The Last Baron

Home > Other > The Last Baron > Page 18
The Last Baron Page 18

by Saber Vale


  I breathed.

  I felt my hands began to shake, as I felt like two live wires were connecting in my head.

  “How did Caroline die?” I asked, shaking my head.

  Cormac opened another small bundle of papers.

  “Here’s a letter from the baron to Eddie Lowell…” Cormac said, “Mr. Lowell, I hope this letter finds you in good spirits, but considering your reason for being here in Europe, I doubt that it does…”

  Cormac’s eyes scanned the page. I felt something, like the truth was hovering all around me and I just couldn’t see it.

  “Oh my god…” he said, putting his hand to his forehead, as though in shock.

  “What?!” I gasped.

  “…your sister, in a fit of jealousy, killed a young woman who was pregnant with my child. She felt threatened in spite of the many assurances I had given her that I would continue to care for her, that she always had a place at Griffenberg… you were right, about Caroline and Sophie…”

  “Keep reading,” I said with a nod, anxious that there was far more to the story.

  “…while I attempted to conceal the truth of what happened, attempted to protect her, the reality of what she had done set it. Your sister, though brash and impulsive, with a streak of cruelty, was not without conscience. She threw herself from the bluffs overlooking the lake beside my castle, broke her neck, and died instantly. I very discreetly ordered a tomb for her and interred her in the castle, which she loved, and informed our friends that she had returned to the United States…”

  “Holy shit,” I breathed, “Holy shit.”

  “…You may not approve of your sister’s choices and our lifestyle together. You may hold me responsible for her death. I write to offer you a choice. Take this letter to the authorities, and I will let the chips fall as they may. Perhaps I should be punished for what I have done, living the life that I have. The other choice is for you to come here to Griffenberg, carrying this letter. Give it back to me, for my own safekeeping, and I will grant you some sort of very generous restitution. I would like to live the rest of my life peacefully, and while I never had a child to pass my legacy to, I would hope the Griffenberg name should die with honor…”

  A rushing sound filled my ears as I opened the box, the box of Caroline’s things, and found the picture of Eddie Lowell.

  Before I even looked at it, I knew what I would see. There was a reason he’d seemed oddly familiar to me.

  “Eddie Lowell,” I said, my hands shaking, “Eddie Lowell, Caroline’s brother…”

  I felt like I was about to throw up.

  “What?” Cormac said, urgent, his eyes wide with curiosity.

  “The man in this picture, I recognized him, but…” my voice sounded high and anxious.

  “What?” Cormac said again, as tears began to stream down my face.

  “Don’t you get it?” I cried, nearly choking on the words, “Eddie Lowell is my grandfather!”

  Cormac’s mouth opened in shock, but he said nothing. I collapsed onto the couch, my hands still trembling. Looking at the picture.

  “He came here, Eddie Lowell, looking for Caroline… the baron wrote to him… told him the truth, and… he let him become the next baron, willed him everything, in exchange for silence about Caroline and Sophie…”

  “Oh my god,” Cormac said, “that means…”

  “I’m not related to the baron, this castle is mine, but it’s not my birthright,” my voice shook, “I’m not who I thought I was at all…”

  Chapter 19

  We both sat in silence for a very, very long time. I flipped through the papers again, but there wasn’t much more, except for a receipt of payment to Sophie’s family, a will, some sad descriptions of how the baron felt in the days after Sophie and Caroline’s death.

  My head had finally stopped pounding, but I was still very confused, like my brain had been broken by everything that had happened.

  “You still own half of the castle,” Cormac said, “just because you’re not in some line of ascension means nothing as far as the ownership goes…”

  “Sure,” I said with a shrug.

  “Astrid,” Cormac said slowly, “can I tell you something?”

  “Yeah, go for it,” I said, feeling dreary and passive.

  “This has been the best week of my life,” he said.

  I looked over at him.

  “Unraveling this mystery with you, getting to know you, getting to know… this place, it’s been wild and frightening and weird, for sure, and you weren’t always the easiest to get along with, but…”

  As I looked at him, nervous and amazed at everything that had happened, I realized that everything he was saying was true for me too.

  “…but I think we’ve made this castle ours more than any line of ascension, more than any… royal title, or even money, can make a place…”

  I smiled and laughed quietly. He was right.

  “If you don’t want me to develop the castle, I won’t,” he said, “no matter what that means for my job.”

  I nodded at first, then I started laughing.

  Before long I was howling with laughter, to the point I could hardly control it.

  “Cormac,” I said, almost shouting, “I want you to develop this stupid castle!”

  “You do?”

  “Sure? Who cares?” I practically shouted, “let’s do it, but only if you promise me one thing…”

  “What’s that?”

  “We’ll both get very, very, very rich…”

  Cormac gave me a long look, his mouth dropping open in happy amazement.

  “Let’s go to Edvards for dinner and buy some champagne…” Cormac said, throwing up his arms.

  “Why not?” I said, cracking up.

  A thousand years of history had just lifted off of my shoulders.

  It was time to celebrate.

  We drove the Aston Martin through the evening cool, the both of us smiling.

  I felt strangely light and airy, easy and thrilled. I would have thought learning that my whole life was a lie would ruin me, completely destroy my entire conception of myself, but the truth was, in a certain way, I had always felt like a fraud, a liar, like I was technically a baroness, but I didn’t feel like one, but I also couldn’t let it go.

  To turn my back on all of it would have meant my mother had been terrible to me for no reason. The truth was, though, that I had been doing exactly what she had done, wrapping the title, the castle, like a heavy cloak around me, too heavy to carry and too important to cast off.

  Suddenly, thought, I was free.

  At Edvard’s we ordered oysters on the half-shell and a bottle of some insanely expensive French champagne, and sat back in our chairs.

  Cormac, too, was obviously relieved.

  “Are you glad I won’t fight you on the castle now?” I asked.

  “You could never have beat me if I’d really wanted it, I wasn’t ever worried about that,” he said with a shrug, “I’m glad you won’t hate me. That’s what I was worried about.”

  “I was worried about that too, Cormac,” I admitted, “because the truth is, I don’t think I could ever hate you.”

  “No?” he said.

  “No,” I admitted.

  “Well that’s good, babe, because if I’m being honest, I’m in love with you.”

  The way he said it was so casual and succinct that for a moment I just smiled, not quite registering.

  “Aren’t you going to say anything?” he asked hopefully, “I mean, I know you’re probably not interested…”

  “Cormac, I love you too” I interrupted, “of course I’m in love with you, this has been the most… intense, sexy, fun…”

  We both laughed. So much tension was gone, it was like we couldn’t stop laughing.

  “I was thinking about what you said, wanting to get very, very rich…” he said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah, there’s one thing we could do…” Cormac said, “but maybe it’s
a little crazy…”

  “What, with the castle?”

  “No, Astrid. You’re so funny to me. Any other woman wouldn’t have stopped thinking about this, but you forgot about five minutes after you learned it.”

  I cocked my head to the side.

  “Let’s get married, Astrid,” he said, “we could be mystery-solving partners for life…”

  My jaw dropped. I had forgotten all about his father’s will, the billions of dollars he would only inherit before he was fifty if he got married.

  “What do you say?”

  “If I thought you were the least bit serious, I’d say this is the least romantic proposal of all time,” I said.

  “Ok, ok, ok,” Cormac said, throwing up his hands and whipping the napkin off of his lap before standing up.

  He walked to my side of the table and dropped to one knee, then looked up at me with the most sincerely pleading eyes I’d ever seen.

  “Oh my god, you’re serious…” I breathed.

  Everyone in the restaurant turned to look at us with expectant faces.

  “Astrid Griffen, you are the weirdest, most interesting, sexiest, most stubborn, most mysterious and intelligent woman I’ve ever met in my life,” he said, “will you please marry me?”

  “Yes,” I said, trying to catch my breath and calm my heartbeat, “of course I will.”

  “Sorry I don’t have a ring” he said, “I didn’t exactly…”

  “Cormac I don’t care about that,” I said.

  “I knew you wouldn’t,” he said, “besides you have like ten of them now, don’t you? Just wear one of those.”

  We both laughed again. I felt as light as air and deliriously happy.

  It was time for us to leave the castle soon after. From the moment we knew the truth of everything that had happened, the energy, wicked and sexy, haunting and alluring, that filled the castle, seemed to dissipate, leaving nothing but cold stone walls, inert, lifeless objects, and silent tombs whose inhabitants could finally rest, their secrets released like trapped moths, fluttering away into the night.

  I don’t know if the castle was really haunted. I don’t know if the ruby necklace, which belonged to my great aunt and which I still wear, gave me a magic connection to Caroline, or had some kind of wild, disturbing power over me, or if I just felt like it did. Maybe, deep down, I’d known some of the truth all along, or suspected it, and the feelings I’d hard, urging me, were only subconscious.

  I do know that when we came back from the restaurant that night, the magic was gone, or better yet, put to rest.

  Resolution lifted the veil of mystery and magic, like so many layers of fog drifting away after a storm, leaving everything bright and clean and fresh smelling.

  I hardly had anything to pack before we left together.

  “Where are we even going?” I asked, as I slid into the seat beside Cormac, leaving the Audi behind in the garage and taking the Aston Martin on the road.

  “I was thinking Southern France? We stop in Monaco, hop on the yacht?”

  “Uh, sounds pretty good to me,” I said, “as long as you’re paying.”

  Cormac laughed.

  “Baby, you never, ever have to worry about money again, what do you say to that?” He pressed a firm hand to my thigh and squeezed.

  I laughed.

  I suddenly had everything I’d fought to avoid, and never felt more free.

  I wasn’t sure if I didn’t know who I was anymore, or I knew who I was for the firs time in my entire life. I knew I loved Cormac. I knew I didn’t care about the castle. I knew I wanted to be a writer, but suddenly medieval historical fiction just wasn’t as compelling to me anymore. I had a new story to write, about jealousy, heartbreak, identity, and legacy.

  We got married at the castle, a small ceremony since neither of us had much of a family, after the construction was finished, but before the hotel opened. As Darleen had promised, it was spectacularly beautiful, no expense spared, no detail ignored.

  It was surrounded, newly, by luscious gardens, the entire grounds planned by landscape architects who specialized in historical reproduction. Every wall was hung with the restored tapestries and paintings, thousands spent to send them to the very best specialists. I think I saw it, for the first time, the way mother saw it in her imagination, the majestic, tangible evidence that she was a somebody, a person of worth and value, even if all of it was an illusion, a farce and a deception. I finally interred her in the crypt, along with Caroline, the aunt she never knew, who’d wanted, just like her, so much more from life.

  Tears swelled up in my eyes as I moved from room to room, decades of pain and secrets, faded, honored, and resolved, realizing that it wasn’t noble blood that made the castle ours, but passion, time, and love.

  Also by Saber Vale

  Sign up for my mailing list for new releases and bonus content…

  He’s not paying me to spend the night with him, he’s paying me not to fall in love...

  My story is familiar, cliche even, child actor turned unlikely sex symbol, jaded and broken by the Hollywood machine.

  I’m tired of being used, tired of being broke, and I don’t see how I’ll ever really break into the A-list before I fall apart.

  When my sleazy agent brings me an unbelievable offer, a small fortune for one night with a wealthy stranger, I’m disgusted, but I can’t afford to refuse.

  The man who buys me, though, isn’t your average wealthy international playboy. He’s a prince, but this story isn’t a fairy tale.

  He’s got his own obligations, his own secrets, a dark side, and a taste for pain and punishment. He likes me, even wants to help me maybe, but really he’s paying me to keep my distance, to protect my heart, to never fall in love.

  Fine, I’m good at that.

  I’m an actress after all.

  Falling Star

 

 

 


‹ Prev