Chapter Twenty
D unstan had never seen anything like the specter of Morgana’s eyes gazing out one moment, then dissolving the next. Logic told him that oxidation was to blame as the tender tissue of Morgana’s eyeballs could not withstand the rush of air that met them after centuries of being completely sealed.
In his heart, however, he felt not only a creeping chill from the ghastly display, but a tremor of hope that, perhaps, Morgana had finally been appeased and could now rest.
“We should not have opened that!” Lawrence said, backing away and attempting to take Lady Minerva with him as he did.
Lady Minerva gently shook him off, saying, “No, we absolutely should have. Look! The amulet!”
Everyone looked. The chain that held the amulet around Morgana’s neck appeared to have broken long ago, but the circle of silver knotwork most definitely remained.
It was familiar to Dunstan. Extremely familiar. He had seen something so very similar just hours before. In fact, the brooch Carys had worn several times in the last few days had been made in such an exact style that there was no doubt in his mind that it was the other half.
“Where is your brooch?” he asked Carys in a breathless voice of anticipation.
“In my room,” Carys answered, her spirit seeming to vibrate with excitement at the same speed as his. “I shall fetch it at once.”
Carys left to go, taking a shaking and exhausted Ruby with her.
“I suppose we wait now to see if they are a match,” Cedric said. “In the meantime, should we cover Morgana again?”
“Wait!” Lady Minerva called out.
Despite Lawrence’s efforts to stop her, she reached into the casket and gently took the parchment out.
“Are you mad?” Edgar cried out to her, reminding everyone that he was still with them. “Are you attempting to bring an even harsher curse down upon us?”
“You!” Uncle Gerald called out, drawing everyone’s attention. “I have had just about enough of you! You sabotage my family by bringing people with frivolous claims to parts of our family’s fortunes to this house, and then, when you are caught and banished, you return to cause even more havoc?”
“I…I did not intend…when will you believe me when I say this should all be mine?” Edgar pleaded one last time, though in a voice that showed he knew he was beaten.
“I might have shown you leniency if you had accepted your fate, as your mother did,” Uncle Gerald went on, narrowing his eyes at Edgar. “She was not a bad woman, simply a bad judge of character. But you? You are cut from a different cloth entirely.”
“I only wanted to be a Godwin,” Edgar wept.
“You were a Godwin,” Waldorf pointed out, stepping toward him. “In every way that mattered, you were part of this family. Everyone who lives in this castle is dear to us.” He glanced around at the servants lingering around the edges of the room, ending by nodding at Danny. “Take him downstairs and hold him in a locked room until the constable can be fetched.”
“No!” Edgar said in a panic. “I’ll leave! I’ll go far away and you’ll never see me again!”
“That was the initial offer you were given and you failed in it,” Uncle Gerald said. “You could have destroyed Godwin Castle entirely, and you will be punished for it.”
“No!” Edgar called out again, but his cries went unanswered. Uncle Gerald nodded to Danny, who dragged the man out of the room, presumably to meet his fate.
The briefest of pauses followed before Lady Minerva, Morgana’s parchment in hand, asked, “Does anyone here read Old English?”
Attention shifted once more to the curse. Lady Muriel moved to glance over Lady Minerva’s shoulder.
“At least the handwriting is neat,” she said with a sigh. “But no, I cannot read Old English.”
More sighs and murmurs of disappointment filled the room before Mr. Entwistle stepped forward and said, “I can read it.”
Once again, everyone was surprised as precisely the right person stepped forward at exactly the right time to assist in unfolding the mystery that had surrounded the family for centuries. It was enough to send a shiver down Dunstan’s spine as Lady Minerva handed the parchment over to Mr. Entwistle. It felt very much as if the curse was meant to be broken that very day.
“Well?” Lord Arnold asked after a long pause, practically dancing in anticipation as he hovered behind Mr. Entwistle. “What does it say?”
Mr. Entwistle frowned at the parchment and said, “It says ‘ee ic Aethelbore awr?tan m?n hl?st cwed.”
Another heavy silence followed as all present stared at Mr. Entwistle in confusion.
“It roughly translates as ‘I, Aethelbore, do write my last confession’,” Mr. Entwistle explained.
“Oh!” Lord Arnold said as everyone else breathed in or hummed in excitement.
“Perhaps if I could have a bit of paper and a pen I could translate the entire thing for you,” Mr. Entwistle said.
“Yes, of course, most definitely,” Dunstan said, gesturing to the table.
He moved forward, escorting Mr. Entwistle to the table and helping to clear a space so that the man could sit and work for a moment. As he did, Lady Minerva returned to the casket to carefully take the amulet from Morgana’s chest. Once she had that in hand, Cedric, Waldorf, and Alden retrieved the casket’s lid from the floor and carefully set it in place again, shielding Morgana’s remains from the light and the air.
“What an extraordinary way to spend Christmas,” Lord Arnold commented, flitting over to Uncle Gerald as he did. “I shall have to make a point of spending the yuletide season with my sister’s new family whenever possible in future.”
“If we’re willing to have you,” Uncle Gerald grumbled at him in return. “If you ask me, this is far too much fuss for my old bones to manage in what is meant to be a season of peace.”
“There are bones older than yours in our presence now, Uncle Gerald,” Alden said with a cheeky grin. “You’d best be respectful.”
“I could say the same about you, young man,” Uncle Gerald teased him in return.
The banter was interrupted as Carys came rushing back into the room, her brooch clutched in her hands. In an instant, the temporary reprieve from excitement they’d all had was gone and the family was buzzing once more.
“This is my family’s brooch,” Carys said, holding her hand open as she approached Dunstan. She looked straight at him, then glanced around at the others as they crowded in.
There were more gasps and sounds of surprise as the family took a good look at Carys’s family brooch.
“I have always imagined that the amulet would somehow be cleft in twain and that the two halves would fit together,” Cedric said, glancing between Carys’s brooch and the circle of silver that Minnie held out as she moved to stand beside Carys. “But I can see now that one piece clearly fits inside the other.”
It was true. Carys’s brooch seemed to form the heart that was missing from the circle of silver. The brooch had been worn for centuries and was polished and soft around the edges, and the circle was harsher and had sharper edges, but they were clearly part of the same piece.
“Look at the inside edge of the circle,” Lady Minerva said, her voice reverent, as she stood beside Carys. “It looks as though someone cut the heart of the brooch out with a sharp instrument. The inside is all jagged.”
“I always imagined that the craftsman of our brooch was unskilled,” Carys said in an equally hushed voice. “But perhaps the rough edge has simply been worn smooth over time.”
“What happens when we put the two pieces together?” Lady Minerva asked with a bit too much devilish glee, as if she was desperately hoping some other cataclysmic action might take place.
“Find out!” Lord Arnold egged her on.
Lady Minerva reached for Carys’s brooch, but before her fingers could more than brush it, Lady Kat called out, “Wait!”
Her caution came so abruptly that Dunstan jumped and felt as though he might lose control of his bowels.
He was not the only one, either. Waldorf cursed under his breath, Cedric flinched, and Lady Bernadette yelped again.
“Heavens, Kat!” Lawrence huffed, pressing a hand to his heart. “You do have a flare for the dramatic.”
“I was only going to suggest that perhaps Carys and Lord Dunstan should be the ones handling the amulet when the pieces are fit together again,” Lady Kat said. “Because of the nature of the curse.”
“Oh! I had not thought of that,” Lady Minerva said. She pivoted to present the silver circle to Dunstan. “Kat is correct, of course. This is something the two of you alone should do.”
Dunstan agreed with her, but he gave Lady Minerva a wary look, as if he was done with her nearly scaring the life out of him, as he took the outer portion of the amulet from her.
“What do you think?” Dunstan asked, smiling at Carys as he positioned the circle of silver in the palm of his hand. “Will this end the curse once and for all?”
“I believe it will,” Carys said, smiling joyfully at him in return.
She took a breath and leaned in, holding the brooch so that she could lower it into the circle it had been cut from.
“Stop!” Lord Arnold shouted just before the two pieces could touch.
Once again, the room filled with gasps and intakes of breath, which were quickly followed by growls and sharp looks of frustration.
“Do you mind?” Uncle Gerald demanded. “My family is about to have a centuries-old curse lifted.”
Dunstan rather wanted to strangle Lord Arnold in that moment as well.
Lord Arnold laughed tightly and breathlessly. “Only, you see, there are two parts to the curse, aren’t there?” he asked.
“There are,” Uncle Gerald grumbled ominously.
“So perhaps if Lord Dunstan were to propose to Mrs. Weatherby first, and then, assuming the lovely woman gives a happy answer, the amulet should be reunited then.”
Waldorf was the first of them to let out an impatient sigh and say, “Oh, just get it over with.”
Dunstan was so giddy from the excitement of the moment and all the various interruptions that he couldn’t help but laugh. “Alright, then,” he said.
He turned fully to face Carys instead of standing by her side and took her free hand in his. “My darling Carys, my friend of many years and my comfort in times of great difficulty. You alone know how much I love you. You alone know how long I have loved you without even being aware of it.”
“Yes, I most certainly do,” Carys said, arching one eyebrow mischievously. “I have loved you for nearly as long myself.”
“We have been exceptionally silly not to recognize it before now,” Dunstan said.
Carys shook her head, growing more serious. “No, I believe that we have discovered just how truly we love each other at precisely the right time.” She held up her brooch. “Our love has waited until the right season, the right moment. This curse ends with us.”
“It does,” Dunstan agreed, smiling. He shifted the way he held her hand to thread their fingers together, then asked, “Carys, will you marry me?”
Carys smiled, her entire face lighting with happiness. “Yes, I most certainly will,” she said.
All around them, the family sighed and made sounds of sweetness and approval.
“Go on, then,” Lord Arnold whispered. “Do the amulet.”
Dunstan was too overjoyed to mind the interference in his proposal. He held out his hand as if presenting the silver circle to Carys.
Carys, in turn, lowered her brooch. Despite the centuries that had separated the two halves of the amulet and the wear that had occurred to the brooch, it slipped perfectly into place in the shelter of the circle as if the two pieces were always meant to be together.
Whether it was Dunstan’s imagination or not, he felt a surge of warmth in his hand that spread to his entire body as the amulet was made whole. He felt more than that when he leaned in and captured Carys’s mouth in a kiss that was infused with passion, despite the audience they had.
Then, as if it truly were magic, a sudden light flowed into the library, subtle at first, but growing in intensity as Dunstan and Carys’s kiss continued.
“Good heavens, it’s the dawn!” Alden exclaimed, pulling Lady Bernadette close as they both turned to look through one of the library’s windows.
The window was angled in such a way that the sun’s rays shone across the newly fallen snow around the castle and straight into the room as it peeked up above the horizon. The chance of anyone standing in that exact spot as the sun reached that precise angle with the library curtains open the way they were was infinitesimal.
If ever there was a sign that the curse was well and truly broken, that was it.
“Amazing,” Lady Minerva said, hugging Lawrence close as she and the others observed the moment.
A few beats of silence later, Dunstan stepped back from Carys, breaking their kiss. He could not hide his smile. Indeed, he felt as though he would never be able to stop smiling again.
“We’ll have a silversmith repair the amulet in time for our wedding day,” he told her quietly, as if they were the only two people in the world.
“Yes,” Carys replied, covering the amulet and Dunstan’s hand with her own. “We most certainly will.”
Dunstan kissed her again. He was sorely tempted to tell the rest of the family to go away so that he could revel in that moment with the woman he loved.
Mr. Entwistle’s polite call of, “I think I’ve puzzled the whole thing out,” snagged his attention and ended the kiss, however.
The focus of the room shifted once again as Mr. Entwistle rose from the place he’d been sitting at the library table. He left the original parchment where it rested and took up the translation he’d done on a plain piece of stationary.
He cleared his throat and said, “This is a rough translation only. I’ve done my best to remain true to the spirit of Aethelbore’s words, though I am not a poet, like he was.”
“Aethelbore was a poet?” Cedric asked with a frown.
“Well, his words were quite poetic, yes,” Mr. Entwistle said. “He seems to have been quite well educated in both writing and composing, which was unusual for his day, even amongst the nobility. It is possible that he had a cleric of some sort—”
“Get on with it!” Uncle Gerald interrupted him. “What does he have to say for himself after causing his descendants such misery for so many centuries?”
Mr. Entwistle cleared his throat. “He says this. ‘ I, Aethelbore, do write my last confession .’” He stood straighter, and with the voice of an actor, read the entirety of Aethelbore’s ancient words.
“ I have served my family well in the war against our neighbors and I have aided in turning back the ravening Danes from this land. Many have said I fought valiantly and that I have made my king and my kin proud. Our fields are fertile and the people of my land are prosperous and happy.
“ But I carry a deep shame within my heart that has turned what was once tender to stone. I loved a woman more than my own life, more than riches or honor on the field of battle. Morgana was my heart and my home, but I betrayed her. I chose glory over love, favor with the king over my own, dearest wishes. I set my love aside to gain title and wealth, and I have always regretted it.
“ My wife, Edla, was a good woman and the sons and daughters she bore me are fine and strong, but Morgana always had my heart. Not a day has passed in my long life since I made my choice when I have not regretted wronging her so. Every moment from the moment I met her as a lad I loved her. And now, as I lay dying, I do not pray for eternal salvation or a place with the gods, I pray only that I will be reunited with my love in the world of the dead.
“ Hear ye who may discover this confession one day! Love above all else! Do not waste your life in regret as I have done. Have the courage to choose love over glory or honor or position. For love is the life of man. No other life is worth living.
“ I place my half of the gift I once gave to my love in her care once more. I can only pray that the heart of my gift, which I believe she entrusted to her granddaughter, will be reunited with this part someday. I have charged my sons and their sons to forever keep the descendants of Morgana close, to always give them a place on our land and in our home. May the line of Morgana and the line of Aethelbore forever be entwined, even though I did not have the courage to do what was right and cleave to my love.
“ May the gods have mercy on my soul and return me to this world someday so that I may find my love again and right the wrongs of this sorry life .”
“It’s signed with Aethelbore’s mark,” Mr. Entwistle added, gesturing to the parchment on the table behind him.
The library was silent. Dunstan’s heart beat wildly within his breast, though. He did not quite feel as though Aethelbore had been reborn in him, but he felt a strong sense that he had righted the wrongs that his ancestor had committed.
“How extraordinary,” Uncle Gerald murmured, summing the feeling in the room up for everyone. “I suppose the vault in which Aethelbore’s half of the amulet was kept was Morgana’s tomb within the castle walls.”
Another long moment of silence followed. The sunlight shining through the window, enhanced by the newly fallen, Christmas snow that surrounded the castle, made the room lighter and lighter with each passing second. With the increase in light came a relief that was palpable, despite the chaos of paper and books in the room and the lingering scent of smoke in the air. Dunstan had the extraordinary sense that once the library was set to right and the damaged part of the castle was rebuilt, a new era would begin for the Godwin family.
“So that is the end of things, then,” Cedric said, pulling Lady Muriel into his arms and hugging her tightly. “Whether that was your original intent or not, Father, your mad dictate to all of us has, in essence, broken the Curse of Godwin Castle.”
“And provided us all with the greatest happiness we could have known,” Dunstan added, sliding his arms around Carys and holding her close, the amulet clasped between them.
“Yes, well, that was my intent all along,” Uncle Gerald said with a sniff. He smiled smugly as he went on with, “Now, perhaps, I’ll have a few more grandchildren to make me happy in the coming years.”
“Do not let Wystan and my sisters hear you say that,” Alden laughed. “They already feel entirely left out of the family drama because they did the sensible thing and married when they were younger.”
“Oh, dear!” Carys exclaimed, straightening and glancing from Dunstan to Uncle Gerald. “Your daughters and nieces and their families are expected at the castle at some time today. There is so much to do, and the staff is already thoroughly exhausted. What shall we do, my lord?”
“First off,” Uncle Gerald said, moving closer to Carys so that he might take her hands. “You will commence calling me ‘Uncle Gerald’ instead of ‘my lord’, as you are about to become a niece to me. You have already been so dear to me these many years.”
“Yes, my—Uncle Gerald,” Carys said, grinning at the man as though the two of them had been coconspirators for years already, which they had.
“Second of all,” Uncle Gerald went on. “Wystan and Edwyna and Odelinda and the others will be happy simply to be with the family and to hear our happy news. Those of us who are still standing when they arrive will see to their needs.”
“If you wish,” Carys said hesitantly. Dunstan could tell she would always feel the need to step up and care for others first and foremost, regardless of what her status changed to.
Which Uncle Gerald addressed when he said, “And thirdly, you had best pick a successor to be housekeeper of Godwin Castle right away. For as soon as you marry my nephew here, you will be the lady of the castle. Well, as soon as I go to my great reward. But I shall let you command all of us before then at any rate,” he added with a wink.
Carys laughed. “I have a Weatherby cousin who has been hoping to take the position for many years now,” she said.
“Then all is settled,” Uncle Gerald said, letting Carys’s hands go and standing back to clap his hands together. “The curse is broken, so I suggest we all retire to our rooms, those that still have them,” he glanced to Dunstan, “so that we might get a few, precious hours of sleep before our Christmas Day festivities begin.”
“An excellent idea,” Cedric said, smiling at his wife.
The family began to depart the room, everyone taking their beloved with them and heading off to their bedchambers. Napoleon came out of hiding to rush after Waldorf and Lady Kat. Dunstan noted the flirtatious looks between Lord Arnold and Mr. Entwistle as they departed as well, but he only laughed. After the services Mr. Entwistle had performed for the family in the last two days, Dunstan would have allowed him whatever liberty he wanted.
“I cannot believe this is the end of the curse,” Carys said as she took Dunstan’s hand and led him down the hall toward the servants’ stairs.
Dunstan had no intention of questioning where she was leading or protesting to finding a few hours of sleep in her bed, since his own was halfway through the floor at that moment.
“It is not the end,” he said, shaking his head and pausing in the front hallway to take her into his arms. “It is the beginning. We are at the very beginning of something new, of our life together.”
“And it will be a life worthy of the love Morgana and Aethelbore should have shared,” Carys said.
Dunstan smiled in agreement, then slanted his mouth over hers. He would do everything he could to make his family proud by loving and caring for the woman who meant everything to him. Regardless of whatever other troubles they encountered, love would always make things right.