The Haunting of Castle Dune - A Novella: Book 10.5 of Morna’s Legacy Series

by Bethany Claire

  Dying wasn’t an option for the laird of Castle Dune as long as I was here.

  Chapter 11

  My day of preparations before the journey back had been as thorough as possible for the limited time we had to get me ready, and between the three of us, I truly did believe that Morna, Jerry, and I had come up with a plan that would give me as good of a shot as any of changing history.

  For at least the first few days, I had a set list of tasks that had to be completed before I set about trying to solve the mystery of this place. The most important being that Laird Dune could not die as he had originally. The second, I had to get him to let me stay here long enough to figure out what really happened.

  Healing him was out of my hands. I would do my best to see him cleaned and tend to his wound, but Morna’s magic would do the hard part.

  The second bit was up to me. Problem was, I knew the moment he realized he wasn’t going to die that he would get me out of here as quickly as possible. The only thing that had convinced him not to turn around when he found me in his boat was his fear of dying alone and his lack of strength at the time he found me.

  I had to come up with some way to ensure that I could stay here for longer than just a handful of days. I knew just what I needed to do. It was awful—unforgivable, really. But in this case, I knew that Machiavellian logic rang true—the end result really would justify the means.

  The boat had to go. If the one landline between this isle and the rest of the world was gone, he would have no choice but to allow me to stay here for as long as it took him to not only fully recover from his illness but also to build another boat, which I imagined wasn’t something that could be done overnight. Especially not here, with such limited resources.

  With my mind made up and an ax I’d found outside the castle in hand, I made my way back to the boat I’d recently secured. I swung down hard and fast until I knew the hole I’d created was large enough to cause it to sink. As the boat began to take on water, I untied it from its dock and pushed it out to sea.

  Fully aware that I’d just broken my first promise to him—nothing had been careful about the way I’d had to balance on the dock while destroying his boat—I pushed aside my guilt and returned the evidence of my crime back to where I’d found it before continuing with my tasks.

  I truly couldn’t begin to understand how he’d been able to survive so long here all by himself. Every single task was arduous. It took me hours to get a fire started, and just about as long to find the source of fresh water on the island—a well in the castle’s gardens.

  It was easy enough to find rags and everything else I needed to tend to him.

  When everything was ready, I took a bit of the fire I’d used to boil water and lit the candles in his room before waking him.

  It took some effort to stir him from his drug-induced slumber, and I could tell he was disoriented as his eyelids flickered open.

  “Laird Dune, I’m not sure if you remember me from earlier. I need you to wake up so I can clean and tend to that wound of yours. I really can’t allow you to leave it untreated.”

  He cracked a weak smile, though it was only barely visible beneath the overgrown, unkempt facial hair.

  “O’course I remember, lass. Though I did perhaps wonder if I dreamt ye.”

  “You didn’t dream me. Now, can I get you to sit up? I’m going to pull some of the candles in closer so I can see what I’m doing.”

  He reached out a hand to stop me.

  “It willna matter, lass. Whatever ye mean to do, it canna save me, and please doona call me ‘laird.’ My name is Monroe.”

  I smiled, pleased that we’d moved on to first names.

  “I’m Eleanor. Will you at least let me try? Surely it won’t make it worse than it already is.”

  I stepped away to gather the candles as he moved to sit up in the bed.

  “I suppose ’tis true enough.”

  I could see him watching me carefully as I lit the space around his bed and gathered the rags I’d boiled along with the basin of hot water I’d carried upstairs before I woke him.

  “I hope you don’t mind. I had to snoop around to find some of these things.”

  “I told ye, lass. Ye are free to do as ye wish.”

  “Okay.” I crawled on top of the bed, the basin of water in my hands as I gently lowered it onto the mattress, steadying it so it would stay upright. “Can I get you to take off your shirt for me?”

  He nodded, and with rattled breath struggled to do as I instructed.

  “How are you feeling? Did whatever you took help with the pain?”

  “Aye, I doona hurt this moment. ’Tis only that I find it more difficult to breathe all the time.”

  “I’m going to touch you now.”

  He said nothing but nodded in permission as I dipped the rag into the hot water and wrung it out before moving close to wash him.

  “Where are ye from, Eleanor? Never in my life have I heard another speak as ye do. My mind was too filled with surprise to ask ye earlier.”

  “Not from around here.”

  He attempted a laugh but stopped short as the sudden intake of breath caused him to cough.

  “I can see that.” He leaned forward to look at me, his eyes roaming up and down my face before he said, “Ye’ve many a secret, doona ye, lass? I doona believe ye are what ye appear to be.”

  He didn’t jerk or hiss as I cleaned the wound, and I was pleased to see that he truly wasn’t in tremendous pain.

  “I have a feeling the same could be said about you.” I dabbed at the wound. “What happened to cause this?”

  He sighed, and I thought I saw the skin just under his eyes flush red as if he was embarrassed.

  “’Twas my own foolishness. There was a leak in the north tower of the castle, and I slipped when I tried to fix it.”

  My eyes widened.

  “You got on the roof by yourself? And then you fell? You’re lucky you didn’t break your neck.”

  “There is naught that I doona do by myself, lass, and I doona know if I would call the accident luck. A broken neck would have been preferable to this. At least I would’ve passed quickly. I doona care for the slow death I face now.”

  “You’re not going to die.”

  He sighed as I continued to clean the wound.

  “I already told ye. I know ye mean well, and I canna tell ye how long it has been since I’ve received such kindness, but yer efforts willna work. I can feel death coming for me. There’ll be no stopping her.”

  “Will you drink some tea if I make you some?”

  He looked concerned.

  “If ye found tea here, lass, I doona know if I should drink it. I am not accustomed to drinking it myself so it must be verra old indeed.”

  “I didn’t find it here. I had it on me.”

  He frowned and looked me up and down suspiciously.

  “On ye, lass. Ye carry tea in yer dress?”

  “My grandmother always said that a good cup of tea could fix anything. I never go anywhere without it.”

  He looked rather shamelessly at my cleavage and gave me the first true smile I’d seen on him.

  “If you don’t keep your eyes above my neckline, I’ll slap you despite your injuries.”

  He continued to grin.

  “I just canna think of where else ye could have kept it, lass. I know ye carried no bag with ye.”

  I stood and moved to grab the cup of hot water I already had on the small table next to his bed. Shielding it from his view, I quickly poured Morna’s potion inside.

  “Don’t you worry about where I kept it. Just drink up. We’ll see how you feel in the morning.”

  Chapter 12

  By the time Monroe woke again, his room was bathed in midmorning light. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept so well or woke feeling so rested. He pushed himself up in the bed as he looked around his room.

  It seemed unfamiliar to him somehow. Everything felt different. Everything loo
ked different, too.

  The lass.

  She must have stayed up all night cleaning. Dust he’d allowed to gather for too long was gone. The windows were open allowing fresh air to cleanse the room. Even the curtains he’d never touched were gone. Turning his head toward one of the open windows, he could hear them flapping in the breeze—Eleanor had taken them outside to air them.

  Rising to his feet, he froze as he realized his side no longer hurt him. His breath came easily too. He looked down at his chest, still undressed from the night before. His wound was there, but much of the inflammation was gone.

  It made him uneasy. He’d heard of such occurrences before—people who would feel better for a day just before the quick decline that led to their deaths.

  He wouldn’t allow himself to revel in any sort of false hope. The strength he felt today was simply his body’s last stand—one last, fighting effort to live.

  As far as he could tell, it meant he would be dead by nightfall.

  Two Days Later

  * * *

  Monroe was well. The infection had long since left his body, and the wound from his fall was healing rapidly. In spite of this, he insisted on believing he was moments away from his death. Morna’s magic had worked wonderfully, but rather than delight in his healing wound and how the aches and chills had left his body, it seemed to have lowered him into a sort of depression. He refused to believe he wasn’t dying.

  Professionally, I suspected I knew the reason for his sudden mental decline, but selfishly, I didn’t have the weeks it would normally take me to work through this with him. I needed him to reclaim his second chance at life now.

  While I considered myself to be a reasonably intelligent, resourceful woman, nothing in my life had equipped me for daily life in the seventeenth century. I was already running low on the small supply of food Monroe had inside the castle, and I hadn’t the slightest idea how to get more.

  Not to mention that I was losing my own mind waiting around the castle all day for him to realize his health had returned. Stillness was the last thing I was accustomed to. I didn’t know what to do with it.

  I needed Monroe to accept his new lease on life so that I could get about the business of figuring out how to make sure ghosts never had the opportunity to set up camp at Castle Dune—a task that part of me worried was doomed from the start. Monroe had said something our first night in the castle that eluded to the fact that ghosts were already here—even in this time. If that was true, it meant that Morna hadn’t been able to send me back far enough to change anything. I wouldn’t know anything for sure until I could get him to open up to me. In the state of mind he was in now, I knew there would be no heart-to-heart chats between the two of us.

  I battled with myself for most of the day. As far as I could see, I had two options. I could take the route of professionalism and see if I could get him to open up like I would any of my other patients. It was certainly the most morally acceptable option, but I could feel it in my bones that it wouldn’t work with him. Monroe had spent the last decade building up walls to keep people out. If I pursued this path, it would take me weeks I didn’t have to build up enough trust for him to let me in.

  The second option would require me to cast all my years of learning and practice aside, to throw every boundary that I strictly adhered to in my office out the window and just appeal to his humanity and heart.

  Years of isolation might make one skittish, but it could never extinguish the basic human need to be seen and heard.

  I would show him care—I could see in his eyes just how void of it he was.

  If my ability to read people was as good as I thought it was, it would crack him wide open.

  Opened shells aren’t easily put back together.

  If I executed things well, by the end of the night, he’d simply be feeling too much to roll over and play dead ever again.

  Chapter 13

  The instruments were cleaned and laid out, and the tub that had taken me an obscene amount of time to prepare was ready and sitting next to the fire in the same sitting room where his ghost had scared the crap out of me just a few nights before. So I made my way up to pull Monroe from his bed.

  He wasn’t sleeping when I entered. Although he tried to give me a small smile, it did nothing to hide the pain that was always just beneath the surface of his eyes.

  “I have a surprise for you.”

  “Do ye, lass? I doona know how many times I can tell ye, but ’tis foolish to put so much effort into caring for a dying man.”

  “I know. I know you say you’re dying, and I have no real reason to disbelieve you. Surely, you know more about how your body feels than I do. Regardless, it seems to me that you won’t be dying as soon as you thought you might when you agreed to let me come here. I think I should leave come morning.”

  I hated that his beard disguised most of the expression on his face, but I thought I saw him flinch uncomfortably at the mention of my departure, though he quickly recovered.

  “Aye, I suppose ye are right, lass. Though who will spoil me as ye have done once ye are gone?”

  He said it in jest, I knew, but it played right into my plans.

  “No one, which is why I mean to make sure your last night with companionship is a good one.”

  He regarded me suspiciously.

  “And what does such a night entail, lass?”

  I held up my forefinger as I spoke.

  “First, if you’ll permit me to, I’d like to get a good look at exactly who it is that I’m with. That way I can have a memory of you to keep in my mind once you’re dead.”

  I intentionally said the rather morbid statement with as much glee in my voice as I could muster. I knew it would throw him off.

  “I doona wish for ye to remember me.”

  “Horseshit. Everybody wants to be remembered, and I want to remember you. Surely you won’t deny me that?”

  “Fine.” He reluctantly conceded. “Ye can remember me as I am now.”

  I frowned and crossed my arms as I moved to sit on the edge of the bed next to him.

  “But this isn’t actually who you are, is it? I want to see the man underneath all of this…” I reached up and tugged at the end of his beard for emphasis, “fluff.”

  As he glared at me, a suspicion about Monroe’s beliefs crossed my mind, and I couldn’t help but test my theory.

  “You know, some cultures believe that whatever we look like at the time of our death is what we look like for eternity in the afterlife. If you’re so set on dying, wouldn’t you rather spend eternity looking like the man you were before you decided to become the Ms. Havisham of the seventeenth century as opposed to the Scottish version of the Yeti that you are now?”

  His nose crinkled in confusion. It was only then that I realized I’d probably made multiple references that baffled him. Still, I could see that something had gotten through. Slowly, he gave me a sad smile.

  “I know my mother ’twould appreciate it if I met her on the other side well groomed.”

  “So, you’ll let me give you a good wash and trim?”

  “Only because I can see that ’twould please ye so.”

  “That’s good enough for me.”

  I smiled and offered him my hand. “Come on, before the water cools.”

  “What else do ye have planned for me, lass?”

  Ignoring him, I turned and tugged at his hand until he was forced to stand.

  “One thing at a time, Monroe. One thing at a time.”

  Christ, just the touch of her hand as it brushed against the skin of his face made him hard. It had been so long—too long—since a woman’s hands had caressed him.

  She didn’t mean to arouse him, but it was all he could do to keep his hands firmly in his lap as she brushed and clipped at the hair on his face.

  It was foolish of him to permit this. Such solitude had left him ravenous for a connection. Allowing her to show him such thoughtfulness and care would only make it harder for
him when she left in the morning.

  At least you will have the memory of her when you lay down for the last time.

  That thought was how he justified it, how he allowed himself to let go of the rules that had sustained him for so long.

  “You okay, Monroe? You look a little tense.”

  He nearly jumped from his chair as he felt Eleanor’s hands drop to his shoulders where she gave him a gentle squeeze.

  Hoping his voice wouldn’t come out breathless and ragged, he answered her.

  “I’m fine, lass. Ye canna know how good that feels.”

  “Oh, I can imagine. Have you really been all alone here? Like entirely?”

  He had to stifle a moan of pleasure as she leaned his head back and poured warm water over his scalp.

  “Aye, lass. All of my family has been gone for a decade now. I had guests for a time, but for the past three years, I’ve been the only resident of this isle. I have a man that comes once a month with supplies and items I request, but he never stays past his delivery and payment.”

  He knew what question she would ask next. Lies were dangerous things—he despised them—but in this instance, he couldn’t possibly tell her the truth.

  “Can I ask you why? It’s not as if you’re socially inept. You’re witty, and from what I’ve seen, quite kind. You also don’t seem terribly shy. Forgive me, but I just can’t understand why you would isolate yourself here. It’s not healthy, you know?”

  “Do ye remember those secrets we spoke of before, lass? This is one I canna ever tell. All I can say is that I believe the promises we make—whether we keep them or not—define who we are. This is not the life I would have chosen for myself, but it is the life I have lived. When I die, at least I will know that I kept a promise I made long ago. It must count for something, aye?”

  She was silent, and he worried that she thought him to be completely mad. When she did speak, her voice was soft.