Dark Angel

by Lynne Graham

  She knew what the letter meant. Carrie was dead. What else could it mean? Over four years ago, some solicitor had been trying to locate Carrie’s relatives. She scrunched up the letter, pushed it aside with a trembling hand and wished that she had not noticed that the original envelope had been intended for her. Her shaken eyes gritted up with tears. Why had she never tried to trace Carrie? Why had she been so hard and unforgiving? Or was it simply that she been too scared of receiving yet another rejection from the woman who had walked away when she was four years old and never looked back?

  As Kerry tried to stifle the sudden gasping sobs that overcame her with her hands, the kitchen door opened.

  Luciano strode in, lean, dark features sardonic. ‘I can’t find an electric socket in the bedroom,’ he delivered before he realised that she was in floods of tears.

  Kerry dragged in a shuddering breath and dropped her head, hoping that he hadn’t noticed. ‘There isn’t any…there’s no electricity upstairs.’

  No electricity upstairs. Consumed by total disbelief at that declaration but appreciating that further questioning on that score would seem inappropriate at that moment, Luciano hovered in rare indecision. Obviously, he had really upset her. She had always been maddeningly over-sensitive to his habit of straight talking. Did you really need to tell her she was useless? the uneasy voice of conscience asked him. His lithe, powerful frame emanating fierce tension, he approached the table much as if it had been an executioners’ block.

  ‘I was in a rough mood…I didn’t intend to hurt you,’ he stated with a graceful shrug of dismissal, knowing that he was lying, knowing that there was something in him that just wanted to lash out at her every time she came near him.

  But that was entirely her fault, not his, Luciano assured himself. Any normal woman who had just looked at him with that amount of sheer physical longing would have hit the bed sheets with alacrity, for he had never subscribed to the belief that women were any less sexual beings than men. It had taken Kerry to make a drama out of his natural male reaction to that unspoken but obvious invitation of hers. And to ignore his proposition. And to duck the challenge of denying that, in spite of her prudish principles and prejudice, she did want him. As Luciano spoke, Kerry was frozen in her seat. He actually thought that she was weeping her head off over what he had said to her? Flattening her palms to the table, she leapt upright to settle scornful blue eyes on him. ‘You don’t have the power to hurt me any more!’ she slammed back at him. ‘I was upset about something private that has nothing to do with you.’

  Luciano’s furious golden gaze fell on the letter crunched into a telling ball. Without even thinking about it, he reached for it to satisfy his need to know what could possibly be more important than him.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Throwing him an angry look of astonishment, Kerry snatched up the letter and dug it into the back pocket of her skirt.

  At that point Luciano recognised the smell of charring food and he strode over to the range to look down without surprise at the casserole that had boiled dry and burned into the bargain. It was petty but the discovery that she was still as utterly hopeless at cooking as she had always been gave him a warm sense of consolation and continuity.

  As she took in the same view Kerry’s soft pink mouth wobbled and then thinned into a tight line of restraint. ‘I’ll make something else—’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t dream of putting you to so much trouble,’ Luciano purred.

  To her horror, she discovered she just wanted to hit him again. To hit him so hard she knocked him into the middle of next week and closed that smart mouth of his. She had been looking forward to his shock when she presented him with a perfectly cooked meal. Really, she had been very well rid of him, she told herself feverishly. Being married to a guy who could whip up fantastic dishes with the galling, flamboyant expertise of a seasoned chef but who very rarely had the time to do so would have been an endless nerve-racking ordeal.

  ‘I’ll eat out,’ Luciano continued.

  Unable to make even a stab at faking the concern of a housekeeper keen to feed her employer, Kerry jerked a thin shoulder. Had he still to appreciate how remote from civilisation Ballybawn was? There wasn’t a restaurant within miles, but he could find that out the way he found out most things: the hard way.

  ‘But before I do that, I’d like to see round the castle,’ Luciano concluded.

  ‘It’ll be getting dark in an hour—’

  ‘Then we’ll use torches…or doesn’t Ballybawn have those either?’ Luciano countered silkily.

  Ten minutes later Luciano was treated to a detailed display of the workings of the Ballybawn water-powered electrical system, which was housed in a lean-to below the trees. Kerry became quite animated as she described her great-grandfather’s inventive expertise, while not seeming to notice that he remained distinctly underwhelmed. ‘That we produce our own electricity is a very special part of living at Ballybawn,’ she completed, patting the ancient, rusting turbine with a fond hand.

  ‘I won’t live without electricity,’ Luciano said with gentle irony.

  ‘We’ve got electricity…just not upstairs.’ Kerry angled a reproving glance at him as if electricity at any other level was an outrageous luxury he should be ashamed to even mention. ‘And why would you need electricity in a bedroom? Oil lamps have been used at the castle without the slightest inconvenience for well over a hundred years.’

  ‘I have a sneaking fondness for those little switches that magically give light in darkness. I also like to plug in lots of consumer products…cellphone charger, PC, satellite TV, music, digital phone—’

  ‘You can use all those things downstairs. You can use the library as an office,’ Kerry told him stubbornly. ‘Or even one of the units in the stable yard. Grandpa allowed the yard to be connected to the mains because some of the tenants have to use equipment that consumes a lot of power.’

  ‘Oil lamps are dangerous. I’m very surprised that you haven’t had a fire.’ Luciano wondered how he had ever convinced himself that she bore not the slightest resemblance to her scatty grandparents. Only a fanatic would ask him to start using an oil lamp.

  Fires littered the history of the castle, and as soon as her grandmother had become a little unsteady on her feet Kerry had persuaded the older woman to move into a downstairs bedroom. However, nothing would have made her admit that to Luciano. He had owned Ballybawn for less than a day and already it seemed he was thinking about making sweeping changes that filled her with dismay and an urgent need to protect the castle’s historic heritage.

  As the inspection of Ballybawn continued, Luciano just sank deeper and deeper into shock. On his arrival, he had been too preoccupied to pay proper heed to what he was seeing of the castle. Throughout his imprisonment, however, he had confidently pictured Kerry living it up at his expense in some grand aristocratic home. For that reason, discovering the harsh reality of her lifestyle truly shattered him. Contemporary living standards had passed Ballybawn by. The O’Briens had existed with the primitive conditions of their ancestors but without the many servants who would have eased the privations of a household that had no labour-saving devices. The only means of heating the huge, cold rooms came from monster fireplaces, and what few electrical fitments he saw ought to have been given museum status and indeed, in his opinion, constituted a serious safety hazard.

  Damp and decay were in full control of the wing once inhabited by Great-Uncle Ivor and the door had simply been shut on that part of the castle. While though in a more acceptable condition, the Georgian wing had become the showroom for what he could only have described as the trompe l’oeil artist from hell. Grandiose decorating themes that would have been more at home in a Roman villa, or, in one case, the dank tomb of an Egyptian pharaoh, had turned the gracious rooms into the equivalent of a tacky theme park.

  ‘These rooms are hired out for wedding receptions and private parties. I do the catering for some of the functions.’ Kerry was frustrated
by his brooding silence, her expectant eyes clinging to his impassive profile. ‘Before my friend, Elphie Hewitt, made this her base, the paper was hanging in strips off the walls and there was no decent furniture. Grandpa didn’t have the funds to re-decorate but now these rooms are habitable again and they are better used than left empty.’

  Having decided to save the atmospheric and charming heart of the castle to the last, and with the light fading fast, Kerry took him outside again at that point to walk the several hundred yards to the old stable yard. There Luciano gazed without surprise—for he was way way beyond surprise—at the superb architecture of buildings built to last and in infinitely better order than the castle itself. Kerry’s ancestors had spent much more on housing their horses than they had on their own home. Without any apparent awareness of the incongruity, she then showed him round a holiday cottage that offered a first-class luxury comparison.

  Her enthusiasm and pride in what she was showing him undimmed, Kerry led him back indoors. A parade of sad, shabby rooms followed. Some of the multi-paned windows sported little boards where panes were missing and rickety furniture was propped up on bricks and books. Nowhere could he see anything of any true value: just the obvious spaces and marks on the walls that revealed where pictures had once hung and where pieces of furniture must have stood before being removed to be sold. That she had spent five years struggling to maintain a castle in the midst of such pitiful poverty shook him even more. That she should want to fight to remain within the cold, damp, comfort-free walls struck him as certifiable insanity.

  He also saw that she did not see what he saw. Love for her family home had blinded her to defects that screamed at him. He was asked to admire the great hall, which was embellished with collections of strange metal implements hung on wall-grids apparently made of rusty chicken wire, curtains that hung in rags of faded grandeur and a peculiar floral arrangement of weeds.

  ‘That portrait is of Florence O’Brien. She’s supposed to be the family ghost,’ Kerry informed him with determined cheer.

  Almost desperate to find something worthy of the appreciation she seemed to expect, Luciano duly studied the remaining primitive, smoke-stained oil above the massive hearth. He was disappointed yet again, for the canvas featured an unattractive redhead with protuberant, staring eyes which seemed to follow him round the room. He almost quipped that any self-respecting ghost ought to have long since shipped out for more impressive surroundings but thought better of levity. After all, Ballybawn was no joke and he did not feel like laughing: he had just been landed with the biggest and most expensive white elephant in the history of the world.

  The tour finished in the tower, where he discovered that Kerry was still occupying the bedroom below his.

  ‘I liked to be close to my grandparents in case they needed me,’ Kerry muttered awkwardly. ‘I’ll move out tonight—’

  ‘There’s no need to do that.’ Luciano expelled his breath in a slow, measured hiss. ‘Look, your grandparents can keep all the contents of the castle. I don’t want any of this stuff.’

  Kerry gave him a surprised, questioning look. ‘You…don’t?’

  ‘No.’ As an expression of bemused gratitude covered her delicate features, Luciano was lacerated by raw discomfiture and he swung away in a restless movement to approach the window. Darkness was rolling in fast and the lake was becoming a mere reflective gleam of still water at the foot of the gently sloping hill on which the castle stood.

  Even as relief swept through Kerry and she marvelled at his change of heart, she wondered what had brought it about. ‘Does that mean that you’ve already decided what you’re going to do with Ballybawn?’

  He could set a match to it and put it out of five hundred years of misery, Luciano reflected with a complete lack of humour. He had taken her beloved castle from her and he didn’t want it. Nor could he even begin to imagine what he might do with a castle that promised to be a money pit of nightmare proportions. Realistically, he had no need of a home in the Irish countryside and the amount of restoration required would ensure that investment from a business point of view would be wildly unprofitable. Regret was a rare emotion for him and shame rarer still. Yet what possible satisfaction could he receive from an act of revenge that he could only now appreciate had consisted of kicking the unfortunate when they were already literally down and out?

  His objectives, Luciano recognised with grim reluctance, had become set in stone while he paced his prison cell like a caged animal. When he finally won his freedom, he had been too impatient to reconsider those targets. He had had no idea how impoverished the O’Briens were. Nor could he ever have dreamt that Kerry and her grandparents might be living in appalling conditions just to keep a giant hovel in the family.

  But then, if he was honest with himself, it had not suited his purpose to acknowledge that the older couple ought to have had their advanced age and needs taken into compassionate account. He had refused to make a more personal appraisal of their situation. Determined not to be deflected from his driving desire to punish Kerry, he had remained one careful step removed from the whole unpleasant business of repossessing Ballybawn Castle. Now, he conceded grimly, he was paying the price for being the ruthless bastard he had always wanted to be: he was ashamed of himself.

  Bewildered by his failure to respond to her question, Kerry stared at Luciano. Although his back was turned to her, nothing could have concealed the savage tension etched in the rigid set of his broad shoulders. He seemed troubled, angry…or did he? In her experience, Luciano was outspoken when anything annoyed him. When he went silent he unnerved her, for she found herself worriedly awaiting a sudden explosion of temperament. Yet what could he have to be angry about? He had got the castle, hadn’t he? What more could he want?

  In an abrupt movement, Luciano turned, golden eyes glittering below the dense screen of his lashes, lean strong features taut with indefinable emotion. ‘I’m going out…I don’t know when I’ll be back.’

  As he followed that announcement with immediate action, Kerry was taken by surprise. From the entrance hall, she listened to the telling screech of car tyres quarrelling with gravel as he reversed his sports car at speed and drove off. What on earth was the matter with him? The reproachful eyes of her grandfather’s wolfhounds reminded her that she had yet to feed them their third meal of the day.

  It was only later while she was making up a fire in Luciano’s bedroom that she allowed herself to think again about that disturbing letter relating to her mother. No matter how upsetting it might be to learn how and when Carrie had died, she needed to know the facts for her own peace of mind and, what was more, her grandparents had an even greater right to learn what had happened to their only child. After a snack in place of the ruined evening meal, she sat down to write a reply explaining that she was Carrie’s daughter. Afraid that the solicitor might refuse to advance information without further proof of her identity, she enclosed a copy of both her birth certificate and her mother’s. Ashamed of the manner in which she found herself listening out every moment for Luciano’s return, she climbed into her grandfather’s twenty-five-year-old car and drove down to the village to post the letter.

  Only when she was getting into bed did it occur to her that she had responded to a letter that had been sent over four years ago as if it had arrived only the day before. She would wait a couple of weeks and if she’d heard nothing from the solicitor she would try phoning the firm. Where had Luciano gone? Why didn’t she just face it? Hard as she found it to comprehend, he had seemed almost impervious to the charm of Ballybawn. Had he decided to sell the castle? Was that why her grandparents were now to retain all the contents? Her heart sank.

  Having had to drive a very long way before he finally, accidentally, came on a bar where only the most basic of meals was on offer, Luciano returned to Ballybawn. As it was barely eleven, he was surprised to find only the light in the entrance hall burning and Kerry nowhere to be found. Was she out or in bed? The sight and sound of
a triple-decker sandwich of snoring wolfhounds in a giant, shaggy mat on the tower landing below his suggested that she had retired for the night. Utilising the torch from his car, he passed on up to his own room, where a big fire cast leaping shadows on the panelled walls. He imagined her hauling those logs all the way up the steep spiral staircase and he grimaced. For a woman who had done him wrong she had an inspired grasp of how to make him feel bad.

  He explored the en suite facilities and all hope of a shower died fast. History rather than modern plumbing had triumphed and an ancient discoloured copper bath tub sat below the stone window. There was no doubt about it, Luciano decided. An almost biblical amount of personal suffering and discomfort featured in life at Ballybawn. He turned on a tap and water that had a brackish green tinge and remained resolutely cold gushed out. Without hesitation, he headed for the holiday cottage and its irresistible parade of mod cons. With very little persuasion, he could have stayed the night there glorying in the joy of unrestricted electricity, but promptings he was reluctant to examine sent him back to his tower bedroom.

  By his bed he found a dog-eared copy of an old guide book about the history of Ballybawn. To remove his mind from the reality that, in spite of the fire, he was cold, he began to read and it was riveting stuff. Buckets of bad luck had pursued the O’Briens from their earliest beginnings, for in every war and rebellion they had supported the losing side. In the seventeenth century, he read that, ‘Florrie’, Florence O’Brien of the staring eyes, had drowned herself in the lake after finding her bridegroom carousing with her maid and her restless spirit was said to wail in mourning whenever an O’Brien woman was on the brink of marriage.