Page 186 of The Defiant Curse

“Oh, my God! She didn’t want to play cover for Duncan! You know…she wanted to have her own family!” she said, telling them about how Catherine begged to be set free.

Elizabeth went there.

“Again, that’s why him telling Ceit to go doesn’t make sense. If he was willing to marry again, especially if Oison was blackmailing him, Duncan wasn’t willing to risk Ciarán and their secret. It doesn’t make sense to toss one woman out to get the sister. Something had to happen to draw Oison here, and I’d bet my booty it was some good old-fashioned envy. Did Duncan have money?” she asked.

They all nodded.

“There are only a few reasons people commit murder. Lust, greed, or they are cuckoo.”

Somewhere in the castle, they heard a door slam.

And Michael knew what it was.

“That would be the crypt,” he said. “I think we’re about to have issues again inside, and not just a falling painting. I think we fucked this up, thinking it was solved when we didn’t even come close. Ceit still isn’t at rest because we missed all of this.”

The lights flickered again.

Oh, boy.

It was a bad time to be right, but the castle’s reaction said it all.

Because she wasn’t a fan of the dead, the ones that haunted a place, Elizabeth moved closer to Ethan, and he wrapped his arm around her waist.

He knew she hated shit like this.

Not the solving.

The woo-woo.

“I got you, Baby,” he said, holding her protectively. “Finish up, Gabs,”

She did.

“Anyway, her second husband dies, leaving her in poverty. She comes home, home being here, and begs him to take her back. He does, and right after, someone tells the church he’s gay, and how to get to him. Apparently, Catherine, since Duncan found out that she was the rat, wanted to ensure her child had a good life. She’d sold Duncan out so that the priest would say the wedding was never annulled, giving her the estate and the Granndach legacy.”

That was shitty.

“That’s terrible. He gave her a life here. Was he horrible to her?”

They all shook their heads.

“By all accounts,” Graham offered, “he protected her, gave her a good life, and didn’t bother her. All he wanted was to have Ciarán by his side, and to be happy.”

Yep.

Terrible.

Elizabeth didn’t buy for one second that Catherine hadn’t burned her sister, since they knew she burned Duncan.

A snake was a snake was a snake.

PERIOD.

“How did his lover die?” Ethan asked, enthralled with this whole story of intrigue and vengeance.

Gabby shared.

“Ciarán heard them approaching, as he was a light sleeper, and he woke up just as someone was about to stab the fuck out of his lover. Ciarán put his body over Duncan’s, saving him, but dying in the process.”