Chapter Sixteen
“ I know that I swore I would never wear black again unless I was in mourning,” Minnie said as the Godwin brides dressed for the séance in Lady Muriel and Lord Cedric’s bedchamber that evening, “but I believe black is entirely appropriate for this evening’s endeavor.”
“Most certainly,” Lady Bernadette agreed as Carys helped her adjust the laces of her gown to accommodate her growing belly. “Why, if any of us were to lead an attempt to contact a pair of dead, star-crossed lovers, no one would argue that it should be you, nor whether you look suitable for the role.”
Indeed, not only had Minnie donned one of the black gowns that she swore she would never wear again, with Carys’s assistance, she had found a bright red, embroidered shawl that had belonged to a previous lady of the house and several strings of paste jewels that glittered in the lamplight as everyone dressed.
“The spirits of Morgana and Aethelbore would not dare give you the cut tonight, looking as you do,” Lady Katherine agreed, though she sounded a bit wry and teasing as she did.
There was more to Minnie’s costume than the black gown, red shawl, and jewels. She had brushed her hair out and teased it in such a way that it made her seem like a madwoman. In addition to that, she had spread some sort of pale cosmetic over her face and darkened her eyes with kohl, as if she intended to perform on a stage.
“You look truly frightening, Minnie,” Lady Muriel said as she dressed in a far more sedate gown of rose pink for the occasion.
Everyone had dressed for the ritual as if they were attending a London ball. Even Carys had donned the lovely ball gown Lord Gerald had gifted her and had fastened her family’s silver knot brooch to the front.
“Not too frightening, I trust,” Lady Bernadette said, seeming a bit nervous herself. “We would not want to frighten Morgana and Aethelbore away entirely.”
Minnie laughed. “I doubt very much that a woman who would place a curse upon a family that has endured for generations would balk at my appearance,” she said. “And as for Aethelbore, let him be frightened. After all he did, he deserves it.”
Carys laughed with the others, but the comment left her feeling uneasy. The last few days had changed her opinion of a great many things where the ancestors of the Godwin family and the family’s present troubles were concerned. She understood a bit more what Aethelbore must have been thinking when he put Morgana aside to marry the daughter of the king. After discovering more of the story of Edgar’s mother from Cook, who vaguely remembered the entire sad affair, and learning how viciously the woman had been treated by those in the village for her dalliance with Lord Stanley, she understood how difficult it was to cross class lines in love.
That did not ease her worries about her own situation at all. While she felt as though she and Dunstan had come to a closer understanding that afternoon, her worries about how the two of them would be treated by those around them had only increased. She did not want her name to end up in the Godwin family tree only to be marked out by a dotted line.
“Is everything prepared in the old study?” Minnie asked as Carys finished with Lady Bernadette’s ties.
“I believe it should be,” Carys answered. “Danny and the others had just finished bringing furniture from the rest of the house into the old study and clearing aside the dusty old things that occupied the room when I last checked.”
“We should be ready for the ritual soon, then,” Minnie said, attempting to maintain a dire expression, but clearly excited to the point of bouncing.
“I will go now and assure that the candles and elements you requested have been delivered to the room,” Carys said, heading for the door.
“Yes, thank you, Carys,” Minnie called after her. “It is my sincerest hope that this evening will help in securing your place with the family as well.”
Carys faltered slightly just on the other side of the door. It would have been rude to roll her eyes when Minnie was merely attempting to help, but the very last thing she wanted was for the evening to turn into yet another means of pushing her and Dunstan together.
Of course, it could be argued that the two of them had pushed themselves together by talking about their predicament earlier in the day. As Carys made her way down through the newer section of the castle and into the ancient halls, she chewed her lip and wondered if everything that needed to be said had, in fact, been said.
She was certain it hadn’t. All she and Dunstan had managed was to lay out their arguments about why they could not be together while simultaneously confessing their love for one another. They had not puzzled their way through every possible outcome or imagined any possibilities that their lives could entwine.
It seemed ridiculous to even consider melding her life together with Dunstan’s, though. She had at least two good examples, and could probably find several more, of why love could never cross class lines and have a happy ending. What her heart wanted had nothing to do with it.
Her heart argued otherwise when she walked into the old study only to find Dunstan hard at work with Danny and another footman, arranging large cushions around the perimeter of the room. Somehow, a very low, round table had been located and placed in the center of the room. It already bore enough candles to light the night sky for miles around and what looked like censers for incense of the sort that would be found in a church or chapel.
“I wonder if we are not a little too prepared for tonight’s madness,” Carys said as she stepped into the room.
Dunstan laughed as he straightened from placing one of the cushions. “Does not every family celebrate the eve of the birth of our Lord by attempting to contact the spirits of their love-crossed ancestors?”
Carys laughed as well, which earned her a cheeky, knowing look from Danny as he picked up a box of various items.
“I’ll just take these to where we stored the rest of it, my lord,” he told Dunstan with a respectful nod, then carried the box out of the room. The other footman took up a box and went with him.
Which, unsurprisingly, left Carys and Dunstan alone in the ceremonial space.
“Alone again,” Dunstan said, arching one eyebrow.
Carys laughed. “I am beginning to sense something of a conspiracy afoot.”
“Yes, well, as we have all seen, madder things have happened in this castle,” Dunstan said, stepping around the ring of cushions to reach her.
“I would not have believed so much of such an unbelievable nature would have happened if I had been told about the last few days of Godwin Castle by someone else,” she said.
Dunstan reached her, and with a gentle movement, he pushed a strand of hair back from her face. “Not all of it has been bad, has it?” he asked, resting his hand on the side of her face.
“No, not all of it,” Carys answered, her eyes slightly downcast. “Not bad. But all of it has been mad.”
Dunstan chuckled, and for a moment, Carys felt as though everything was right and settled between them. More than that, she could have sworn she heard the happy laughter of a man and a woman echoing through the walls.
She caught her breath at the sound, but moments later, Minnie and Lord Lawrence, followed by Lady Katherine and Lord Waldorf, walked into the room. They were all laughing, so Carys was convinced they were the voices she had heard.
“This is magnificent,” Minnie said, striding as far into the room as she could, then turning a circle to take it all in. “I could not have asked for a more perfect spot for a ritual to contact the dead if I had been given a month to plot in advance.”
“Let us hope the spirits of the dead do not mind us rousing them from their long, winter slumber,” Lord Waldorf said, frowning as he glanced around the room. “What are all these shelves doing here?”
“They were already in the room,” Carys rushed to explain. “This was once a study for a former Duke of Amesbury.”
“How former?” Lord Waldorf asked, running his finger along one of the shelves. It came up very dusty indeed.
“Has anyone considered that this could, in fact, have been the family’s vault of treasures that we have speculated so much about?” Lady Katherine asked.
“That thought had crossed my mind,” Lord Lawrence said.
“Perhaps we should sort through the items that have been removed so that we might locate Aethelbore’s part of the amulet,” Lady Katherine said.
“You may concern yourself with the former contents of this room on the morrow,” Minnie said, walking around the low table and surveying the tools she had been provided with for the séance. “At this moment, I need you to assist me in covering the table with these cloths and then positioning and lighting the candles.”
Carys went to work, assisting Dunstan and the others in arranging the table, and then the rest of the room, to meet Minnie’s specifications. Cloths were strewn, candles were arranged, both candles and incense were lit, and by the time the rest of the family arrived, the entire study had taken on a decidedly eerie ambiance.
“Welcome one and all to this most sacred ceremony,” Minnie greeted them all as they took places on the cushions set slightly back from the table.
Carys sat by Dunstan’s side, despite the boldness of the position. If she were honest with herself, she would admit that the entire activity unnerved her more than she’d expected. The air seemed thick and heavy, despite the cold of December. Smoke from the incense placed around the table rose up in the flickering candlelight, making strange shapes. Carys believed a little too keenly that they truly would be able to contact the ghosts of the dead.
Uncle Gerald was the last to wander in, along with Lord Cedric and Lady Muriel. Carys leapt up with the intention of helping Lord Gerald to sit on one of the cushions, but he managed it easily. It was Lady Muriel who needed a great deal of help in lowering herself almost to the floor.
“Minnie, if this little game of yours causes me to deliver this child early, I will hold you accountable,” Lady Muriel puffed as she adjusted herself on the cushion.
Lord Cedric ended up sitting directly behind her so that he might act as her chair. His face was a mask of seriousness, however. By the time Carys took her seat beside Dunstan once more, she was convinced that, apart from Minnie, Lord Cedric took the proceedings most seriously.
“Are we all present?” Minnie asked. When she was answered with nods of affirmation, she drew in a breath, straightened her back, and reached her arms over the table. “Then we shall begin.”
Carys glanced sideways at Dunstan. It was clear he was fighting not to grin or laugh. That made it difficult for Carys to keep her laughter inside as well.
Until Minnie cried out in a voice that startled everyone, “Oh, spirits of Godwin Castle! We have come to you on this night of Christmas Eve so that we might learn your secrets and discover the way to defeat the curse of Morgana!”
In a moment of extraordinary coincidence, one of the windows cracked open slightly, sending a swirl of icy wind and a burst of sparkling snow into the room. Lady Bernadette yelped slightly, and Lord Cedric made a sound of amazement. Lord Waldorf stood up and shut the window, relatching it, while shaking his head at his brother.
“We wish to know more about the love between Aethelbore and Morgana,” Minnie went on, waving her arms over the top of the table and the wealth of candles it contained, her eyes closed. “Tell us more. Use me as your mouthpiece if you must.”
Carys’s heart beat wildly in her chest as she waited to see what might happen next. Already, the evening was proving to be more of an entertainment than she would have expected.
Nothing happened for the first few seconds, but then Minnie sucked in a noisy breath and threw her hands up with a high-pitched squeal.
“Good Lord!” Lord Arnold exclaimed, clutching Mr. Entwistle’s arm.
Carys’s mouth quivered with her efforts not to laugh at Lady Muriel’s brother, or to wonder why Mr. Entwistle had not departed with the other guests yet.
Those thoughts were arrested in a moment as Minnie called out in an entirely different voice than before, “The Curse of Godwin Castle will not be broken until a man of the Godwin line marries a woman of the Whitney line. Even then, it will not be fully resolved until the two halves of Aethelbore’s token of love are reunited.”
“Yes, well, we all knew that without having any dodgy spirit tell us,” Lord Alden murmured on Dunstan’s other side.
Dunstan tried to suppress a laugh and ended up snorting instead.
“You dare laugh at the curse?” Minnie demanded of him in her strange, acted voice. “You who are in the direct line of Morgana’s wrath?”
“Well, I…that is, I beg your pardon,” Dunstan said, nodding respectfully to Minnie…or whoever had come to possess her.
No, Carys was certain Minnie was merely playing.
The woman was absolutely in her element, pretending to deal in curses and handling dark secrets. She widened her eyes at Dunstan, then went on with, “You, who have love resting in the palm of your hand, but who are considering brushing it away as if it were a bit of dirt! You should know better than to cross true love.”
“I am terribly sorry,” Dunstan said, still, perhaps, playing into Minnie’s game, but feeling quite a bit more serious as he stared back at her.
Carys instinctively reached a hand toward him as if in sympathy and to let him know she would stand by him if Minnie continued with her teasing. But Minnie turned her attention to Carys instead.
“And you,” Minnie went on. “You who would let true love be snatched from you by baseless fear. It is because of fear such as yours that the curse has continued for generation after generation with none of my descendants daring to do what I did.”
“Oh, so this is supposed to be Morgana after all,” Lord Gerald said, clearly amused.
Minnie turned her attention to him. “I would strike you down where I stand, were it not for the fact that you, more than any of the sons of Aethelbore, have embraced my line most fully.”
“I think he’s referring to keeping you close as his housekeeper,” Lady Katherine whispered by Carys’s side.
Carys had no doubt that was what Minnie meant. She was increasingly unhappy with the course of the evening’s entertainments, however. Yet again, everything seemed to be directed to the sole purpose of pushing her and Dunstan together and coercing them into taking an irreversible step that could spell disaster for them both.
“What of the curse?” she asked, even though she knew it was not her place to speak to a noblewoman in such a way. “We know how it began and we know how to break it, but we do not know where to find Morgana’s heir, nor do we know where her half of the amulet is.”
Minnie whipped to face her again before Carys could ask outright whether the whole ordeal was futile or not and said, “You know nothing! All you know are tales for children and myths whose meanings have been misconstrued or lost. You do not know the true story of Aethelbore and Morgana.”
Before Carys could ask what that story was, the window blew open again, only this time with more force. It sent the candles on the table flickering like mad so that the shadows they cast danced over the stone walls. The wind sent a few papers from one of the shelves that had been pushed aside flying.
All of it sent a chill down Carys’s back and made the whole experience seem all too real.
“Perhaps enough is enough, my love,” Lord Lawrence said, sitting by Minnie’s side again after getting up to rescue some of the papers that had been scattered.
“It will never be enough until amends have been made for the betrayal of Aethelbore to Morgana,” Minnie said, her voice rough with grief as well as strange in cadence. “The truth of their love is written in the stone of Godwin Castle. It is as much a part of the Whitney family as the blood that runs through their veins. Old wrongs must be righted!”
“But we do not know how,” Lord Gerald snapped, annoyed. “The Whitney line is gone, and while some drops of that blood may have diffused out to elsewhere, that still does not resolve the problem of the amulet.”
“The amulet must be whole,” Minnie said, stretching her arms out again.
Carys was beginning to think her act was both cruel and unhelpful.
“You wouldn’t mind, perhaps, giving us all a hint of where the other half of the amulet is, would you?” Lord Arnold asked almost coquettishly.
“This is ridiculous,” Lord Waldorf said, standing. “You’re frightening your friends and—”
That was as far as the man got before a crash sounded from deep within the house, almost like a crack of lightning and a roll of thunder. The sound was so sudden that it terrified Carys into jumping into Dunstan’s side.
Dunstan put an arm around her and frowned at Minnie. “This needs to end,” he said. “It is no longer amusing.”
“Go!” Minnie cried out. “Go and find it! The amulet is waiting. Your chance to end the curse in this generation is fading. Go!
Carys felt stronger with Dunstan’s arms around her, but she, too, felt as though the entertainment had gone on long enough. She opened her mouth to beg Minnie to stop, but before she could, a strong breeze blew through the room, snuffing all the candles on the table, and Minnie fainted dead away.