“Before she vanished and was presumed dead. A lot of historians overlook it. They think the contents are trivial because she was writing to a friend in the south, nothing but a woman’s musings that never reached their intended audience.” Ceilidh began placing the silverware packets Riley had prepped. “But it exists. A descendant of the friend found it in the early 1900s and donated it to a national heritage museum. If you take the time and effort to translate the Gaelic, it’s actually a pretty juicy read.”
“Did she mention the curse?” If so, this might be exactly the missing piece Riley needed.
“I’m afraid not,” Ceilidh said. “At least not explicitly. She mostly wrote about Malcolm.” She made her accent higher, more distinguished. “The prisoner vexes me to no end. He refuses to disclose anything useful about his clansmen, instead staring at me with eyes like blazing emeralds, his filthy chest heaving.”
Riley giggled at the impersonation. “Sounds like one of my mom’s Highland warrior bodice rippers from the 1980s.”
“It gets better! Philippa wrote that for a week, Malcolm made not a sound. He would take neither food nor ale—but then one night, as she’s holding a chalice of water to his lips, a wild breeze comes out of nowhere and knocks her hand, spilling the contents down her front. And then—and this is a direct quote—at the sight of her gown plastered to her chest, he growled.”
“He growled?!” And wait a second, a wild breeze out of nowhere? That sounded familiar. Maybe Riley’s jeans going up in flames hadn’t been purely accidental. Did the curse have a hand in both events?
“I swear!” Ceilidh laughed. “It’s all in the letter. Philippa figured out this massive warrior was hot for his enemy and decided to use it to her advantage. She started undoing her hair in front of him, spending hours combing it out, making him watch from where she’d chained him in the dungeons. She would eat wild cherries while he refused his plate, licking her fingers. She even sprayed her perfume on his neck, so every time he inhaled, he’d have to think about her.”
“Wow. This lady is my hero.” Mentally, Riley took notes. “She said, I don’t need to torture my enemy with weapons, I will simply ensure he dies from a lethal case of blue balls.”
“I know. I always get so bummed out thinking about the fact that she must have died shortly afterward.”
According to Clark’s chart, Malcolm had too. “What do they think happened to her?”
“The Graphms didn’t take her warning seriously.” Having finished her prep tasks, Ceilidh wiped her hands on her apron. “It’s sort of classic, men underestimating a woman to their own detriment. They charged the castle. Both she and Malcolm are presumed to have been casualties in the attack.”
“You’ve said ‘presumed’ twice now,” Riley pointed out.
“Technically, their bodies were never recovered,” Ceilidh said. “Not super uncommon, given the time period, but still, I like to think she might have vanished into the hills.” She shook her head. “I never understood why the curse didn’t protect her.”
“She probably didn’t explicitly ask for safety.” Most people didn’t. “Curses are very literal.” Riley didn’t know anyone who had sought one out and escaped unscathed. She stayed in business because the human heart loved nothing so much as yearning.
Chapter Ten
The ends justify the means, Clark told himself as he finished the sketch of the map. The words that had become a mantra over the last twenty-four hours didn’t make him feel any better, but he knew he didn’t have a choice. He’d woken up yesterday covered in sweat and shame, Riley’s name still lingering on his lips. He couldn’t afford to have her around any longer. It was that simple. And that selfish.
After hours of unavoidable contemplation, he no longer thought her a liar—in fact, he’d be the one earning that title after today. Seeing her dedication to research, the range of emotion when she thought she made a discovery—no one could act that well. No. Whether he wanted to or not, Clark now believed that she believed.
And for that reason, the trap he set was a strange kind of mercy. Once she stopped living her family’s fantasy, who knew what she could accomplish. He knew firsthand how hard it was to let go of someone else’s dream for you. In proving once and for all that curses didn’t exist, he would lift the veil on her long-held misconception and set Riley free. At least, that was how he comforted himself.
At the sight of her this morning, striding forward through the mist, guilt rose in his throat like bile.
“Good morning.” He steeled his spine and pulled out the paper intentionally folded to look casual from his back pocket. “As a follow-up to our research, I put something together that I thought might be of interest to you.”
Immediately, suspicion flared across her gaze, her brows lifting. “Oh yeah?”
Clark knew it wouldn’t be easy, selling this story. Despite what Riley might think of him, he’d never developed an aptitude for deception. That’s why he planned to stick as close to the truth as possible, to exaggerate a theory that might—in another universe—hold weight.
“There are rumors of an ancient sacred site in the cliffs below the castle. Several of the texts I collected about this region mention it as a place marked by standing stones, where this land’s earliest inhabitants would go to commune with a higher power—the hidden people, they were called. Many historians assume it as an alternate name for the fae.”
He held out the paper to her, pleased to see his hand was steadier than his roiling stomach. “I made a map of where I think the site might be located based on historic accounts.”
Riley unfurled the paper, taking her time to read Clark’s sketch of the landscape, a path of descent marked winding away from the castle.
“You and your father share a talent for sketching,” she said mildly.
The comment took him aback. Clark had expected her to launch into an inquisition.
“He would draw with me, when I was younger.” He hadn’t thought about that in a long time. It had been ages since he could remember doing anything with his father that didn’t involve a lecture. “It was difficult to bring lots of toys to an expedition, but a pen and something to scribble on were always easy to procure.”
It had felt like the sun on his face, every time his dad had taken a few minutes out of his busy schedule to sit with him, to sketch a volunteer or the fabric of their tents blowing in the wind.
Riley moved to hand him back the map, but he didn’t take it.
“I thought you might want to go with me to explore the area, see if we can turn up anything related to your curse.”
That was the plan—take her on a wild-goose chase. Tell her a perfectly ordinary piece of land was sacred and see if she ran with it. If she did, he’d know she was making it up, inventing pieces to fit her story. At that point, Clark would reveal his deception, and Riley would have no choice but to admit she didn’t know what she was doing.
“I’ve taken the liberty of packing some bags with gear.”
Scaling those cliffs would be no easy feat. He might be a bad person, but he didn’t want her to get hurt.
“Who knows if the weather will hold out”—he winced at the gray sky above—“but I consulted the tide schedule, and we should be all right if we head out soon.”