The Darkling Bride

by Laura Andersen

  How that applied to Carragh Ryan, she wasn’t sure. The woman was perplexing, and Sibéal took the unusual step of admitting it to her once she’d been shown to the library. The librarian—archivist? temp worker?—certainly looked as though she’d been working for several hours already. Her hair was pulled back messily, showing the layers of jewel-toned colors beneath the surface black, and her eyes were red-rimmed. Too much reading? Too little sleep? Tears? Perhaps all three.

  “I must confess that I don’t know what to make of you and your presence here, Miss Ryan.”

  “I’m just doing a job.”

  “What is it you normally do? Unless bouncing from castle to castle looking at old books is a career path I’m unaware of.”

  “I wish,” Carragh said with feeling. “My degrees are in English Literature and Irish Studies. I’ve cobbled together work since leaving Trinity three years ago. Internships at a few specialist libraries, some temp secretarial positions, but mostly freelance editing. Helping writers get their manuscripts into readable shape is becoming more of a thing with the rise of independent publishing.”

  “But you prefer castles.”

  She shrugged. “This one, at least.”

  “Because of the Gallaghers?”

  “Sort of.”

  Sibéal cocked her head invitingly. She was not taking notes, considering this was little more than a conversation to assuage her curiosity. It seemed to put Carragh at ease, because the American went on to elaborate. “Have you heard of the Darkling Bride?”

  “Someone mentioned it. Kyla, I think. A legend from the mountains?”

  “Yes. But more relevantly, that legend brought a Victorian writer here in 1879. He came to write a book, and ended up marrying the daughter and heiress of the house.”

  “So he wrote a book on the Darkling Bride?”

  Carragh’s smile was full of mischief. “That is the question, Inspector. If you’re interested in cold cases, they don’t come much colder. Evan Chase wrote an outline that he sent to his publisher in London, but nothing more than that was ever seen. His wife had a breakdown after the birth of their only child and eventually committed suicide. Evan returned to England afterward but never produced the promised book, or anything else, before his death ten years later.”

  It was no accident that Sibéal was a good detective—she could read people. There was no mistaking true enthusiasm. “So that’s what brought you here. You’re hoping to find the missing book.”

  The mischief died. “A faint hope. A child’s hope. I’m just here to make lists.”

  I don’t believe that for a minute, Sibéal wanted to say. “And is there anything in these lists you’re making that can give me insight into the Gallagher family?”

  “They’re rich, they’re old-blooded, and they’re territorial,” Carragh answered flippantly. “But I’m sure you’ve worked all that out for yourself.”

  “Any information about the previous viscount and his wife?”

  “No.”

  Carragh Ryan was a very bad liar. “So no sign of the missing journal Aidan Gallagher has been looking for? The one police never found?”

  “No.”

  Sibéal studied her, trying to decide what pressure points would work. “You know, Miss Ryan, a crime like murder is not a discrete event. Its roots reach into the past, and its effects ripple far into the future. Just because you don’t know anything about the murders directly doesn’t mean you don’t know something useful.”

  “I don’t,” she retorted firmly. “And you do not have to tell me about the effects of murder. I have lived them every day since I was four years old.”

  Sibéal’s eyebrows shot up. “May I ask—”

  “No. It has nothing to do with Glendalough or Gallaghers or even Ireland, which makes it none of your business. If you’ve gotten all the gossip off me you wanted, then I have work to do.” She stood up, notebook in hand, to tackle another shelf.

  Amused and intrigued, Sibéal left her to the library, realizing only long afterward that she had failed to press Carragh Ryan on the subject of Philip Grant.

  * * *

  —

  When the library door closed, Carragh stopped pretending to look at whatever shelf she was standing by and slid to the floor. With her back resting against the volumes (she only hoped they weren’t irreplaceably valuable), she dropped her notebook and rested her head on her knees, arms wrapped around her legs. And though she knew she should feel guilty about not telling DI McKenna about the notes and letters she’d discovered in the last forty-eight hours, it was her own past that was swamping her just now. The past so casually summoned by McKenna’s description of murder: “Its roots reach into the past, and its effects ripple far into the future.”

  Twenty-four years, she thought bleakly. I haven’t been that little girl for twenty-four years and I never will be—never can be—again. So why is everyone determined to make me go back there? Even those who are supposed to protect me?

  It was her mother who’d started it. Anne Ryan believed in plain speaking, a judicial trait not always comfortable for her children. Especially her only daughter. One week—just one week!—after the death of Eileen Ryan, Carragh’s mother had sat her down and said bluntly, “I have a letter for you from your grandmother.” At Carragh’s instant look of shock and hope, Anne had corrected herself. “I’m sorry, I mean your Chinese grandmother.”

  Carragh’s reply was instant. “The one who never even tried to stop your adoption of me? I’m not interested.”

  Which was exactly the way Carragh liked it. She had a family, what did she need with people who’d never even met her? And when her mother had once lamented in an argument during college that, “Maybe if I’d given birth to you I’d understand you better,” Carragh burst into genuine laughter and hugged her. “The fact that you can drive me crazy faster than anyone else on this planet absolutely guarantees that you’re my mom,” she’d assured Anne.

  So Carragh had looked her mother in the eyes earlier this year and said a firm “No, thank you” to the proffered letter from a stranger. She didn’t want to read it. When her mother tried to talk to her about it, she didn’t want to hear what was in the letter or why it had been written now. And since her family’s return to Boston after Eileen Ryan’s funeral, Carragh had steadfastly avoided the conversation.

  She was aware, however, that her mother had slipped the letter inside one of her favorite books when she left. She had looked at it more than once—at the expensive handmade paper and the precision of the fountain pen strokes spelling out in English her original name: Mei-Lien. Her parents had retained it as her middle name, but Carragh never thought of herself that way.

  Her mother told her it was a mistake. The therapist they’d made her go to in high school told her it was a mistake. The only way out is through, pain is fear leaving the body…All the platitudes written by people who had no idea what it was like. Finally, when she’d had enough, she raged at her parents one night at the dinner table, “If you don’t like who I am, then why the hell did you bother to bring me home? I like being me. Just let me do that!”

  She knew, because she was not stupid, that wasn’t really the point. She could even concede, at her most reasonable, that her mother was not wrong. You probably couldn’t hide away an entire person inside you forever. But so far, so good.

  Until that damn letter had arrived from Hong Kong. She had coped badly after her grandmother’s funeral and her family’s departure from Ireland—hence the clubbing and drinking—so Deeprath Castle appeared a shining refuge. A chance to immerse herself in someone else’s painful past. To find the answers to someone else’s questions.

  Except that someone else had turned out to be Aidan Gallagher. And Kyla. Two children who suffered their violent loss later than she did, but who had not had a large and warm family ready to sweep them in afterward. Only Nessa.

  “What are you doing down there?”

  Would Aidan ever stop being able to sneak up
on her? And would she ever stop jumping when he did, managing to look both surprised and astonishingly clumsy at the same time?

  A woman laughed in her ear. Carragh’s head whipped around as she was halfway to standing up, and the next thing she knew, Aidan had to put his hand out to keep her from falling at his feet.

  “Are you all right?”

  Did you hear that disembodied laughter? was not a question she wanted answered just now. So she said crossly, “I was fine until you loomed over me. I was working.”

  “On the floor,” he noted without inflection.

  “Every single bookshelf has floor-level books.” She glared at him, daring him to contradict her.

  He didn’t. “Look, Carragh, what I wanted to say is that this assignment with the library…everything’s become more complicated, obviously. I’ve put off the National Trust for a few weeks. They didn’t like it, but there’s really nothing they can do about it. That means there’s no longer an imminent deadline and—”

  “And you’re firing me.”

  Startled, he opened those irritatingly blue eyes wider and said, “No. But I thought it only right to give you the chance to back out. I mean…” He waved his hand, indicating the thousands of volumes around them. “This was never going to be an easily defined job. Mostly, Nessa wanted to make sure nothing extremely valuable was overlooked.”

  “And you? What did you want, besides answers?”

  “To ensure that any answers discovered did not further destroy my family’s reputation. But unless someone’s going to take issue with the admittedly racist and imperialistic views of my traveling ancestors and their accounts of other cultures, there’s nothing in this library I need fear. Whatever I was looking for, it’s not here.”

  He shook his head once, then—unexpectedly—smiled at her. “However, you were hired for a specific term and I certainly intend to pay you for the whole of it. So if you were of the mind to continue doing what you could in here, I would be very grateful.”

  Her hesitation had nothing to do with the request, for she would have stayed even if he didn’t want to pay her. Nothing drove her like curiosity. But how much should she tell him?

  In for a penny, in for a pound. “Aidan, what if I told you that I found something that may be pertinent to your search? Something about—something written by—your mother?”

  He would never be a man to lightly lose control. His cheekbones tightened, but he said calmly enough, “I would say it depends on what exactly she wrote.”

  He was afraid that his mother had done something wrong, wasn’t he? “It’s not like that,” she rushed to assure him. “And it’s not her missing journal. It’s probably nothing at all to do with their deaths, just a project she was putting together. A gift for your father. All about Jenny Gallagher and Evan Chase and the Darkling Bride.”

  “In that case, Carragh Ryan, I say lead on.”

  * * *

  —

  Aidan stared at the painting laid flat on Carragh’s bed, the doubled woman making his head spin as she/they always had. “I’m pretty sure I need you to say that again,” he pronounced carefully.

  She flushed, but did not retreat from her unusual statement. “I think the castle wanted me to find this.”

  “Because the castle…?”

  “Took the painting off the wall. Three times. If I hadn’t been yelled at by Nessa for it, I probably would have explored the why sooner. But she had me fearing I’d be locked up by the National Art Police.”

  “Not really the type of thing we do,” he answered automatically.

  “All right. I agree, it sounds wild. Maybe it’s not the castle. Maybe it’s intuition or…I don’t know. Whatever. The point is, we’ve got an envelope labeled clue number one and an outline of the quest she was setting your father. I know this was on her mind not long before…everything…because she also wrote to my grandmother for help.”

  Aidan shook his head as though clearing it of bees or wasps. Or something equally odd and stinging. “What the hell does your grandmother have to do with this?”

  With a postgrad degree from Trinity, she knew how to put together information logically and persuasively. But that skill had apparently deserted her tonight, as words and explanation and tangents tumbled out one over another, each almost more unbelievable than the last.

  “So,” he finally interrupted. “Let me get this straight. My mother came to your grandmother trying to track down information on my ancestors in the 1880s.”

  “Well, really, she was looking for stuff about Evan Chase—”

  “Who was married to Jenny Gallagher. Yes, I got that part, thank you. May I see those letters?”

  Aidan thought he sounded perfectly normal as he asked, but she shot him a glance of concern as she pulled a file folder out of the top desk drawer. Before she could hand it over, however, her face changed. She let the cover fall open so that the inside could be seen…

  Nothing. An empty file folder. Carragh turned back to the desk, searching first the drawer she’d pulled it out of, then all the others. Next was her bag, which she ended up dumping on the bed. More nothing. Whatever letters she had found, they were no longer there.

  “Aidan, I swear to you, I’m not making this up.”

  “Why would you? I can think of much easier ways to either bribe or torture a man. I believe you.”

  “Then where are they?”

  “You said the castle wanted you to find the—” He flicked his fingers at the portrait. “—treasure hunt. Maybe the castle didn’t want you examining too closely the letters to your grandmother.” The castle, the policeman in him thought, or someone in it.

  “I took notes on the letters. I can give you the basics. And the dates—I noted the dates they were written.”

  She gave Aidan her notebook and he scanned the list of dates. The last one was 26 August 1992, and the breath caught in his throat. He had to clear it before he could speak.

  “This was written ten days before the murders.”

  “I know.”

  “Did you also know that my father was murdered the day before his fiftieth birthday? Just one day before, it seems, my mother intended to lead him to some sort of Gallagher family secret. That seems more than coincidental to me.” His head was spinning, but the thought of doing something—anything—made him feel a tiny bit better. Especially when the path in question had been laid by his mother. “What do you say, Carragh? Would you like to go on a treasure hunt?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  “I’ve always hated riddles.” Carragh moved to shove her chair back from the library table—except the chair weighed maybe forty pounds and so barely rocked on its legs before settling back. Great, now the castle was mocking her melodramatic gestures. You’re not so impressive, the library seemed to say. No hiding behind theatrical emotions here. In her imagination, the library had the voice of a Catholic school nun, just as her primrose bedroom sounded like the kind of friend who was always coaxing you into dangerous situations.

  She was pretty sure Aidan’s cough was an attempt to cover his laughter. He sat next to her, the four pages of the first clue spread before them on the table, with notes and highlights scribbled by both of them that so far had done little to advance their understanding.

  “My mother loved them,” Aidan explained. “Riddles, puzzles, games. Every Christmas, she hid at least one of our gifts somewhere in the house and we had to follow the clues to find it. Just like this.”

  “Then, please, solve it for me.” Take that, Deeprath, she thought spitefully. Just try to take my sarcasm away.

  For no apparent reason, a book fell off the far end of the table, with a distinctly insulting thud. Seriously? Carragh thought crossly at…whatever. Whoever. You’re being childish, she told herself.

  Aidan looked briefly in the direction of the fallen book, then returned to the papers. “Here,” he said, putting his finger on the first photocopied newspaper article.

  DUBLIN WEEKLY NATION


  May 1880

  Marriage: On Thursday the 20th ult., at St. patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, Mr. Evan Chase of LOndon to Lady Jenny GallaghEr of County Wicklow, only child of michael, Viscount Gallagher, and the late Aiofe Gallagher. Mr. Chase will append his wife’s surname, as she is the sole inheritor of the Gallagher estates.

  Carragh looked dutifully once more at the two lines she had already committed to memory. “If you’re telling me that your mother intended your father to take this hunt to St. Patrick’s in Dublin—”

  “No,” he cut in impatiently. “That’s not the rules. The games always took place inside the castle. Look at each letter, Carragh. One at a time.”

  “Are you this annoying at work?” she grumbled. As though he were trying to teach a four-year-old to read, Aidan’s finger moved from letter to letter, pausing at St. Patrick’s. When she said nothing, his finger tapped beneath the name. “Look, Carragh.”

  “The p is blurry,” she said.

  “No. It’s been altered. Turned into a lowercase p.”

  She studied it doubtfully. “Really? How can you tell?”

  “Find the next one.”

  She rolled her eyes, but the second letter was easier to identify. “The first o in London. It’s been capitalized.”

  “Yes.”

  “So you can say something positive.” The retort was instinctive; already her eyes skimmed ahead and caught the next two. “Capital E in Gallagher and lowercase m in Michael.” Her tongue was quicker than her brain and she said the word before she consciously knew it. “Poem.”

  Triumphantly, she grinned at Aidan, and he smiled back. Please stop doing that, she almost said. He must have been perfectly aware that his smile could make the susceptible drop in their tracks.