The Darkling Bride

by Laura Andersen

  Go there, look two feet to the right of the door at floor level, and you will find my gift concealed behind stone: one untold story, hidden long ago by a man in his grief. A story…and a life.

  Love always and forever!

  Your Lily

  Lily sat at her dressing table and sealed the last clue. She set it down next to the rolled leather document case, stiff with age but keeping its contents secure enough. She would replace the case where she’d found it, then place her last clue. This time tomorrow the hunt would be over.

  Nessa knocked once and entered without waiting to be invited, trailing that air of possession that went beyond security in herself to encompass all of Deeprath Castle. Lily could only hope her aunt-by-marriage wouldn’t haunt the place when she was dead. Nessa would be a much less congenial ghost than the musical Marthe or Thomas Gallagher striding the battlements.

  “So you are seeing this game through to the end?” Nessa frowned.

  Lily looked at her without enthusiasm, wishing the woman hadn’t insisted on being at Deeprath for Cillian’s birthday. She had resisted Nessa’s attempts to keep her apprised of what she was doing, though Nessa had held it to be her right when she’d learned that Lily was sifting through the Gallagher family history.

  “Cillian loves my games,” she replied brightly, unwilling to spark a confrontation today. “I am going out just now. Perhaps you’ll join Cillian and me for tea at three-thirty in the library? He’s going to show me the antiquities up close.”

  Nessa studied her with that sculpted, unreadable face that would no doubt look the same when she was ninety. “I suppose.”

  Lily took care that no one saw her enter the tower, and locked the corridor entrance behind her. The door to the library was ajar, but she avoided it so Cillian would not hear her. Going up, as she had so many times in the past, she walked softly, as though wary of disturbing Jenny Gallagher. She had felt the woman’s presence for weeks now, and hoped she was doing what Jenny wanted.

  On the top floor, Lily exited to the battlements, then knelt. On the exterior wall, she eased out the loose stone that she’d discovered two weeks ago and gently replaced the document case. When she’d settled the stone, she crossed herself, still kneeling, and sent up a prayer for the tiny bones that also lay within. This had started as a game, a pastime, an intellectual exploration of a family’s history. And God—or fate—or the dead—had taken that game and used her for something much more important. Soon, those bones would truly rest.

  Lily returned to her bedroom to change out of her jeans for tea. Moving to her dressing table, she stopped suddenly and stared at the empty space where, when she moved into this room twenty years ago, she’d always kept her current journal. It was gone, along with the final clue for Cillian.

  And no prizes for guessing who had taken it. Nessa, who had pressed and prodded her this last year. Who had tried to talk her out of pursuing Jenny Gallagher’s life and death. Lily knew that the old lady didn’t like the taint of even an unacknowledged suicide in the family’s past. But if Nessa had now read her journal…she would know far more than she should, at least without having been adequately prepared.

  Lily went directly to Nessa’s room. A tea tray stood on the rosewood desk, but the room was unoccupied. With sinking heart, she headed for the library. She could easily imagine Nessa’s outrage—of course she would go straight to Cillian and complain.

  Well, Nessa wasn’t going to complain without her there to defend herself—and the truth. Furious as she might be, what could Nessa do about it? The past cannot be changed. It’s not as though Lily proposed taking out a banner ad in the London Times to announce what she’d found. But nor would she let an old woman’s misguided pride keep the rest of the Gallaghers—especially Kyla and Aidan—from knowing their own history.

  Prepared for battle, Lily opened the library door.

  Nessa was shouting at Cillian. “Your wife has gone mad! You must stop her. She’s making up all sorts of lies about us, will make us laughingstocks—”

  “Nessa!” Cillian had what Lily and the children called “his work voice,” and he used it now to good effect. He caught sight of his wife and motioned her in. “Let’s talk about whatever is going on like adults.”

  Lily knew at once that would be impossible, for Nessa looked on the verge of a collapse. Red-faced, furious, she whirled on Lily. “Where have you put it?” she demanded. “Where is all this ‘evidence’ you claim to have?” In her hand, she held Lily’s journal, shaking it at her.

  “Give me back my journal.”

  Nessa threw it on the library table, where it landed against the marble Celtic cross that Winthrop had brought as a gift for Cillian’s birthday. “You’re not doing this,” she announced. “I will not let you ruin our family.”

  Beneath Cillian’s exasperation, he was beginning to look alarmed. “Nessa, sit down and speak calmly.”

  But Nessa seemed to have forgotten everything except Lily. “Take it back,” she hissed, like a child insulted on a playground. “Take it all back.”

  “I can’t. It’s true.”

  “What’s true?” Cillian asked, bewildered.

  Nessa was through talking. She flung herself at Lily, scratching like a wildcat. Lily stumbled back and Cillian pulled his aunt away. But despite her age, Nessa was a woman in excellent condition, thanks to decades of riding and hunting. She twisted out of his grasp, snatched up the marble cross, and swung it wildly at Lily.

  But Cillian had stepped between them. With a horrible crunch, the cross connected with his skull just behind his right ear. He fell.

  Lily cried, “What did you do?”

  Nessa, a blankness in her eyes, as though she saw nothing except her target, continued swinging at Lily. With Nessa between her and the door, Lily bolted for the only escape.

  The Bride Tower.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Aidan watched Carragh’s face, her surprise and satisfaction lit by the changing lamplight. Her eyes were so dark he could swim in them…

  She blinked, and he realized he’d been staring. “Did you say something?” he asked.

  “I’m sorry about Philip,” she replied. “And I’m so sorry to have hurt your sister. I feel sick about the whole damn thing, I knew he was trouble, but I was so unhappy and tired and mixed-up, and I swear, it was only a few weeks and I’ve despised him ever since. Almost as much as I’ve despised myself.” The words seemed to tumble out of her like a flood.

  It was his turn to blink. “Is this really the time?”

  “Please, Aidan, say you understand. I mean, I know you kissed me but maybe it’s different seeing how much I hurt Kyla. I won’t ask you to forgive me, but tell me you don’t hate me—”

  “Carragh, there’s nothing for me to forgive.” If she wanted to do this now, then best do it thoroughly. “You can take that up with Kyla. And I don’t hate you. I hate Philip, but I hated him long before you came along. I hate him for what he’s done to Kyla all these years, and because, God yes, I’m jealous. I’m jealous of every man before me who has ever touched you and made you smile and made you hit your head on walls…but when I think of you and Philip, I really think I might kill him if I could. It’s pathetic, I know. I don’t like that about myself. And God knows I’d never use my feelings to make a judgment of your past. I’m not that much of a bastard. But I’m looking at you now and I’m not thinking about anyone or anything except how much I’d like to take you to bed this very minute.”

  One of the pots on the hanging racks above crashed onto the table between them. Even Aidan jumped, and Carragh swore, then laughed. “And there is our reminder that—as you said—now is not the time.”

  “A reminder from the castle?” But Aidan didn’t say it as skeptically as he would have before.

  There was a definite tang to the air, in addition to the lingering ashy scent from the fire, as though more than just the two of them were in this kitchen, waiting for the final truth to be unveiled.


  “So,” Carragh said briskly. “Your mother’s journal. Where did you find it?”

  “Take a guess.”

  “Well, considering that you said you’ve just come from Kilkenny, I’d guess either at Kyla’s house…or Nessa’s.”

  “Nessa’s,” he confirmed. “Took ages to find it, and I may have made a bit of a mess in her beautiful home.”

  “How did you know to look there?”

  “Because,” he answered slowly, “of what I remembered with Pen’s help.”

  He liked to imagine he was a knight defending Deeprath from the English—or other Irish, he wasn’t picky—and played at spotting an enemy approach and preparing his bow to shoot them down. Sometimes he used boiling oil or pitch to chuck over the side, sometimes he allowed the enemy to make it inside so that he had to fight with his sword high in the air.

  He always won.

  When he caught movement below from the corner of his eye, he dropped his sword hand and pressed himself up against the taller buttress so he wouldn’t be seen. The crenellations meant he could peer down at an angle and see the ruined oratory and half the stable blocks.

  He saw Kyla coming out of the woods behind the oratory, looking around rather like he did himself when he didn’t want to be seen. As he watched her, Kyla’s head came up toward the tower, and he froze, knowing she’d be more likely to see him if he moved. But she seemed satisfied that she was alone, and headed into the castle. He remained motionless on the battlements, pretending he was spying on an enemy camp. He was rewarded a few minutes later by Philip leaving the woods at the same spot Kyla had.

  “Lady Nessa.” Philip’s voice floated up from the ground, airy and insubstantial.

  He risked craning his neck, and saw his great-aunt nod once to Philip, whom she did not like.

  While Philip entered the castle, Aunt Nessa, her red leather carryall on her shoulder, continued into the stables where the cars were kept. He decided that she must be leaving already, which cheered him a great deal. Supper would be much more fun without her going on about his table manners all night.

  But when Aunt Nessa left the stable, it was on foot, as she had gone in, and she seemed to be coming back into the castle.

  He sighed. Might as well give up the game for now. He’d go and ask his father how much longer Aunt Nessa planned on staying.

  Carragh listened closely as Aidan described what he’d seen. He had noticed that, when deep in thought, the tip of her tongue showed. “As a boy,” she said, “you’d hardly have thought any of that important in the aftermath. Not unless someone had thoroughly and skillfully questioned you. But as an adult…”

  “As an adult, it was certainly suggestive. As a police officer?” Aidan shrugged. “I know how to construct a basic timeline. Both my parents were dead before I went up the tower. I can’t have missed the killer coming back down the tower steps by more than a few minutes. Kyla had been in the woods—with Philip, something I confirmed with her tonight. She’d never said because no one had ever asked her directly. Why borrow trouble? she told me. Because yes, of course, they’d been having sex. That left Nessa.”

  Nessa, who had left the castle with her bag and then returned without it a minute later. Nessa, whose big red bag was unmistakable and could have held a supply of army munitions, let alone a smallish coffret filled with antiquities, a bloodstained marble cross, and one blue leather journal.

  “Why didn’t she bury the journal in the holy well with the antiquities? Or no,” Carragh corrected herself. “Why did she hide the journal all these years and not simply destroy it?”

  He shook his head. “That, I don’t know. But I wonder…is it possible she kept it so she had a convenient piece of evidence to plant on someone else? Just in case the police were suspicious and considered her.”

  The thought made him shiver. Would Nessa really have sacrificed someone else? But the moment he asked himself, the answer was clear: Nessa would sacrifice anything—or anyone—for what she considered to be the greater good of the family.

  Carragh nodded thoughtfully. “A week ago—even yesterday—I’d have laughed in your face. What possible reason could she have for killing the Viscount Gallagher, when it seems the only thing she worships in this world is her family and its name?”

  “And now?” Aidan asked.

  “There’s something you should see in the tower. All the way at the top. You know the writing on the wall up there? I know what it says.”

  Aidan had the General Register Office records, as well as the tantalizing fragment read to him by Sibéal McKenna over the phone. He didn’t know why he hadn’t led with that, except for the desire to lay out this puzzle the two of them had started on one piece at a time.

  Be honest, he chided himself. You wanted to impress Carragh.

  He stood and claimed a lamp. “I left some things in the Land Rover that I think you’ll want to see. I’ll meet you in the tower.”

  Carragh took a lamp in one hand, her enormous flashlight in the other, and Aidan could not resist. He leaned in—carefully, for the flames they both held—and kissed her.

  As he went in one direction and Carragh in the other, he could swear he heard a hint of approving laughter in his ear.

  * * *

  —

  When all this is over, Carragh promised herself, the first thing I’ll do is have an electrician put twenty light fixtures in every room of my house. She had to tuck her flashlight away when she got to the tower stairs—no way was she going to tackle those steps without at least one hand free. So with her right hand on the railing and the oil lamp held in her left, she started upward. Again.

  Almost there.

  “And the second thing I’m going to do,” she said fiercely to the shadows, “is spend a week somewhere without ghosts bugging me all the time.”

  With Aidan? Carragh had no idea if the question was her own…

  With the last circular turn of the stairs, a flickering light played from above. She stopped, a surge of adrenaline making her heart skip. One thing she knew for sure—ghosts did not require light.

  She had begun to back cautiously downward when an icily elegant voice floated down. “Do come up, Miss Ryan. Unless you feel all your questions have been adequately answered?”

  Curiosity warred with prudence. Briefly. Aidan would be here any minute, and what had she to fear from an eighty-eight-year-old woman? She could knock Lady Nessa down without even resorting to her heavy flashlight. But just to be on the safe side, she pulled it out, and the moment she had edged up the steps and far enough into Jenny’s tower bedroom, set down the oil lamp on the floor.

  Nessa Gallagher, wearing tweed trousers and a heavy, fawn-colored jumper, sat bolt upright in the desk chair. Everything about her bearing was as Carragh remembered it from their first meeting. Even the repurposed Victorian cane laid lightly against her lap. All of it the same save one, critical, detail—Nessa Gallagher was pointing a rifle at her.

  Eyeing it with disbelief, Carragh blurted out, “Where did you get a gun?”

  “I’ve been hunting waterfowl since I was thirteen years old. And yes, if you’re wondering, I am an excellent shot.”

  Chekhov’s gun on the mantelpiece, Carragh thought, except I didn’t see it at the beginning so it’s not fair for it to appear now…

  Nessa motioned with the rifle. “Come away from the stairs,” she said, as calmly as though they were taking tea in the music room. “But don’t bother to make yourself comfortable. This won’t take long.”

  Unlike some of her friends, Carragh did not loathe guns. With seven police officers on her mother’s side of the family, she had been taught how to handle and fire them safely, but she’d never wanted to carry one herself. She almost regretted that, as Lady Nessa kept the rifle firmly sighted on her while Carragh drew level with the iron bed frame. All around them swirled Jenny’s writing, like a curse. The Dark Bride of Deeprath…

  “What a mistake I made,” Nessa remarked. “I thought I was hiring an
inexperienced, easily influenced girl. Instead, I brought a dangerously independent agent right into the heart of my home.”

  “It is Aidan’s home,” Carragh pointed out. Forget gothic—now she was in a mystery novel, trying to keep the villain talking until help could arrive.

  Nessa’s face tightened. “If Aidan believed that, he would not be giving Deeprath away like an unwanted overcoat. He has been allowed for too long to forget his responsibilities. I thought I would be able to remind him, once he was here. But you meddled even with him, so that now he does not know what he wants or who he is.”

  “He knows who he is,” Carragh said firmly. “I think it is you who do not know yourself.”

  It was—almost—a shot in the dark, for they had no way of knowing what Nessa had guessed about the past. But from the immediate darkening of the old woman’s eyes, Carragh knew she was right.

  “I am a Gallagher,” Nessa said fiercely. “From the day I was born until the day I am laid in the earth. Nothing you say or do can change that.”

  “Is that what you told Lily before you killed her?”

  But the old woman was not so easily led, or broken. “I am afraid the time for talk is at an end, Miss Ryan. No doubt my great-nephew will be with us shortly.”

  Where was Aidan? Why did this castle have to be so ridiculously enormous? And why had her supposedly helpful ghosts decided to vanish now? Not that she had any useful ideas about what they might do. She didn’t think Nessa likely to be frightened by falling pots or trailing laughter.

  Nessa stood, and any hope Carragh’d had that she would be unsteady and unbalanced without her cane vanished. The old lady smiled. “You see, I am not quite as infirm as everyone thinks. No doubt you could outrun me, or fight me by hand—but you cannot beat a shotgun shell. So if you would be so kind, my dear, as to go onto the battlements and jump.”

  Carragh stared. “I don’t think so.”

  “You will jump, or you will be shot. I would prefer the first.”