“Free from what?” she asked.
“From the torture of my prison. For as much as I loved Cromar, it became my prison in death. I have not moved from Cromar since I died.”
She clasped him tightly about the waist and laid her head on his chest. “But how is this happening to me? I have so many questions. How is it I never heard such rumors of you before?”
“I cannot answer them all, my sweet. I do not understand all of it myself. I know only that when I died and my body was taken away, my soul remained behind. Perhaps I was cursed by a family member of a man I killed. My household left Cromar, what was left of my family departed and scattered to the winds. I do not know what happened to them. Over time the castle decayed, and I was forced to watch it every minute, every day, deteriorate into what it is today. A deserted, forlorn hulk of rubble.”
Within his gaze she felt mesmerized. For their dark depths held a love so strong she knew nothing would harm her again. In her welled the strength she had always possessed but never knew of until now.
“Damian, it has never been deserted, so long as I was there. Perhaps when I was a child I felt you, and your spirit was kindred to mine. Both of us have been so lonely.”
He nodded and kissed her forehead reverently. “That may be the way of it.”
Content to be in his arms, she let a few moments elapse before speaking again. “Oh, Damian, I feel so for you. Your dear Elizabeth was taken from you.”
He sighed heavily. “At the time it was more horrible than anything you can imagine. And my hatred was deeper than a gorge.”
“So when you killed the men who murdered her, did you think it would bring her back?”
“No…”
Through the thin light she saw a secret and a struggling in his soul as yet untended. The one piece left of his ordeal not yet repaired. “What is it, Damian? Tell me all, so you might feel cleansed.”
He nodded and when she put her hands to his chest he sucked in a breath. “Lady Deaning knows the romantic tale. But as in all legends there are truths and there are lies. Elizabeth was not so good as I thought her. It was not just my enemies that wished to bring down a Royalist household. It was Elizabeth. She betrayed me with another man. It was not only the Roundheads that killed her. When she was kidnapped from Cromar Castle and taken away, I went to rescue her. I found them some miles away and she refused to come home with me. She was in love with this Roundhead, her lover. Her captor had come to take her.” His face contorted in remembered pain. “She had never loved me. It was all a lie.”
Elizabeth’s tears surged into her eyes, and she let them come down, relentlessly falling. “How awful.”
“Nothing so awful as what I did then.”
“Tell me.”
“The Roundhead thought of her as chattel, as a way to get back at me. He cut her across the face. I lunged at him and managed to stab him once. Elizabeth stepped in front of him as I plunged toward him again. I…” He swallowed hard. “I stabbed her through.”
She gasped and pulled back from him slightly. “Oh, heavens.”
“In my rage that I had killed her and in my hatred, I slaughtered several more men before I was cut down.”
She sobbed, and he held her more tightly.
“So you see, when you came to Cromar as a little girl, I could find peace in watching you, in seeing your innocence and your beauty. That your name was Elizabeth, too, should have hurt me. But you were everything she was not. Innocent, caring, beautiful in soul and spirit. I could feel your goodness whenever you came to Cromar. I watched over you so that nothing might harm you.”
She smiled. “It was you I felt watching me all that time. I often wondered why I felt so protected.”
“When you grew to be a woman I feared you would leave the castle. Just recently, I found myself capable of returning to solid form. I was no longer a wisp of air but a real man. In my human form I felt your physical love and knew that I loved all of you, body and soul. When you left for London I thought it was another sentence in hell. I was to be tortured again by your absence, and knowing another man would have you.”
Elizabeth shook her head vigorously. “No other man will have me. I swear it.”
He kissed her softly. Whatever he saw in her eyes compelled him to kiss her again until they both trembled with need. As his hands roamed her body and his mouth tortured her by touching her neck, her ears, and finally her mouth, she knew that her destiny lay with him.
“I will never leave you,” he said. “I have been given another chance. Perhaps I have atoned long enough for my mistakes.”
“But we cannot stay here.”
“We shall leave this all behind. What do you say about starting a new life in America?”
As startling and stunning as the idea was, it made her smile. “That would please me.” A frown creased her brow. “How would we manage it?”
He touched his pocket and the heavy coin within. “I have resources now. And you shall have access to your aunt’s money. We can go where our hearts desire and be at no one’s beck and call. Will you marry me?”
Elizabeth’s heart had been answered and her heart was now full.
“Yes, yes,” she whispered before he kissed her again.
Epilogue
Elizabeth Mary Albright and Damian Cromar married in Gretna Green, Scotland where they had eloped several days after the ball at Chickering House. Elizabeth and Damian departed for American a few days later, where they started a new life. Their happiness bloomed in the knowledge they had been given a special gift.
They never went back to England, and never again did Elizabeth feel the longing to paint the stark, lonely lines of Cromar. Finally, Elizabeth painted things that brought joy to her heart and pleasure to others.
They lived simply but with wealth in their hearts, and they passed this goodness to their six children, who passed it down yet again.
A portrait of Damian, painted by Elizabeth, remains to this day in a house in Baltimore, where Damian and Elizabeth made their home. It is revered and safeguarded by their descendants.
All who see it, especially women, declare Damian is the most handsome of men. They also remark that the look in his eyes is extraordinary and content, as if he had found heaven in his time on earth.
The End
Publisher’s Note
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About Denise A. Agnew
Denise A. Agnew, paranormal investigator and author of over 57 novels. RT Book Reviews calls her romantic suspense novels “top-notch”, and she's won both the EPPIE Award for Best Historical Romance and the Passionate Plume Award for best erotic romance. Denise has written paranormal, comedy, contemporary, fantasy, historical, erotic romance, and suspense. Her experience with archaeology and archery creep into her work, and her travels have added a lifetime of story ideas.
Table of Contents
Meet Me At the Castle
Blurb
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Epilogue
About Denise A. Agnew
Meet Me At the Castle Page 7
