The Darkling Bride

by Laura Andersen

  I don’t have time for monks, she scolded them silently, feeling only a little ridiculous. Just keep on doing your ghostly things and leave me be.

  “Temple na Skellig,” Aidan said, “means Church of the Rock. It was built long after Kevin, but excavations in the 1950s confirmed that he and his earliest followers had lived here. At least long enough to build wattle huts connected by paved paths.”

  “Is there anything you don’t know?”

  “About Wicklow? Not much. My mother loved Glendalough, and Nessa made sure we knew our place in these mountains.”

  She examined what man-made things she could, which weren’t many. The foundation of the church, one wall partially standing, the uncovered remains of the wattle huts, and the view itself, which was not man-made but surely one of the reasons people had been coming here for generations.

  “For a man who prized isolation as much as St. Kevin, he couldn’t get away from his own reputation,” Aidan told her. “All he wanted was the quiet life of a hermit, to pray in solitude. But he was too good to send away those who came to him to learn. So they came out here and built their huts and learned whatever Kevin taught them.”

  “Good deeds never go unpunished,” she murmured, studying the sloped cliff face behind them with the faintest suggestion of carved steps. They were practically vertical. “What’s up there?” She pointed to a low rounded opening in the rock above them.

  “That is our destination—St. Kevin’s Bed.”

  “St. Kevin’s Kitchen, St. Kevin’s Bed…will we be seeing St. Kevin’s washroom soon? That would be convenient. How are we supposed to get up there?”

  “The safest way is to climb up the face farther down, then come at the opening from above.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  He laughed. “I’m not. I’ve been up there once, but it was with my father and Quinn and we had proper climbing gear to make sure of our safety. My mother hated heights. She wouldn’t have put a clue of any sort up there.”

  “Then why are we here?”

  “It’s beautiful. I wanted to show it to you.”

  Carragh couldn’t help but laugh. “With everything that’s happening, you wanted to take time for this?”

  “More for this.”

  It was possible, she discovered, to manage a comfortable position on the bracken between the stones. When they separated enough for her to speak, she teased, “If I didn’t know that you left the mountains at age ten, I’d say I’m not the first woman you’ve brought here.”

  “I’ve never brought any woman anywhere near Ireland. I’ve hardly come here myself. When I was eleven, I went to a Benedictine school in England, then university. I lived with Nessa in Kilkenny during school holidays and I’ve visited Kyla there about once or twice a year since her marriage. But I never came any closer to home.”

  “Why not?”

  He leaned over her with those amazingly gorgeous eyes and asked, “Is it really talking you want to be doing just now?”

  A burst of light, a crackle of power in the air, and a split second of every nerve ending alive with energy…then the rain came like hundreds of needles driving into every bit of exposed skin.

  “Quinn’s going to kill me!” Aidan shouted.

  Her laughter turned to choking when rain got in her mouth. Aidan lifted his head, then ducked it back down close to hers. “We can’t go on the lake like this. We’ve got to find shelter of some kind. Farther downshore, where we aren’t kept on such a narrow spit of land.”

  “Okay.”

  “Hold my hand. Don’t let go.”

  She thought he was overreacting until she tried to get up and fell straight back again. Aidan hauled her up by the arm, keeping his body angled between her and the wind as much as possible. That mostly ensured that they remained pressed up together, and it made for awkward movement. She clung grimly to his arm, determined not to let go whatever happened.

  It quickly became apparent to Carragh that there was no sufficient shelter to be found, a fact Aidan must have known before they even started. They would simply have to back themselves up against the cliff face and hope for the best. Hope the waves wouldn’t be whipped up too furiously on the lake and dash against them. Hope the lightning wouldn’t strike or the winds bring down trees upon their heads. She could hear the creaking of wood all around them.

  Beneath the instinctive fear, Carragh told herself they would be fine. If only because she couldn’t imagine a more foolish time and place to die.

  She didn’t realize Aidan had stopped until he dragged her back a few steps. He put her back against the rocks and faced her, arms spread on either side of her shoulders so he took the brunt of the rain for a moment. He leaned down to speak against her ear, so close she could feel his breath.

  But what he said was not in the least romantic. “We’re going to have to go up.”

  “What do you mean ‘up’?” Just after the words left her mouth she answered her own question. “To the cave? Are you insane? You said it wasn’t safe.”

  “Neither is this.”

  “If we fall, we die!”

  “It’s not that far. And you won’t fall.” His lips pressed against her earlobe for a moment. “I promise.”

  It was hellish work. Aidan sent her up first, to provide stability behind her. He kept up a running commentary of guidance and reassurance, most of his words snatched away by the wind.

  In the end, Carragh was fairly certain that the only way she made it up the cliff was through sheer irritation and fury at the entire situation. She turned it all on Aidan the minute they had both crawled into the cave—on hands and knees—after managing to bang her head three times in the process.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” The enclosing rock echoed her words, so that her voice reverberated against and inside her skull. She modulated her volume down. “This is why I hate camping.”

  “If I’d taken you camping I’d have been better prepared.”

  “So we just stay up here…how long?”

  “At the very worst, overnight. But the worse the storm, the faster it passes.”

  “So now you’re a meteorologist. Aren’t you the one who said the storm wasn’t coming until after midnight?”

  “It will be fine. We’ve got some food and water. And lightning can’t reach us here.”

  “At least lightning would be warm.”

  He switched on his flashlight then, and she saw the very real worry in his eyes. It made her pause and say grudgingly, “It’s okay. I’m not that cold.”

  But she was, and he could see it. “This cave was built for one—St. Kevin wasn’t much for company in his bed—and that means we’re forced into close proximity. That will keep our body heat conserved.”

  She felt the corners of her lips twitching up. “And you mean me to believe you didn’t plan this.”

  “If I were going to maneuver you into a compromising position, Carragh, it wouldn’t be in a cave that I can’t even stand up in.”

  “Who needs to stand?”

  Body heat made a significant difference, she found. And the creating of it also managed to pass the time pleasantly. At least until both of them had accumulated a number of minor bumps and scrapes. As Aidan had pointed out, the saint had slept here alone.

  Finally they set about making themselves as comfortable as possible in a space of only a few meters. In the process, Carragh hit herself so many times on various outcroppings that Aidan finally remarked, “I’ve never known anyone likelier to injure herself by simply breathing.”

  “Fine, I’ll stop breathing. Can I eat something instead?”

  She could get used to homemade bread. And country ham. And Mrs. Bell’s shortbread. Maybe she would learn how to cook. Once she had a kitchen that wouldn’t explode the first time she switched on the stove, that is.

  “Now,” Aidan said with an annoying air of command, “it’s your turn to talk. I feel like all we’ve done in the last ten days is wade through my family’s
issues—past and present. I’d like to hear about your family.”

  “You know what you need to. Irish-born father, Irish American mother, three older brothers who love public service and football in equal measure, and an upbringing in which education rivaled the Church for importance.”

  “That’s the family who raised you. What about your real parents?”

  “As opposed to my imaginary parents?” Her voice rose. “I hate that word. Real. It elevates the most basic transfer of genetic material into an obsession. Just look at you Gallaghers. I’ve never met people more obsessed with blood, but what makes your family more real than mine? Your money? Your castle and houses? Or is it the fact that you can hardly stand to be in the same room with each other?”

  “I’m sorry. I know intention doesn’t matter, but truly I didn’t mean to insult your family. Truth be told, I envy you.”

  “Right.”

  “It’s not a competition, but if it were, I guarantee I would win. What could be worse than two dead parents, your mother rumored to have killed your father?”

  “How about a dead mother and a father who most definitely killed her?”

  She had never said it so plainly. Of course she’d talked about it—her family was Irish, not the usual reserved and repressed New Englanders—and she had refused to hide from the facts.

  But hiding from emotions was entirely different, and that was a skill she was extremely good at. Maybe, she reflected, not so different from the Gallaghers after all.

  She had no idea she was crying until Aidan touched her cheek and brushed away a tear. He said nothing else, asked no further questions, made no further pleas. It was his very reticence that served to break her. She knew how to withstand questions and opinions, knew how to hold her own against her mother’s determined efforts to get inside her heart. But gentleness and silence, it seemed, was a weapon against which she had no defenses. Within moments she was full-blown sobbing, in a way she hadn’t since she was four years old.

  By the time she had subsided into undignified hiccups, Aidan was holding her lightly. The moment she moved, he dropped his hands and allowed her to straighten up without comment. Until she banged the side of her head against the wall, when he murmured, “Always bumping into things.”

  She began to talk. “In August 1991, residents of a Boston apartment building began to complain about a foul smell. Around the same time, one or two of the more neighborly types realized they hadn’t seen a particular tenant in a while. The building superintendent called the police and unlocked the door for them.

  “They found the tenant—a twenty-five-year-old woman from Hong Kong—decomposing on the kitchen floor. She’d been strangled. The same attentive neighbor also told the police that the dead woman had a daughter.

  “The child was in a closet, locked from the outside. She had been there two days, with a pack of juice boxes and a carton of animal crackers. The first thing she said when they opened the door was, ‘If you’re loud, he’ll find you.’ ”

  She chanced a look at Aidan and saw the same terrible sympathy she’d seen on too many faces. And yet…there was something else in his eyes. A faint spark that kindled in recognition. I, too, have suffered death up close.

  With a decisive clearing of her throat, Carragh took control of her runaway emotions and memories. “If you really want the details, you can find them online. The dead woman’s former boyfriend hanged himself afterward. And the police sergeant who had found the little girl in the closet used every connection he could to ensure that a good family would adopt her. And that’s how the child of a dead Chinese student and a privileged California sociopath came to be Carragh Ryan.”

  She waited for Aidan to say the obvious. I’m sorry. How horrible. How lucky you were.

  He said only two words. “You win.”

  It surprised a laugh out of her. Anyone else would have found it highly offensive, or at least insensitive. But Ryans were tough, and Carragh had learned only to shun the trap of self-pity. She might fail now and again, but Aidan’s words reminded her of who she was.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  What secrets did she have left to reveal? “Yes.”

  “What was your name, before you were Carragh Ryan?”

  To Mei-Lien, daughter of my daughter, Mei-Li… “Mei-Lien Lu,” Carragh replied. “Mei-Lien remains my middle name. My parents called me that for a few months when they took me in, until I asked them to call me something else.”

  Not my name, she’d told them. And though she couldn’t articulate it at the time, she knew later that it was her way of shutting up the first four years of her life and locking them away in the same closet where she’d hidden while her father murdered her mother. She’d thought it necessary. Healthy, even. But working at Deeprath had begun to teach her that things covered up don’t disappear. They lurk, waiting to seize their moment.

  Perhaps that was why the castle—or Lily—or Jenny—seemed to be calling to her. She could see so clearly the necessity of the truth, the whole truth, for the Gallagher family to move on, and could not understand why they were so determined to ignore the past.

  She just hadn’t wanted to believe that the same answer applied to her.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  It’s an adventure, Sibéal told herself. How many people get to spend the night in a medieval castle during a furious storm with only candles and oil lamps for light? It should be positively romantic. Unfortunately, she was shut up with the most difficult and uncongenial family one could imagine. And one of them, she was convinced, was a murderer.

  Not that she thought herself in imminent danger. It just made for a highly unpleasant dinner. Nessa Gallagher insisted on eating in the dining room, and at least the food was surprisingly hot. Sibéal supposed that was one of the benefits of living in a place so ancient—you still had enormous fireplaces and coal or wood stoves hanging about. She had borrowed leggings and a tunic dress from Carragh’s belongings, the only things that would fit her to some degree, and reminded herself sternly that this was a golden opportunity to observe the Gallaghers at ease.

  No one was at ease, though, for Carragh and Aidan had not returned from wherever they’d gone early that morning and no one had heard from them. With no mobile service here on the best days, and the telephone lines knocked out along with the power, the two of them had no way of contacting Deeprath, which left Nessa, at least, fretting.

  “I do hope he hasn’t done something reckless.”

  “Aidan?” snorted Philip. “He’s the least reckless man I’ve ever known. Whatever he does, he makes sure he’s the one in control. No doubt they’re comfortably ensconced somewhere with electricity.”

  “Lucky them.” Kyla was jittery tonight, her good manners slipping more and more with every drink she took.

  Police instincts warring with the desire to ease the tension, Sibéal asked her, “How are your girls? Are they not still here?”

  “I sent them back home with Louise. They can’t stay out of school any longer.”

  Sibéal could not envision sending May away from her with only a hired au pair, and had to quash the instant thought that her daughter had spent more time this month in Josh’s home than with her. Perhaps she shouldn’t be so quick to condemn.

  “Aren’t you going to ask my wife what she does with herself now that the girls are in school all day and Louise does everything domestic?” Philip said, smooth and nasty. “I, for one, would like to know.”

  Sibéal would have expected Nessa to intervene by now, but the woman looked drawn and more delicate than she had two days before, with no energy to spare for the sniping of her younger relatives.

  Kyla raised her glass to her husband, her smile dripping acid. “Perhaps I’ll spend my weekdays in Dublin with you, Philip.”

  This was getting more than awkward. Sibéal reached into what she knew of Kyla’s history postmurder. “You did a business degree at Trinity, didn’t you? That’s impressive.”

  “I
s it? I was told I was simply filling in time before having children, when I was expected to restrict myself to charitable boards and local galas.”

  “Is that how your mother filled her days?”

  Kyla’s cheek twitched and for a moment she looked like a little lost girl. Like May when she fell off her bicycle or popped her balloon. “My mother had the gift of loving everything she did, no matter how boring.”

  Sibéal swallowed a spoonful of soup, considering. “Maybe it was just that she chose the things she loved, however boring you may have thought them.”

  “But what if I have no idea what I love?” Kyla eyed Philip. “Or who?”

  “Don’t be silly, darling,” he retorted. “You know I love you enough for both of us.”

  “I know you love my money.”

  Mercifully, Nessa finally intervened. “That is enough. Marital disagreements should be handled privately, not at the dinner table.” Not that there was a lot of actual dining going on. Just pushing food around. And drinking.

  “That only works so long as he takes care not to make his infidelities public,” Kyla retorted. “Who is it this time, Philip? Clearly someone who walked away before you could. I haven’t seen you this bothered since—what was her name? The French girl who ‘interned’ for you three years ago?”

  As though in answer to Sibéal’s prayers, an enormous crash sounded. Like someone had driven a car into one of the castle walls. With the sound came a shockwave of vibration rolling through her body as though she was one with the structure around her.

  They had all frozen reflexively, and all four of them now moved in concert. Nessa calling for Bell, Philip taking Kyla’s arm (she shook his hand off immediately), Sibéal reaching for her phone even though she knew she couldn’t get a signal and had no idea who she would call if she could.

  “What was that?” she asked.

  “The roof falling in?” suggested Philip.

  “Lightning, I think.” Nessa conferred briefly with Robert Bell, in voices low enough not to be heard.

  “Can I help?” Sibéal asked Nessa, since she was so clearly in charge.