Chapter Fifteen #2
“The castle belonged to Duncan, and he was a lord and knight. He went off to war, and left his much younger bride here. She was pregnant with their child.”
She paused the story.
“How much younger?” she asked.
They told her.
“She was seventeen, which was old for the sixteen hundreds.”
Okay, she’d give them that.
“Anyway, he was off with his man-at-arms, and that man-at-arms was his lover, Ciarán Begbie. Duncan only knocked the woman up to get an heir. He didn’t love her. He and Ciarán had been living a secret life for years before she showed up.”
She got it.
“So he married to hide in plain sight?”
They both nodded.
“Back then, gay was synonymous with death,” Gryphen said, as their food showed up, and they began eating and telling her the rest.
“Well, Ceit didn’t like Ciarán, and she suspected that something was up. We found letters from a journal, and we have put it back together again.”
She listened, and said nothing.
“Well, she writes him a letter, and it pretty much is a death threat to him. She cursed the castle and the family. She told Duncan in the book that every one of his heirs would walk in blood and suffer.”
Ouch.
That was some curse.
And some anger.
“Okay, and?”
“Well, Ceit gives birth to a son, Callum, and she gets a letter asking her to leave Ravensmire. Duncan is on his way home, and he wants her gone.”
“Uh, that sucks.”
Ian agreed there.
“Well, she writes a letter to her father, Oison Darragh, an Irishman who only sold off his daughter for money to pay his debts. Having his daughter be the wife of a brave knight and lord like Duncan was a feather in his cap.”
She sipped her coffee as she and MATE listened to the story.
“HE IS PISSED. So, he sends a letter back telling her to suck it up, and let the man have his dalliance on the side. Her job is to bear children, and keep her yap shut.”
Elizabeth gasped.
“Men always think women are property.”
Well, back then, yeah.
“So Ceit knows there’s only one way to end this. She’s going to curse Duncan, and end her life. She goes to the tower, where you saw Duncan and Ciarán during the wedding, and plans to swan dive off.”
Elizabeth said nothing.
“Only, she fell backward landing on her back. Her face was smashed in.”
She lifted a brow.
“Uh, you can’t land on your back and smash your face in at the same time. That’s not a swan dive or how it works. Damage is to the side that ends downward. That’s basic forensics.”
They were aware.
That’s when Elizabeth got it.
“Oh, boy. Someone killed her.”
They both nodded.
“Yeah, and then, to make it worse, she was buried OUTSIDE of the castle in the trees like garbage. She was shoved out of her home.”
Oh, that would make a lady angry, and Elizabeth knew it.
“So, she died, and Duncan comes back. He’s then forced to take Oison’s next daughter as his ‘faux’ wife to keep his lover safe. He never planned on doing that, since he’d just managed to escape a shrewish wife,” Ian said. “Only, he has no choice.”
She stopped him.
“Uh, was a dowry passed to Oison? Because that would make him a two-time winner in the get-money lotto. In my world, that’s motive.”
He laughed.
“Yeah, he was, and we thought that. He knew about Duncan no longer wanting Ceit, and he couldn’t risk being embarrassed. So him coming here and ending his daughter’s life isn’t that surprising.”
She waited.
“Continue. I’m intrigued. I love a mystery.”
He was aware, and that was why this was ironic, because she was the perfect person to be working this—if it wouldn’t freak her out.
All that woo-woo might break her.
“They live in peace, but then, Catherine, the second wife and younger sister to Ceit, is tired of playing fake wife. She falls in love with a farmer and gets the wedding annulled.”
“Oof.”
Yeah, she could say that.
“So Duncan and Ciarán are now no longer protected, so he’s laying low with his sexy bedmate. He’s raising his kid, and trying to just live his life.”
As someone whose life was ALWAYS scrutinized, she got that.
“One night, someone sneaks in through a passageway that ONLY the loyal servants knew about—well, him and the people in the castle—and they try to kill him.”
She was invested.
“Try? So he lived?”
He nodded.
“Only, Ciarán woke when he heard the attack, and he was in bed with Duncan, since they were a couple. He put his body over Duncan’s protecting his lord and lover. He was killed.”
She gasped.
“Oh, no.”
He nodded.
“Yeah, so to keep the scorecard up to date, Ceit was haunting the castle until we found out she was murdered, and we put her body back INSIDE the crypt. Then, Duncan and Ciarán were haunting the castle.”
“And they’re gone?”
Not.
Quite.
“No, because Duncan had to hide his lover’s body. The church would have dragged his remains and lit them on fire because sodomy was unholy back then.”
“But fun,” Gryphen added.
She laughed.
“No comment,” she said. “There is a lot of sodomy in my world.”
Yes, yes, there was.
And there was a lot of love too.
That was what mattered.
For her, as a good Catholic, she was always torn on the gay thing—especially since it was in her marriage.
“Okay, so you haven’t found the body?”
He shook his head.
“We also found out something else.”
Elizabeth took a stab at it.
“Who betrayed Duncan and Ciarán?” she asked, fully vested in this.
Well, they had just found out.
“Catherine’s husband died, and she wanted back into the Granndach family for protection. She had just birthed a child with her husband, and she needed money. Duncan was so distraught over Ciarán’s death, he didn’t care if she came back or not.”
Elizabeth knew there had to be more.
“Okay, but did he find out who betrayed him?”
Gryphen nodded.
“Oh, and here we go.”
She lifted a brow.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Ian shared.
“Catherine was greedy. She saw Ciarán was dead, and it was just Duncan and Callum, his son. So, she wanted to ensure that her child was also given the wealth and title.”
She gasped.
“She did him dirty?”
They both nodded.
“She was the one who led the church into the tunnels that got them access to Duncan and Ciarán. Her betrayal was what caused Ciarán to die. It took Duncan a while to figure it out, too.”
Oh, she was fully vested now.
Elizabeth believed in justice.
“But he did?”
They nodded again.
“We needed to figure out whose bones were in the lake, and we did. It’s haunted. Something tried to drown both Gabby and Michael.”
She didn’t like that.
Not.
At.
All.
“Oh, no.”
He continued.
“Well, when Duncan finally found out who did the deed, and he likely got the answers by torturing the servants to find out, he had Catherine drawn and quartered, or he dismembered her with his sword. We aren’t sure which. The journal has water damage. After, he dumped her in the lake.”
She looked horrified.
Elizabeth let him talk.
“We found that and more paintings in the tunnel. It looks like Duncan hid them there to keep them safe, or he was trying to move them, but didn’t have time.”
She was curious.
“We have a tunnel?”
He nodded.
“It goes further back than we went. Unfortunately, we didn’t explore it yet. That was just today. Anyway, before we get sidetracked, back to Catherine.”
It wasn’t lost on Elizabeth that was her mother’s name, and Ethan’s mother’s name too.
“What?”
He went there.
“To punish Catherine, Duncan killed her and dumped her in the lake as her final resting place. The retribution and revenge she screams about underwater is not for her, but because he killed her child, so he didn’t have anyone claiming to be an heir.”
She gasped.
“So that’s who is haunting the water?”
They both nodded.
Ian continued.
“Yeah, that’s the angry spirit in the water. Thankfully, the journal pointed us there. She’s not willing to give up her bones easily.”
Now, there was one question for her that needed answering.
“Where’s the child?”
They both shrugged.
“That’s where we are focused on now. You’re officially caught up.
The only questions we have left other than that to be answered, are where is Oison, did he kill Ceit, and where are Duncan’s lover and the dead baby.
We strongly believe Oison killed his daughter, and he had a bad end himself—by who? We aren’t sure.”
She listened.
“So that’s what’s left. We’re on the hunt for bodies now,” he said. “Well, bones. They won’t be fleshy—I hope.”
“Well, you have to find all of them.”
Oh, they would.
They hoped.
Elizabeth contemplated something.
“You have to find the baby,” she said.
Neither of them were shocked she prioritized that. As a mom, she would.
“Because Catherine is going to scream from that lake and haunt the place until we give her the baby back.”
OOF.
Yeah, they were aware.
“That’s on the list.”
Now, she needed to know.
“And it’ll calm down?” she asked. “Because I’m not sure you want to get married on a crime scene. That’s more my kink than yours.”
They were amused.
“We know,” Gryphen said.
Ian was to the point.
“When we found Ceit, it calmed down and she stopped crying and singing lullabies in the castle at night.”
Oh.
Hell.
No.
“I swear to God, one lullaby and I’m ghosting that place,” she stated.
Oh, they bet.
“When Gabby and Tony brought her back to the crypt, she disappeared. We think she’s finally at peace, or she doesn’t like the darkness that’s all over the place.”
Who could blame her?
“Duncan and Ciarán should be easy once we put him in his crypt. We just have to hope Duncan can lead us to Ciarán’s bones and the dead baby.”
She was confused.
“How is he going to do that? He’s a ghost.”
He told her.
“Michael and Graham are on their haunted honeymoon in the castle, and we’re going to talk to a psychic about a séance.”
She looked horrified.
“Uh, my mother-in-law is a witch. She said that shit shouldn’t be played with. Or Ouija board, or spells, or…”
Well, it was too late.
“There’s a curse here, and it won’t calm down if we don’t figure this out. It’s our only way of talking to the dead—unless you know a way.”