by Saber Vale
“She said nothing, Astrid, she’s dead,” Cormac said with a laugh.
I was starting to get an idea of his irreverent sense of humor. I would have liked it if it wasn’t turned on me and my family.
“My great-grandfather liquidated some of his businesses to pay restitution to the girl’s family, he died nearly, other than the castle…”
“Huh,” Cormac said, “sorry to hear that.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, “fortunes are made, fortunes are lost.”
“So you’re a baroness?” he asked, “I’m hanging out with royalty in a European castle?”
“Baroness Astrid Griffen, at your service,” I said, feigning an exaggerated British accent, slipping a lit match into the glass chamber of the lantern.
“Should I call you her royal highness?” he asked cheekily.
He was starting to annoy me. If he wasn’t so handsome that it kind of hurt to look at him, I’d already be over it.
“Nobody back home even knows about my title, it’s probably not even recognized here,” I said, “I don’t care about it at all.”
“How many people would have to die before you became the queen of Germany? Or is it Austria?”
“Neither country really has a monarch, just nobility, and at this point, thanks to my great grandfather, I’m pretty sure I would be considered a black sheep.”
“I see,” Cormac said, as the kitchen suddenly became illuminated with the soft glow of the lantern.
“Perfect,” I whispered, lifting it up to see Cormac.
It was the first time I was seeing him in the light again since we were both at the cafe, and I was struck once again by his size, he was just so broad and so tall, and his utter gorgeousness, especially with his hair wet and curly from the rain.
He was the kind of man I would have nothing to do with back in Berkley, a business man, entrepreneur, the kind of guy who wears a suit to work every single day and is looking for another young professional to be the other half of his power-couple.
Guys like him would sleep with me, and I’d gone home with a few after boring dates where we realized quickly we had nothing in common. I knew they thought I was pretty, liked my big boobs and small frame, liked the idea of fucking a nerdy, weird girl who might be a freak in bed. We wouldn’t ever get serious, or even go on a second date, though, which was just as well. The sex was always disappointingly vanilla anyway.
“Shall we?” I said, gesturing to the door to the hall.
Cormac grabbed both of our bags, over my protest, lifting my heavy suitcase like it was nothing. He followed me through the narrow stone hallway, up some marble stairs, to a large living room where the stone walls had been covered with sheetrock and floral, chintzy wallpaper (which was, of course, peeling). There was a decrepit old couch from probably the 1950’s, a few overstuffed chairs, a covered fireplace, and an old seventies-era T.V. which almost certainly didn’t work. The huge window overlooking the lake was boarded up with plywood from the inside.
“I used to play in this room, and watch T.V., when the weather was bad,” I said to Cormac, who looked at the sad state of things with a sort of pitying disgust.
“Let’s see what kind of shape the bedrooms are in,” I said, leading him to a hallway which opened to the two small chambers where my mother and I had stayed when we visited.
In the first room, a pair of twin beds, covered in heavy canvas, stood side by side, and I remembered sleeping in one, pretending I had a twin sister who slept in the other. Some oil paintings of children hung on the walls, as well as some yellowed finger-paintings that I’d done as a child, barely hanging on with a thumb-tack.
“This was my room,” I breathed, “when we stayed here…”
“Is this where, like, the baron and ancient nobility slept?”
“No, that would have been in the east wing,” I said, “over there it’s pretty much the same as it was five hundred years ago.”
Cormac nodded, and then let me lead him to the master chamber.
I pushed the heavy wooden door open with a creak, and lifted the lantern. Inside, the enormous, canopied wooden bed, each bedpost chiseled with elaborate floral carvings, loomed. It was covered in canvas to protect it from dust and mold, and there was something vaguely ominous about it, like whatever was underneath the canvas might surprise us.
“I can’t imagine these beds are in any condition to sleep in,” Cormac said.
“I wasn’t planning on getting here so late,” I said, “I thought I’d be able to do some laundry…”
“Without electricity? I’m starting to think you didn’t think this through very well, Astrid.”
“I don’t see you in any position to criticize,” I snapped, “what would you have done if you hadn’t found me? You would have never known where to go.”
Cormac shrugged and watched me as I approached the huge bed and grabbed a corner of the canvas that protected it. When I pulled it off, a little plume of dust puffed up into the air, but underneath, the bed looked neatly made, like it was waiting for someone to sleep in it.
“I call this room,” Cormac announced.
I turned to look at him wearily. It was clearly the better room.
“Come on, Astrid, I’m six foot three, you don’t expect me to sleep in one of those little doll beds, do you? You’d look cute in one anyway.”
“Fine,” I grumbled, “it’s all yours.”
“I’ll try to get the electricity working in the morning,” he said, pulling off his jacket.
“Great,” I said, “are you going to bed now?”
“Well, no,” he said, pausing, “I figured we could hang out, seeing as we’re family and all.”
I laughed.
“What?” he said, smirking at me.
“Sorry, I never thought of your father as anything like a dad,” I said, “I really didn’t know him at all.”
“I was joking,” Cormac said, “my father had been married four times before he met your mom. I couldn’t pick her out of a line up, no offense. I certainly don’t think of you as anything like a sister.”
I laughed.
“No offense taken,” I said, “it sounds like we’re on the same page.”
I then realized that Cormac, like me, had lost a parent only a few months before.
“Sorry about your dad, by the way,” I said gently.
Cormac smiled coolly, his affable pretense suddenly gone.
“Sorry about your mum,” he said back bluntly.
I nodded.
“We weren’t close, my mother and I,” I said, “I had a lot of… resentment, I guess.”
Cormac looked like he might say something for a moment, but stopped himself. Maybe we had more in common than I thought.
We went back out to the decrepit living room and I set the lantern on a coffee table the center of the room. Cormac messed around with the wood stove in the corner, stuffing in some newspaper and a log of wood.
“Do you even know how to start a fire?” I asked.
He gave me a withering look.
“I once camped in Indonesia for three months straight,” he said, “I can start a fire in my sleep.”
“Why were you in Indonesia for three months?” I asked, genuinely curious.
“Surfing,” he said, “finding myself, the usual stuff.”
“Traveling to Indonesia for three months isn’t usual for most people,” I reminded him.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said, “but I paid for it myself, I got cut off by my dad at sixteen, so you can get whatever image you have of me as a spoiled rich kid out of your head.”
“I had no image of you in my head, Cormac,” I huffed, “trust me.”
The fire in the stove began to roar, and I was instantly grateful for the heat. Once it got going, the chill in the air was cut, and I was able to relax just a little bit. I wondered, for a moment, what I really would have done if Cormac hadn’t shown up.
I was sure I would have figured out
how to get in to the castle, but it was freezing inside and I actually didn’t know how to start a fire. The idea that I was relying on him in any way disturbed me, and I tried to push the thought away.
“I wish we had cards or something,” I grumbled, flipping the dead tv on and off uselessly, looking around. There wasn’t enough light to read.
“I wish we had wine,” Cormac groaned, “or some whiskey, or beer…”
“I don’t drink that much,” I shrugged.
“Me neither, usually, but come on, we’re stuck in a castle with the lights off, other than telling ghost stories, what else is there to do?”
I remembered something from my childhood.
“Hold on a second,” I said, grabbing my cell phone to use as a flashlight, noticing the battery was at ten percent and I had no reception whatsoever.
I went down to the kitchen, through the pantry, and down a set of stone stairs into the cool, cave-like wine cellar. Sure enough, as I remembered, there were hundreds of bottles of wine, case after case, stacked into towers against every wall.
I brushed the dust off of one label and saw that it was a French Bordeaux. I grabbed one bottle, a wine opener from a dusty drawer filled with random cutlery, and a fat, gleaming bottle of port that I knew was likely still good, even at the ripe old age of sixty. I carried them both back to the western tower, where I found Cormac looking through an old chest of drawers pushed against the wall of the living room.
“Not snooping, just looking for cards,” he said.
“I found these,” I said, holding up the bottles like a pair of trophies, “I don’t know for sure if they’re drinkable.”
Cormac looked up and smiled, eying my finds with suspicion.
“How old are those bottles,” he asked with a laugh, “they look ancient.”
“sixty and fifty years old, respectively,” I sighed, “but they might be ok, let’s open them.”
Cormac took the bottle of Bordeaux out of my hands and looked at it.
“Astrid, this is, like, a five-thousand-dollar bottle of wine,” he said in disbelief.
“Is it?” I asked, not particularly surprised.
The castle was filled with reminders of my family’s former glory.
“Yeah, how many of these are down there?”
“Like, fifteen cases,” I said with a laugh.
“Well, cheers to that,” Cormac said, reaching for the wine key.
“I couldn’t find clean glasses,” I admitted, “we’ll have to drink from the bottle.”
“We’re about to drink a 1969 Chateau Mouton Rothschild Bordeaux from the bottle?” Cormac asked, chuckling, “like it’s fucking bum wine?”
“Is that a problem?” I asked, as he drew out the cork.
“Astrid, I have to say, I like your style,” he said, as the cork came of of the bottle with a pop.
He handed it to me and I took a tiny, hesitant sip, prepared for it to be completely rancid.
It wasn’t rancid.
It was smooth and velvety, earthy and sweet, like no wine I’d ever tasted before.
I took another big ‘glug’ of a sip and handed it off to Cormac, who took a sip and laughed in disbelief while I whipped the heavy, dusty canvas off of the old silk couch. We both plopped down on opposite ends and he took another huge swig.
“This is amazing,” he said, handing the bottle back to me, “I feel like… I feel like a teenager who broke into some rich person’s house, stealing wine, keeping the lights off so we don’t get caught...”
“Except you are the rich person,” I reminded him.
“I guess I am,” he said, “still getting used to the idea, honestly…”
“You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here,” I said, taking another big sip of the velvety wine.
“Oh, yeah,” he said, nodding, “did you know what my father’s businesses were?”
“Not really,” I admitted, “I didn’t really know much about your father except that he was ridiculously wealthy.”
“Ok, well, he had a couple of different businesses, but he also owned a lot of hotels, that’s the side of the business I’ve been mostly focused on… lets me travel the most, surf as much as I want, you know? Opal Hotels. That’s us.”
“Oh, I didn’t know that,” I said.
The Opal hotels were all over the world, elite, a name, I knew, synonymous with luxury.
“My mother was Bunny Opal, the heiress,” Cormac said, “her family let my father take over the hotel empire, and then my mom died when I was four.”
“Im sorry,” I said.
“Thanks,” he said, “it’s ok.”
“So what does the castle have to do with your hotel business?” I asked, taking another big sip of my wine.
As soon as I asked, I knew.
“Well, I’m going to develop it,” he said.
I felt my blood run cold.
“You’re going to develop a priceless, nearly ancient castle into a fucking hotel?”
“That was the idea,” he said, “an ultra-luxury castle estate, ancient building with state-of-the-art amenities. Just picture it, Astrid, stone walls, heated marble floors, a spa with hot tubs and saunas…”
“That would destroy the historical value of the hotel,” I said with a disbelieving laugh, “there’s no fucking way you’re going to do that. Sorry. No.”
It was like every time Cormac opened his mouth I was either charmed by him or found a reason to hate him.
“You know I’m half-owner of this place, right?” he asked, handing the wine bottle back to me again.
“No, you own forty-nine percent,” I said, “so you can’t do anything without my approval.”
“No, but I can keep you from doing anything with it, and we already owe a hundred thousand dollars in back taxes.”
“Ok, so we sell some of that wine,” I said, “I sell one piece of furniture…”
“So you’re just going to slowly destroy it instead of letting me have it? Selling off one thing at a time instead of preserving it by developing it?”
“I’ll figure it out,” I said.
“Were you really planning on just living here, Astrid? That’s not realistic, this place requires a massive amount of upkeep and generates no income whatsoever…”
“I was going to try for a little while, then I was going to donate it to a historical society or a university or something… someone who will actually take care of it…”
“Oh, come on, Astrid, most non-profits can’t afford to take care of this place any more than you can! You’re never going to find someone to buy it, it’s a money pit…”
“How do you know that?” I said, heat rising in my cheeks, “have you worked in anthropology and academic circles your entire professional life? Because I have…”
“There are remotely located castles in shambles for sale all over Europe, none of them can get market value…”
“I don’t care about market value…”
“Well, as half owner, you can’t sell without my approval, and I do… did you honestly think I would just let you do whatever you wanted with this place?”
“Aren’t you a fucking billionaire?” I snapped at him, “what do you need this castle for? Go buy another castle!”
“I’m not just looking for a castle, I’m looking for a home base, and this is the only one of the houses my father left me that he never lived in…”
“You could just buy something else…”
“No, actually, I can’t,” Cormac snapped, “the money he left me is tied up in a trust until I’m fifty, I can only have it before then if I get married, which may never happen, so I actually have to make my company work. The board of the company won’t let me just buy another castle. I already own this one.”
“Until you get married?”
Cormac rolled his eyes.
“His final ‘fuck you,’ he couldn’t stand that I spent half of my life hiking and sailing across the South Pacific looking for the perfect wave,
so he made a clause that required me to settle down as a condition of getting the money.”
“Wow,” I laughed, “I thought my mom was a nightmare.”
“I’m still the CEO of Opal Hotels, so it’s not like I’m broke, I get a salary,” he said, “and I’m not going to get married, so I’ll be a billionaire who can’t spend his own money until I’m fifty, I guess.”
“Or you could just get married,” I said, “it seems pretty obvious.”
“I think I’d rather die than let him have his way, even in death,” Cormac shrugged.
“Anyway,” I said, slightly admiring his steadfastness, even if it was idiotic, “this castle is in a terrible location it’s a hundred miles from anything.”
“You said yourself how well preserved it is Astrid, and it’s going to look better than it did the day it was finished seven hundred years ago. I’m also going to build an epic spa, a pool set into the bluff overlooking the lake, it’ll be like nothing you’ve ever seen… people will come from all over the world, they’ll spend their honeymoons here… especially when we get the story of what happened in the dungeon…”
“The murder? You’re compelled by the fact that a woman may or may not have been murdered…”
“Tortured to death…”
“That’s not what happened…”
“Ok, so what happened?”
“It was…” I breathed… “I don’t know, there are weird stories…”
“Like what?” Cormac said with a laugh, “you get so cagey when we talk about it.”
I got flustered even thinking about it.
“My great grandfather… he was into… I don’t know, I was told she was a willing participant…”
“A willing participant in her murder?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about…”
“Neither do you, apparently,” he snapped.
“So tell me what you think happened if you’re so sure!” I half-shouted.
“It sounds like he paid pretty peasant girls from the village to come get spanked and beat and fucked, and then, whoops, he accidentally killed one of them…”
Cormac seemed to think it was all very funny. I sat fuming, my arms crossed.