“No, look!” She scrambled through the pages. Saying it aloud did sound crazy. Now Kris wasn’t the only one of them she needed to convince. “Item one hundred seventy-nine. That’smydress. I wore that dress. All of these things are from my Cuilean. And look at the picture on the front. That’s the castle. It’s real. It’s all real.”
“You’re starting to scare me, girl.”
“I’m pretty terrified, too. But that was my life. I know every nook and cranny of a place I’ve never been.” A wide smile split Mikah’s lips. Perhaps the first real one she had felt since her return. “It wasn’t all a dream. It couldn’t be. So tell me, am I nuts or not?”
“You are a mixed bag of cashews, peanuts, and almonds.”
“Kris, come on!”
* * *
Kris took the brochure once more and looked down at the cover, seeing the castle just as Mikah had described it months ago, and looked back up at her eager face, not knowing what to think. Or say. She looked so happy for the first time in a long time. He didn’t want to be the one to burst her bubble.
He’d known Mikah since they were in kindergarten back in Oshkosh. They’d been best friends since the moment she’d pushed him off the playground swings on the second day of school. Or at least an apology after that. Through all the years since, she’d stood by him. Through the worst of it, she’d defended him against bullies and teasing in junior high and high school. She’d held his hand tightly when he’d come out seven years before and had never let go. They’d been there for each other during the good and the bad, through breakups and outright dumpings.
He adored her from the top of her nutty head to her toes.
But this? This was crazy. The queen of crazy. With a capital C.
Unless…
“There’s a history here of the castle.” He tilted the magazine toward Mikah for a second before reading the brief synopsis.
Dùn Cuilean had been the ancestral home of the Earls of Maybole and the Marquess of Ayr until into the 1950s, when it closed up for almost thirty years. It reopened in the 1980s as an exclusive bed and breakfast. But with the owner’s retirement years ahead and a struggling economy to sell in, they were closing and selling toHistoric Scotland, who planned to open the castle as a museum.
Many items found in the castle were being kept for display, but the owner was selling off the bulk of the estate. Personal items and others of immaterial historical significance.
The rest of the catalog listed pictures and descriptions of thousands of pieces of art, furniture, and décor included in the auction. Flipping it shut, Kris stared down at the cover, smoothing his hand across the glossy picture. It had never occurred to him that this Cuilean was a real place. He shook his head stupidly.
Why would it have?
* * *
Neither had it occurred to Mikah.
It’d been a dream, hadn’t it? She’d been so convinced. But how could she have dreamt of a place in such detail?
Drawing his laptop onto his lap, Kris Googled Dùn Cuilean and she leaned against his arm with a muttered expletive. Why she hadn’t thought to do the same? Immediately the screen filled with options, proving the castle truly did exist.Historic Scotland, the organization that funded dozens of museums throughout Scotland—including GoMA, she pointed out—had their fingers into Cuilean. It was a national marvel, a fine representation of Adam’s work. There was a website for the B and B, for tours of Scotland’s greatest castles, for ghost tours. The list went on and on.
Under the images tab, they found thousands of pictures. Some were professionally done, showing the exterior and interior rooms, while others were amateur shots taken by tourists. Clicking on the one for the bed and breakfast, Kris found a more detailed history of the castle and family. It described the history of the Mayboles, the Ayrs, and the Conaghams…
And that’s when they found it.
An article relating the murder of the Third Marquess of Ayr and his wife of just a week more than a hundred years ago. The story detailed how the marchioness’s father, the Duke of Beaumont, and another unnamed onlooker witnessed the murders and apprehended the killer. The duke, who had been out of the public eye for several years, returned to London, using his influence and connections to push the trial through the courts. One Camron Kennedy was quickly found guilty and hanged for homicide.
“That doesn’t seem right,” Mikah told him with a puzzled frown. “Hero’s father was a little off. Most people thought he was mad.”
“Like father, like daughter?”
She poked him in the ribs. “But it doesn’t fit. What else does it say?”
“‘The marquess was succeeded by his cousin, Daphne Kennedy, who in the wake of her brother’s disgrace, lived quietly at Cuilean until her death in 1913. The title then went to a great nephew of hers, but the costs to maintain the property were so high that in the next generation, the castle was closed,’” Kris finished the paragraph aloud.
“I don’t know.” Mikah bit her lip. “Lived quietly until her death? I can’t see the Daphne Kennedy I knew doing anything quietly. She practically radiated crazy. What if I’m wrong?”
“And history is always dead-on accurate?” Kris snorted. Though there was doubt still lingering at the corner of his mind just because it was all so inconceivable, he was inclined to believe Mikah. As she pointed out, it was all right there, names and events that she knew, people she remembered. There was no chance that it was all a coincidence. So what then?
“I know, Google the Marquess of Ayr.”
