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"By the saints!" Sir Alec said at the same time, his eyes wide as he stared at Raphael.
"Ooh," breathed the disheveled woman. She looked from one man to the other. " 'Tis like seein' twins!"
"My boy!" Sir Alec shouted, enveloping Raphael in a bear hug.
Chapter Three
"ERM…" RAPHAEL WAS OBVIOUSLY TOO DISCONCERTED BY THE fact that he was being hugged by an Elizabethan ghost to rally much along conversational lines. "Do I know you?"
"Ye're the very image of me when I was a lad," Sir Alec answered. "Ye can be no other but the spawn of my loins!"
"Didn't you say you had Scottish ancestry?" I asked Raphael as I continued to marvel at the ghost. He had a beard, but it was close-cropped enough to make out the shape of his jaw. He had the same stubborn chin as Raphael, the same strong jaw, wide brow, and brown curly hair. Even their eyes were the same, a tawny amber that I knew could glow with molten heat, or glitter with cold intent.
"Yes, but way back. My mother's family. They weren't named Summerton, though."
"Ye've the look of me! Of course ye're my kin!" Sir Alec crowed, giving Raphael another hug. "Grizel, 'tis one of my descendants, come back to the ancestral home!"
"How d'ye do," the woman answered, bobbing a little curtsy at us. "Pleasure to meet ye."
"You, I take it, are Sir Alec's second wife?" I asked. Grizel nodded, a faint blush visible on her cheeks despite the dim light and her transparency. I eyed her curiously, expecting to see a much harsher woman, the type who wouldn't mind coming between a man and his wife. But this woman was fresh-faced, bearing an air of i
"This lovely is Grizel, the light of my heart," Sir Alec said proudly, wrapping his arm around her and hauling her up to his side. "She's not related to ye, though, more's the pity. I only had one brat, and she was off the she-witch who was my first wife."
His expression turned sour as he spoke. Grizel elbowed him, whispering, " 'Tis not fittin' to speak ill of the dead, husband."
Sir Alec suddenly gri
"Oh, aye," she giggled. "I'm ever forgettin' that."
"She's soft on the eye, but a bit light in the head," Sir Alec said fondly, giving his wife a squeeze to take the sting out of the comment. "Now then, ye'll be wantin' to have a tour of the castle, won't ye? I'll be happy to show it all to ye… all but the Stone Room."
"Oh?" Raphael and I exchanged glances. I cleared my throat. "Er… why not the Stone Room?"
Sir Alec shot me a sharp look. "The laird's stone is there. The stone was cursed centuries ago, and so long as it's kept in peace, so will be the happiness of the men of Fyfe."
"But we're not from Fyfe," I argued.
"He's the spittin' image of me!" Alec said, nodding toward Raphael. "I ca
"How so?" I asked as we started down the hall.
" 'Tis the curse, lass. The Thane of Fyfe shadowed be, thrice around the stone bound; in its light, the devil can see, and the beast within be found."
"What does that mean?" Raphael asked, frowning as he tried to puzzle it out.
"Any man of Fyfe who sets his hands upon the stone will be forever changed," Alec answered with a meaningful look.
"Oh? What about the women?" I asked.
He shrugged. "Only the lady's stone affects them, and even if the laird's stone would, they don't know where the Stone Room is. It's a secret room, ye ken, its location told only to the ruling master of Fyfe and his heir."
"I know where it is," Grizel said suddenly.
"Ye're daft woman. Ye don't."
"I do," she insisted. "I saw you go into it from the privy not long after we were wed. You counted five stones up from the floor, five stones over from the door, and five stones in from the corner. The back wall of the privy swung open, and you disappeared into it. I was going to tease you about it when you came back out, but that was last I saw of you until…"
Grizel's smile faded as she looked away, her fingers fretting the material of her skirt.
" 'Tis all right, lass. We died together, and we'll stay together for all eternity," Sir Alec said, his voice gruff as he comforted his wife.
Raphael exchanged another glance with me. I could see he was as hesitant as I was about the whole thing. "I think we'll take a rain check on the tour of the castle, if you don't mind," I told the two ghosts.
Sir Alec looked crestfallen until Raphael told him we were on our honeymoon.
"Oh, then ye'll be wantin' a bit of privacy," he said with a wink. "Grizel and I are still on ours, as well. It's goin' on for five hundred years now, but she's still as saucy as a minx! Ye go and have a wee cuddle with yer wife, and I'll be doin' the same. Come here, ye redheaded Eve!"
"Ye'll naught catch me until I say ye can!" Grizel squealed and leaped away, racing down the hall into the shadows, a gri
I looked at Raphael. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Probably. Where did Fiona say the old laird's quarters were?"
"Somewhere on this floor. I'd guess below our rooms. But Raphael…" I bit my lip, hesitant to put into words a worry that had nagged me ever since I'd spoken with Lily.
"You don't want to destroy the stone," Raphael said, trying the door to one of the rooms. It was locked. He moved on to the next one. "I figured you wouldn't."
"No, it's not that. That is, yes, that's part of it—Fiona may have said that there was no family living, but they obviously missed your side of the family."
He shook his head and tried another door. "I told you—my Scottish ancestry is quite small, a great-times-ten grandmother, or something like that. Even if she was someone related to Sir Alec, by now the ancestry has been diluted with good old English stock."
"Sweetie, you look just like him," I said, pointing out the obvious. "No wonder Lady Lily thought she recognized you. I wish she'd told us it was her husband you resembled, but I guess if she hadn't seen him in several hundred years, she probably forgot just what he looked like."
"It doesn't matter. This situation is due to genetic coincidence, nothing more. Ah, this one is open." He stuck his head into a room, reaching around for a light switch. Dim light flooded a room empty of all furniture, but containing several boxes of what appeared to be dry goods for the restaurant located on the main floor. "This looks promising. Where would the privy be, do you think?"
"Lily said there was one co
"I'll be perfectly safe, sweetheart. Do you see anything that looks like a privy?"
With much foreboding, I pointed toward a small alcove off the main room. As privy's went, this one was fairly small, more a tiny little closet with a long open shaft in the center of the floor. A board had been laid across it for safety purposes, which Raphael skirted as he squatted next to the back of the stone wall. "Five up, five in, five over," he murmured to himself as he tapped on stones. One of them made a dullish sound, which turned into a low rumble when he put all his weight into pressing on it. "Et voilà! Your secret passage, milady."
The air that swirled out of the passage around us didn't smell foul or unclean, but my nerves were still all on end. "I doubt there are lights down there."