Leaving the study, he took a back corridor out to the gardens and crossed to the tower, that wicked old ruin haunted by a blackguard, darkened by a curse. As he walked, hands fisted, his heart breaking, he made the most painful decision of his life.
Chapter One
October 1820
The dream again.The woman stood by his bed, gowned in gray wisps, long hair flowing like silver down her back. She whispered a plea or a name—he was not certain. Moonlight threaded between the curtains and sifted through her. As she reached out to him, she vanished. He woke with hand extended.
Sitting up against the pillows, Gavin rubbed a hand over his face. Had he slept one night through since he had returned to the castle? The dreams of the Gray Lady were back after a year or so, and other disturbances had increased.
Though he lived in Edinburgh now, he came often to Braemore as plans to sell moved forward. Recently, he was aware of strange thumps and footsteps; glimpsed shadows or small lights; and saw objects or doors move when they should not. While familiar oddities here, they were becoming more frequent, more insistent.
Fisting a pillow, he stuffed it under his head and sought sleep, soon drifting. Then a whisper began like water, like wind. Opening his eyes, he waited.
Near the ceiling he saw a light, but not from moonlight; the tiny pale glow vanished then. He had seen it in the library a few times. So had Elinor, who insisted it was the Gray Lady.Elinor.He sighed.
A hard thump shook the closed door. He sat up, saw the handle rattle, turn.
“Go away,” he growled. “Leave me be. Leavenow.”
The handle stilled, followed by a long ache of silence.
Then there was a blow so hard against the door that he thought the wood had cracked.
Enough.He’d had days of this—years, generations of this at Braemore Castle, but not so fierce as recently. For generations, family and others claimed to see a Gray Lady in the house, small bursts of light, a gentleman in velvet and long curls descending a stair, and dark shadows in the old tower. Now the disruptions were making a believer even out of him, much as he wanted to resist.
Thump.Gavin leaped from the bed, shirt long against his knees as he strode across the room, grabbed the door handle, and pulled.
The hallway was empty. He craned, looked, but knew he was alone tonight. The housekeeper and staff habitually returned to their homes in the glen, with the laird so frequently away. Besides, they disliked ghosts.
Generally, he fended for himself at Braemore, eating cold suppers and enjoying the solitude to read, prepare lectures, and write. Years in the regiment had trained him to be sufficient unto himself, nor did he have a demanding nature. He was content enough in Braemore’s quiet surroundings among the steep hills a dozen miles south of bustling Edinburgh where he kept a house to be close to the university.
Tonight, he just wanted to sleep. Annoyed, he pounded a fist against the doorjamb, closed the door, locked it, and went back to bed.
The knocking resumed. Throwing off the covers with a muttered curse, he tugged trousers over shirt, boots over stockings, grabbed a waistcoat, took up the beeswax candleburning in a pewter dish, and left the room. He stomped along the corridor and down the steps, letting each determined footfall announce to any door-thumping, handle-turning, whispering apparitions to leave the laird the hell alone.
In his study, he poured a dram of the excellent Highland whisky made by a MacGregor cousin who claimed it was an old faery recipe. The kegs were likely smuggled, but such schemes helped Highlanders. Settling in a comfortable chair, lighting an oil lamp, he took a magazine from those on a table and riffled through it.
What he craved when he was at Braemore was peace. He loved its setting, its history, the steadiness of knowing generations of Stewart ancestors had lived here.
What he did not enjoy were the ghosts of those ancestors. Though he tried to tell himself that imagination conjured odd notions in old places, he could not explain everything here. This latest visit to Braemore was proving that.
Frowning, he sipped the whisky and flipped pages. He enjoyedBlackwood’s Edinburgh Magazinefor its articles on history, philosophy, and so on, and he had written a few pieces himself on aspects of medieval Scotland. Typically, though, he went past the magazine’s fictional pieces.
But in the hour before dawn, as ghosts knocked about upstairs, he turned a page to find a story by E. E. Cameron entitled “A Dark Entity Vanquished.”
Any reminder of Elinor Eva Cameron startled him and brought feelings of regret, remorse, and stubborn remnants of love. He had not shaken those feelings in the months since their engagement ended. Yet surely Edgar, not Elinor, had authored this story. Though Elinor loved the subject, Edgar, a lawyer, often penned articles for Blackwood’s. Here, he had written some phantasmagorical nonsense so popular around Halloween. Gavin read on, resisting thoughts of lovely Elinor,who might never speak to the laird of Braemore again. An engraved illustration depicted a grim hooded figure rising from a tomb. Gavin huffed. Melodramatic but entertaining, the story did not disappoint: a deathly spirit, a harrowing adventure, and a ghoul finally banished to hell.
Yet certain elements were eerily similar to the carryings-on at Braemore. A Gray Lady, an old tower, a prisoner; death and tragedy, but set in another place and time.
In childhood, Hugh Cameron, his staunch friend, had often brought his younger cousins Edgar and Elinor to Braemore, as their grandparents had an estate nearby. The Cameron children had seen or sensed the haunts, so Braemore Castle must have inspired Edgar’s story. That made sense, Gavin reasoned.
He sipped illicit whisky, listened for whatever scuttled about above stairs, tried not to think about Elinor, and read the story again.
Edgar Cameron had given him an idea. If invited here to vanquish a ghost, would Edgar bring his twin sister along?
“We have anoffer for the property,” Hugh Cameron, his friend and solicitor, said. He reached across Braemore’s mahogany desk to hand over pages removed from an envelope. “A generous one. But there are stipulations.”
“Stipulations?” Gavin asked. “Clear the overgrowth, repair the garden wall, demolish that damned tower, and so on?”
