Free The Lammas Curse by Anna Lord Page A

water hazard. Hence, the players are being allowed a few
days to practice teeing off and putting and so forth while the
fairways absorb the excess water.”
    “That should suit Miss Dee. She
will have time to try out her new clubs. I hope she wins. It would
be wonderful to have a woman win.”
    “It would be even more
wonderful,” he delivered dryly, “to have the best player win.”

6
Graymalkin

    The words Scottish and castle
in the same sentence always conjured in the Countess’s mind’s eye
an image of something proudly romantic, but Graymalkin was not that sort of Scottish castle. It was a byword for a
bygone time, a time of clannish feuds and warring chieftans, of
brutal Viking invasions and of bloody English insurgencies, a time
of rape and pillage and slaughter, a time when Life was the enemy
and Death was a friend.
    Graymalkin was conceived in
fear, constructed between and betwixt the killings, and was somehow
still standing at the dawn of the twentieth century. It was a
forbidding fortress dramatically and inhospitably perched on a
lonely, windswept, isolated crag that jutted out of the frigid
waters of Loch Maw. It crouched behind a curtain wall of grey stone
like a deformed dwarf, squinty-eyed, crook-backed, pock-marked -
watching, waiting, hulking down, bracing for the next inevitable
onslaught from the hyperborean barbarian to sweep down from the
north and charge across the icy black water, gathering speed and
strength - an enemy that would rip out its heart and drain its
blood and grind its bones.
    The fortress appeared
impenetrable until you spotted the one and only gap in the wall
that led into a cobble-stoned courtyard. Here, could be found a set
of weathered steps that hugged a windowless wall for dear life.
They led to the first floor where all the main rooms could be
found, apart from the kitchens, storerooms and domestic rooms which
were on the ground floor, and the bedrooms which were higher up.
Waiting to greet them at the top of the steps was Mrs Ross. She
looked the spitting image of Mrs Ardkinglas, with her dark hair,
piercing eyes, and stern features, right down to the blowsy and
austere, black widows-weeds. They could have been identical twins -
and indeed they were.
    The fortress had not been
electrified and its reliance on candlelight and wood fires recalled
darker times. There were bare stone walls up to nine feet thick in
some places, numerous corkscrew stairs punctuated with archways
draped with heavy curtains linking different levels and rooms,
designed to confound any invader who managed to make it thus far.
There were also oak floors, blackened beams, stone lintels,
plasterwork ceilings and leaded windows set in niches. The sitting
room boasted a huge fireplace with a mantelpiece carved from a
single piece of granite. Thankfully, there was not a moss-covered
ceiling to be seen and the walls were not dripping with damp.
Tartan featured in most of the furnishings and the walls were hung
with faded Mortlake tapestries and animal portraits of dogs and
deer and horses. The corridors rippled with scold’s bridles and
medieval weapons of war and antlers by the score – and it was here
that the north wind gained entry through every crack and keyhole,
and whistled like a thousand baby banshees schooling themselves for
doomsday.
    Despite this, the Countess fell
in love with Graymalkin the moment she stepped over the threshold,
and Dr Watson felt a lump come to his throat – it was the house of
his boyhood dreams. They spent the day familiarizing themselves
with the layout of the castle, from the dank dungeon gouged out of
the rock right up to the head-spinning ramparts then went for a
short walk to admire the cascading waters of Fickle Beck. Before
they knew it, it was time to dress for dinner. The occasion called
for something luxe – an evening gown in black velvet and pink
satin, embroidered with floral garlands and black lace. It was the
night of the séance at Cruddock