he was not the first one to have that idea. Kyla sat on the Louis XIV settee, in black trousers and cashmere jumper, her wavy hair around her shoulders and a glass in her hand. Within reach stood a bottle of cabernet.

  She looked at him without surprise. “Hiding?”

  “Drinking?” he shot back, and instantly regretted it.

  “Only because the men in my life are unmitigated bastards.”

  “So send Philip away.”

  “Will you go with him?” she asked sweetly.

  “I’m nothing like Philip.”

  “Aloof, arrogant, dismissive—”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “More interested in talking to a pretty outsider than your own family. Ready to sell your birthright to the highest bidder. How can you be so eager to get rid of Deeprath?”

  “How can you not be? This place is full of nothing but memories.”

  “Exactly! Every single happy memory of my life—save two—happened here. Why wouldn’t I want to remember the years before my world ended?” She banged down the heavy crystal glass, so unsuitable for wine, and he saw tears in her eyes.

  He regarded her silently, then ventured, “Ellie and Kate?”

  “What?”

  “Your two non-Deeprath happy memories.”

  “Yes. But even their births were bittersweet at best, for I had no one to be happy with me. Philip despises hospitals and mess, Nessa cared only that they were not boys. And all I got from my brother were flowers no doubt ordered by an assistant.”

  Aidan would have liked to deny it, but couldn’t. He knew he was a rotten brother, and a worse uncle. But he didn’t know how to go about explaining. Until he’d come back to Ireland, he hadn’t realized just quite what a bastard he’d chosen to be in cutting off all that was left of his family. He had thought he was merely being practical.

  “No witty comeback, brother? No protestation of unstained innocence? You must be feeling rather smug about the fact that you are the only one here not under suspicion of murder.”

  There, at last, was the word hanging between them. Murder. “I don’t think it will come to that. There’s no way to prove Mother didn’t fall inste
ad of jump, and as persistent as DI McKenna is, I imagine the Gallagher name will win out in the end. If they can’t blame it on outsiders, then better to blame everything on the American wife and consign it all to history.”

  With more soberness than her drinking indicated, Kyla said, “Mother did not commit suicide.” His sister looked away, as though seeing something in the farthest reaches of the drawing room.

  When she looked at him again, Aidan felt a thread of that sibling bond that had frayed so long ago. Both Kyla’s face and voice were bare of irony, sarcasm, bitterness…only the flatness of truth. And loss. “She would never have left us.”

  For a handful of breaths the two of them were joined in perfect understanding, and Aidan knew that whatever he asked now, Kyla would answer.

  Did Philip kill them? Did you help? Why can’t I remember when and where I saw you that day?

  He couldn’t form the words. And with a slight twitch of her lips, his sister retreated from the moment’s intimacy and the chance was lost.

  * * *

  —

  After a second night at the Glendalough Hotel, Sibéal pulled up to Deeprath five minutes before her nine o’clock appointment. She’d managed to dash into Wicklow town the night before and pick up clean underwear, a black T-shirt, and a knit skirt, figuring that cheap was better than wearing the same clothes three days in a row.

  Was it her imagination, or did the castle manage to look more hostile every day? Logically she knew it was simply pressure and the weather getting to her, the muggy air during the day giving way to thunderstorms at night. She certainly hadn’t imagined the downed tree lying parallel to the gravel drive she’d bumped down today—it seemed the wind was battering the castle.

  Logic also told her that the scene-setting didn’t matter, that her techniques and her questions and every other aspect of this case would proceed the same whether she was interviewing people in a suburban villa or behind castle walls. But logic was wrong. People were people, yes. But people also grew up in families and in communities, and for the Gallaghers, Deeprath Castle lay at the heart of both. Crime—plural—could be quantified. Crimes—individual—could not. Whatever had happened here all those years ago had happened because of the place as much as the people.