But, Kelly hadn’t noticed.
“Strange black shadows. They seem to watch us from corners when the light is dim, as if they’re waiting for the right moment, ready to encompass us…devour us. I think that they’re the death ghosts. The banshees!” she said, her eyes solemnly on Devin’s. “You’ll see. Wait, watch, and listen. Death is here,” she whispered. And then she added, “Oh, Devin! I believe that death itself now resides here! You’ll know—you’ll know when you hear the banshee wail!”
Chapter 3
Rocky lay awake in the massive bed in the old master’s room.
The mattress was new, brand new. Apparently, Kelly had tried her best with just a few days in which to work to make the room fresh and new without compromising the integrity of the history to be found within it. The bed itself was circa 1400 with four massive carved posters, a headboard with the family crest deeply etched into it, and tapestry for the canopy and drapes. A hearth—not as long as that to be found in the great hall downstairs but a good seven feet or so—was on the opposite wall while a standing mirror, wardrobes, and a hardwood table and chair set on the rug before the hearth completed the room. It was intriguing to lie on the bed and wonder about the battle plans made at the table, the compromises wrangled out, and the regular day-to-day business of running such an estate.
The chairs at the table were large and antique—upholstered in red velvet. Collum Karney had died in one, Rocky knew. There were four of them—two at the table, two drawn up on either side of the hearth. He believed that Collum had been sitting in the chair at the left of the hearth, perhaps watching a fire burn as it swept away the continual chill of such a castle. Even in the midst of summer, Devin had told him, the rain could come strong and hard and the wind, picking up off the coast, could blow fiercely.
Fires were welcome.
One burned gently now. He speculated on the chair and the hearth for a moment, wondering about Collum and what might have come into the room to scare such a strong and stalwart giant of a man.
Naturally, he’d fully inspected the master’s chambers. There was a door to the nursery, now set up as a dressing room. Another door led to a library which had a door to the hallway as well. He hadn’t found any tunnels or chambers from which someone hidden might have jumped out. As yet.
Of course, someone could have entered freely from the hallway. There were massive bolts on the doors, but that didn’t mean that Collum had bolted the door to the hallway on the night he had died. Since a housekeeper had found him in the morning, he apparently had not bolted his door.
When they first arrived, he’d stood silently in the center of the room and waited, listening, feeling.
But, he’d sensed no presence of the dead.
Devin, doing the same, had shaken her head. Then she’d smiled. “It’s never that easy, is it? Can’t just say, ‘Hey! Collum, what happened to you?’”
“Maybe—but looks like we’ll have to ask questions to get answers,” Rocky had told her.
She’d grinned. “Well at least it’s nice to be alone. Really alone!”
“For now, yes,” he’d said softly, grinning as well.
And then she’d been in his arms.
It was their honeymoon.
There was the tub as well. The wonderful claw-foot tub just behind the dividing wall in the bath where plumbing had finally been added in the 1950s. Thankfully, they had built and “plumbed” around the original, with its elegant racks and the big iron grates for heating water. They were no longer needed to heat the water, but they remained—charming with their tie to the medieval past.
Yes, it had been wonderful…
And it was still wonderful to lie beside his wife. Wife. He loved the word, and loved it because he could use it now—and because Devin was his wife. He remembered the first time he had seen her, standing in the center of the road at night, raven’s hair flying around her head and beautiful face, as if she were a mystical goddess sent down to rule the earth. Of course, the circumstances hadn’t been that good—she’d just found a dead girl. And in getting to know Devin—in falling in love with her—he’d nearly lost her. The case had been one, however, that had extended over years, plagued him and haunted him since he’d been in high school. But they’d found the truth, survived the truth—and set the past to rest. Afterward, Devin had decided that she didn’t want to sit on the sidelines, that she had everything that it took to join in their ranks—and she’d done so.
They hadn’t wanted a big wedding. Just their closest associates—Krewe members—and their families up from the warm climes where they’d retired. Devin’s folks believed she was just visiting Ireland to support Kelly—and that it was a lovely honeymoon option. That was best.