by Saber Vale
“Ok…” I said, leaning in, always anxious for information.
“He said his grandparents had been friends with the baron, in especially his later years,” she said, “and they’d go to the castle for dinner and stuff. They were some of his defenders when the… death, I guess, when that happened.”
“Huh,” I said, “I so wish we could talk to some of those people. It was just long enough ago that everyone who was around at that time is dead now.”
“He said that your great-grandfather was old-world nobility, the real thing, according to his grandparents at least, very refined, but also very generous and kind.”
“That… conflicts, I guess, with this image I have of him…”
“Why, because of the sex stuff?”
We both paused for a moment. I blushed.
“I guess so.”
“Yeah, people are complicated, aren’t they? I think someone can like rough sex and still be a good person…”
“Oh, yeah, of course,” I said, “I guess I’d built him up into some kind of Bavarian Marquis De Sade and less of a nice guy who liked to get kinky.”
Darleen laughed her friendly laugh.
“Yeah, when all you know of him are these diaries, and the diaries are all so…”
“He has others, honestly, they just aren’t as interesting.”
“Well,” Darleen said with her easy laugh, “there you go, we focus on the lurid…”
“Did he tell you anything else?”
“Just that they were always sad he didn’t have a child to carry on the family name, but I told him that he did, I was hanging out with you, his great-granddaughter.”
“That’s weird,” I said.
“Yeah, he seemed confused for a second, and then he just shrugged, said maybe he mis-remembered.”
“I don’t think my grandfather was around very much,” I said, “he was in boarding schools and stuff from a very early age after my great grandmother died, and then he lived in America, mostly.”
“Sure,” Darleen said, “makes sense.”
I remembered, once again, how little I knew about my great grandmother. My mother had never known her grandmother, and there had been enough interesting characters in my family story to keep my imagination busy, so I never thought of her. I resolved to look for clues of her whereabouts when I got back to the castle. Maybe, I thought, she was the missing link.
“Do you want to head back?” I asked, closing my laptop.
“Yeah, we should get some food first, supplies were running low when I checked this morning,” Darleen said, gesturing towards the grocery store.
“Sounds good,” I said, smiling, “and I’ll give you a ride back.”
Chapter 16
A basket full of food and a drive up the mountain later, Darleen and I were back at the castle. Spring had finally seemed to break, and the usual clouds and mist that seemed to hang over Griffenberg had been replaced by sunshine and warmth.
“Why didn’t you tell me about you and Cormac?” Darleen said as we walked up the path to castle doors.
“I… I don’t know, I’m not even sure it should be happening, I guess…”
“Sure, I get that,” she said, “I was kind of amazed at the two of you, you’re two gorgeous people, passionate, smart, alone in this castle, I was impressed that you hadn’t slept together.”
“Yeah, well, we’re also technically step-siblings fighting over our inheritance, so it’s not exactly the easiest situation in the world, even if we’re not entangled.”
“Sure,” Darleen said, “but you guys have chemistry, I could feel it the minute Cormac walked into the room the other day. If I’m… disrupting something, I can head back to Texas…”
“You’re not,” I assured her, “I like having you here, but if I can find someone to buy the castle, you are wasting your time.”
“I can deal with that,” she said, “especially since I think when you really see Cormac’s vision for this place, you’re going to be on board.”
“Don’t count on it,” I said, as Cormac bounded out of the front door to meet us and take our bags.
We went inside, where Cormac whipped up a picnic lunch to take down to the beach. The three of us walked together down the craggy stone steps past the boathouse to the sand, where Cormac tossed down a blanket and opened a basket.
“Sandwiches with fancy cheese,” he said, “white wine, and two beautiful babes on a little lakeside beach in Austria… or are we technically in Germany? Anyway, what could be better?”
I smiled and turned to look back up at the castle. I felt, suddenly, like I’d been living in a fantasy, maybe for my whole life, and I was afraid of what it would mean when it was over. I opened a bottle of white wine and Cormac pulled the sandwiches out of the picnic basket.
“How warm is the water in the lake?” Darleen asked.
“Uh,” I thought, trying to remember, “it’s pretty cold, but you can swim in it on the hottest days of the year. Not now…”
“Brr,” said Darleen, imaging plunging into the ice-blue water, “don’t worry, I wasn’t about to jump in.”
The sun shone down, and Cormac peeled off his shirt, inviting the sun like some kind of god who needed it’s rays to give him power.
“I’ve been missing sunshine,” he said, “in Johannesburg I can go to the beach every day.”
“There’s not a lot of surfing in Austria, I guess,” I sighed.
“No, there are some good beaches in southern France, though…” Cormac said, “where my dad’s yacht is.”
“It’s your yacht now, remember?” I reminded him.
“I could go for a beach vacation,” Darleen said.
“Maybe when all of this is over, we figure out what we’re going to do with the castle, I’ll go to Indonesia, Bali or Sumatra,” Cormac said, “the water’s warm there all the time. Or yeah, I can just kick it on the yacht in the Mediterranean for a while.”
“Sounds great,” I said, sipping wine, “just say ‘fuck it’ and jump on a yacht, stop worrying about all of the bullshit…”
As I said it, the thought became very appealing.
For a moment, I could understand my mom and her endless pursuit of the high life, even when it meant compromising everything else. That wasn’t me, though.
I took another long sip of wine and looked at Darleen and Cormac, two gorgeous people who I’d inexplicably found myself spending much of my time with. A world traveling Texan architect and a surfing South African businessman were not the kind of nerdy, reserved academics I typically hung out with back home. I certainly never had threesomes, wore diamonds, or chased ghosts through the dark passageways of an ancient castle.
Maybe, I thought, some of the ideas I had about myself weren’t accurate anyway.
I laid back on the blanket, letting the wine swim through me and the sun shine down on my skin. Cormac leaned down to kiss me, and I kissed him back. He then sat up and kissed Darleen, and I watched with a sort of passive interest. Just watching them made me hot right away, even as a little bit of jealousy fluttered in my belly.
“I want to watch you two,” Darleen whispered, “you look so beautiful together.”
I remembered the dream, Caroline watching as I slept with Cormac, and shuddered. Cormac looked and me, as if silently asking what I wanted. I smiled and stretched my arms, inviting him to touch me.
He kissed me and climbed on top of me, lifting my t-shirt and kissing me along my belly, my tits, my nipples. He sucked them one by one, running his tongue around them as they hardened.
“Mmm,” I sighed, shutting my eyes against the glare of the sun, as Cormac unzipped my jeans and slipped them over my hips and off of my legs.
He pulled off my panties and opened my thighs so he could press his mouth to me. I ran my fingers through his hair as he pleasured me, glancing over at Darleen, who gazed at us with parted lips and dreamy eyes.
Cormac reached down and unzipped his own jeans, peeling himself out, before
pressing my knees up towards my chest so he could sink his cock inside of me. I looked up at his gorgeous body, every muscle flexed under his golden skin, and could hardly breathe.
I moaned and he sighed, his hands on my hips, as he began to thrust. Darleen leaned back and bit her lip, our eyes locked as Cormac fucked me harder and harder. Darleen reached into her waistband and stroked herself, leaning back as she watched us.
“That’s right,” I whispered into Cormac’s ear, kissing him, as I came, a soft warmth spreading through my body, releasing tension and anxiety, all of the miserable frustration I carried around with me everywhere. Darleen came hard, whimpering as her hand slowed and trembling beneath her waistband and she collapsed back onto the blanket.
Cormac groaned and came inside of me, his muscles relaxing as he kissed me.
“Ya’ll are something else, you have such a… hot love-you hate-you thing going on,” Darleen said, gazing at us with glassy eyes, “honestly, it’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Cormac kissed me and stroked my hair.
“We get along pretty well considering we’re mortal enemies,” Cormac said. I rolled my eyes and sat up.
The three of us finished lunch and decided to go back into the castle to explore.
“I still want to go to the keep,” Cormac said.
“Fine,” I said, as we walked up the steep stone steps away from the beach towards the castle, “let’s go.”
Cormac found the set of iron keys and we lit lanterns.
We’d all had enough wine and sex to be relaxed and even a little bit giddy. It was the afternoon, so there wouldn’t be any ghosts or night-howling to interrupt us. We walked in a line, Cormac leading, Darleen and I staggering behind.
We went straight past the dungeon, to the catacombs. Cormac had left the door open, and we slipped inside with a creak of the heavy door.
“We found Sophie down here,” Cormac said to Darleen, leading her through the catacombs, the rows of tombs, the ancient names etched into the stone.
“Wow, even though they weren't married?” Darleen said, as we approached the tomb.
She ran her fingers over the name, Sophie Wagner, with a small etching of an angel beneath it.
“Why would he put her down here?” Darleen asked.
“We don’t know,” I said, “do you think it’s meaningful? Maybe her family wanted it.”
“You would want your daughter buried with the man who killed her?”
“If he killed her,” I corrected.
“Sure, but even if it was an accident…”
“Yeah, I definitely think it’s weird,” I agreed.
“Ok, let’s go through, to the keep,” Cormac said, encouraging us through the castle to the door that lead to the second set of passageways leading to other storage rooms, dungeon cells, and the keep.
“Ok, first key to the catacombs, second key… to get out of the catacombs?” Cormac asked, slipping an iron key into the door’s keyhole.
With a heavy thunk sound, the door opened and Cormac lead us deeper still beneath the castle.
“When was the last time someone was down here?” Darleen asked.
“Probably the Baron was the last, which would have been… I don’t know, fifty years? Longer?” I answered.
“Wow,” Darleen said, “it smells like… moss, or like the inside of a cave.”
“Yeah,” I said, “bats live down here, they leave the castle at night through the keep.”
I wish you hadn’t told me that,” Darleen said with a shudder.
We entered a chamber with something in the center. It looked like a huge old box, until we drew closer, and saw that it wasn’t wood, but stone, marble even.
“What is it?” Darleen asked.
Cormac drew closer and I followed.
“It looks like… it looks like a tomb,” I breathed, my voice quiet.
“Maybe it’s your great grandmother,” Cormac said, “I didn’t see anyone whose dates could have worked…”
I’d noticed that as well, and hoped I was about to find out my great-grandmother’s name.
I brushed away the dust and moss that had crept across the carved name on top of the stone sepulcher.
“Oh my god,” I gasped, stepping back quickly “it’s Caroline…”
Cormac stepped forward and shone a light onto the brass plate with her name engraved upon it.
“Caroline Lowell,” he read, “And here’s a poem…”
I cried for madder music and for stronger wine,
But when the feast is finished and the lamps expire,
Then falls thy shadow, Cynara! the night is thine;
And I am desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, hungry for the lips of my desire:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion…”
“Ernest Dowson, I’ve read that poem before,” I said.
“It’s beautiful,” Darleen said quietly, gazing at the tomb.
For a moment, we all stood, distracted by the beauty and sadness of them poem.
“He loved her,” Cormac said.
“Why is she here and not my great grandmother?” I asked, “and how… when…”
“Did she die?” Cormac asked.
“I thought she left…” I said, partially in disbelief, “her things… they’re all still up there… I thought Sophie died and Caroline went on with her life…”
“There are no dates,” Cormac said, “no indication of when she died…”
“And she’s all the way in here… past the crypt…” I said, “nobody would find her here if they didn’t have the key…”
“Did he…” Cormac looked at me, as if afraid to say what he was about to say, “did he kill them both?”
“I don’t know,” I said, “I didn’t know about Caroline, I didn’t know about any of it.”
“Why aren’t there any stories about Caroline?” I said, “what happened here?”
“There’s one more key,” Cormac said, “but this is the end of the crypt, whatever the key fits isn’t down here.”
We all looked at each other and Cormac reached out and took my hand. The noises in the castle, the ghostly howls, became all the more haunting knowing Caroline was down beneath it, a final resting place a dank crypt below the earth.
“We should… we should go back up,” Darleen said, obviously spooked, “it’s almost dinner time.”
We were all, it seemed, disturbed by our discovery in the vault and thinking about it’s meaning. By the time we got to the kitchen and Cormac set to work on dinner, I was starting to wonder if all of my rational thinking was falling apart, and the castle was really haunted or cursed, and we were all, the three of us, acting out some twisted play that had been scripted long before before we arrived.
I woke to Cormac’s hand on my hip, slipping down to my ass, pulling me towards him with brutish need. I opened my mouth to him and he kissed me, his hot tongue flicking mine as I rolled onto my back and he rolled on top of me. He reached down and stroked me, opening me up, finding me still wet from earlier in the night, when he and Darleen and I had all gotten into the bed together after dinner. She wasn’t there anymore, and must have gone back to the bed in the other room to sleep.
“Mmm,” he groaned as he came inside of me, “I was dreaming again…”
“What did you dream?” I asked as he began to thrust.
“That you and I were having sex, but we were… you were… telling me to come inside of you, to get you pregnant…”
We’d been having a lot of unprotected sex without talking about the risks we were taking.
Suddenly, though, as he said it, I felt hotter than ever.
“Yeah?” I asked, my voice breathy.
“Yeah, you wanted me…” Cormac groaned, “to fill you up with my… oh my god… my seed…”
“Mmm-hmmm,” I moaned, wrapping my legs around his waist and pulling him tight against me, “I want you to… I want you to come inside of me…�
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“I’m going to…” Cormac groaned, “I’m going to fill you up…”
“Yes, yes,” I moaned, and he turned me over, taking me hard from behind with deep, punishing thrusts.
We tangled up together, and I lay awake beside Cormac, my mind filled with new anxieties.
What were we doing? And what was with the pregnancy talk? I felt a hot, electric connection to him, and it made me almost crazy. I wanted him inside of me all the time, even as I wanted him to leave. I was jealous of Darleen, but I liked her and was turned on by playing with her too. I couldn’t help but think about the Baron, Sophie, and Caroline and their ill-fated threesome. Things were getting tangled and out of control.
Chapter 17
I got up, leaving Cormac in bed as the sun rose and took a long, hot shower, then drove the Aston Martin into to town to visit the book store that Darleen had been too.
First, I went back to the cafe to see if any of the historical societies had emailed me back. I opened my laptop hopefully, but my heart quickly sunk as I read email after email explaining they’d love if I donated the castle (some even requesting I donate additional funds to help restore it), but they couldn’t afford to pay for it at anything close to the market rate.
Somehow, I’d convinced myself that I could outsmart Cormac, but instead he’d drawn me into his world instead, and I’d slept with him and his architect. If I couldn’t afford to keep the castle, and I couldn’t find anyone who could preserve it, I’d end up having to sell it anyway, probably to someone else like Cormac, if anyone else would even buy it.
I dropped my head into my hands and sighed, trying to come up with a way to save the castle from Cormac without help. Then I remembered the mystery that had been distracting us, the deadly ménage à trois. I knew going to the bookstore, getting some answers if there were any, would at least make me forget about the problems with Cormac for a little while.
I packed my laptop and strolled down the street and up the stairs to the bookstore, where a man, older than me but not old, exactly, wearing glasses and an unnecessary bulky wool sweater, stood reading behind the counter. He brushed back his shaggy, grey-streaked blond hair as I walked toward him.