Chapter Thirty-Four

Raventhorn, end of April

‘Lorna, they’re here at last! Come and have a look!’

Rosalie swung the front door open and ran down the steps just as three pink minibuses drove up the lane and parked in front of Raventhorn.

‘I can’t believe it! They’re beautiful.’ She was so excited she almost skipped around the vehicles.

She’d seen them in the workshop in Dundee before, of course, but today was different. Today was her Love Buses’ first day on the road.

She waved at the drivers. Duncan waved back, the others – a middle-aged woman called Aisla, and Duncan’s nephew Hamish –cheered and beeped in return. The sound effects made her smile. It was the jingle of her favourite radio station. In a stroke of genius, Marc had approached Happy Baby Radio to ask if they were interested in sponsoring their community bus project. Their answer had been enthusiastic. The radio station had even agreed to sponsor more buses for neighbouring villages, which, like Irlwick, were in dire need of public transport.

‘So, what do you think, boss?’ Duncan asked, leaning out of the window and waving his cap.

‘The buses look wonderful and you’re all very smart,’ Rosalie replied, bursting with pride as she took in the drivers’ dark purple uniform, and the heart logo Fiona had designed. The young woman had also designed the company stationery, posters and all the promotional material.

‘I can’t believe that from today Love Bus is a reality,’ Rosalie remarked when Lorna joined her and the buses tooted again as they left on their respective routes to take their first paying customers.

‘You’ve done well, sweetie,’ Lorna said with a smile. ‘Who would have thought a few months ago that your taxi operation would lead to this?’

‘It’s all thanks to Marc. I couldn’t have done it without him.’

Lorna shook her head. ‘Of course you could have. He may have come up with the investment, but the original idea was yours – all yours.’ She looked around. ‘Where is he, anyway, that gorgeous husband of yours?’

Rosalie smiled. ‘At the loch, with Geoff and the team of divers. They’ve been there since dawn, ready to try again.’

‘They are either very brave … or completely mad.’

‘No, they’re determined to find the chest, and they think they know where to look this time. Geoff never imagined Harald’s chest might be in the ruined hunting lodge in the loch. It was Marc who suggested looking there. He said he got the idea after he thought he saw a woman in the loch.’ She shuddered as she recalled how scared she had been when she’d rescued him from Bran Loch’s icy waters.

‘Geoff says the woman was Isobel,’ Lorna remarked. ‘He says she was always appearing in Corby Woods, and around Bran Loch and Armathiel, and enticing men into the water because she wanted them to retrieve Harald’s treasure so that her darling husband could find peace at last.’

Rosalie shrugged. ‘Whether it’s one of Geoff’s fantasies or not, I must say I’m excited about the divers fishing the chest out of the loch.’

‘I wonder if we’ll see Isobel again after today, or if she’ll vanish forever,’ Lorna said in a dreamy voice. She shook her head. ‘I’ll prepare flasks of tea and coffee, scones and bacon sandwiches for the men. Can you take them down for me?’

‘Of course.’

An hour later Rosalie fetched the basket from the kitchen and made her way to Loch Bran. She could hear the noise of conversations, the clanking of equipment being winched and lowered into the water long before she reached the loch’s shores.

‘Breakfast is ready!’ she announced as she walked onto the pebbly beach.

Half a dozen men, some dressed in jeans and sweaters, others in wetsuits, turned to look at her. Standing head and shoulders above the others, and with the early morning spring sunshine warming his dark blond hair, was the man who made her heart beat faster and her pulse race – the man who made her feel like the luckiest, the most cherished, woman in the world. Her husband.

She still had moments when she couldn’t quite believe she was married to Marc, and there were mornings when she woke up next to him in the big bed in the Crimson Room and wondered if he wasn’t real and it had all been a wonderful dream.

Whenever that happened she would pick up her wedding album, flick through the pages and gaze at the photos. There were some of the vintage white Rolls Royce Geoff had borrowed from a friend to take her to Irlwick’s kirk; of Marc holding her hand after the ceremony, a pink rose pinned on the lapel of his dark blue jacket, to match her flowing pale pink dress; of the magnificent buffet Alice had prepared for the reception at Raventhorn; of the guests dancing, laughing and pulling silly faces, their high spirits no doubt helped by the gallons of champagne, whisky and Angus’s finest ale that had flowed freely until the small hours and the saxophone music played by Marc’s friend Cédric, who had travelled from Paris with several of his musician friends. There were also photos of her honeymoon in Paris and on the French Riviera where she had got to know Marc’s mother, and finally of the beautiful chateau near Bordeaux where they had visited Marc’s other childhood friend from his days at boarding school, Luc Peyrac.

No, she thought as she watched Marc walk over from the loch shore, a happy smile on his lips. It wasn’t a dream. It was real.

He bent down to kiss her and took the basket from her hands. ‘They’ve located the chest at last. They’re bringing it up in the next few minutes.’

‘I can’t believe that after all these years we’re finally about to find out what Harald was carrying,’ Geoff said, rubbing his hands together.

‘Do you still think it was King Ragnar’s raven banner?’ Marc asked him.

‘We’ll soon find out, won’t we?’ Geoff grinned.

‘Whatever it is, there will be no celebratory dram of whisky for you, and certainly no cigar!’ Rosalie waved a warning finger at Geoff.

Although he had now recovered from his heart operation, he was still frail and Rosalie and Lorna kept a close eye on him.

‘Not even a tiny little one?’ he asked with a twinkle of excitement in his blue eyes.

She shook her head. ‘No. You can have a cup of tea with a dash of rum and a slice of lemon because it’s still a little chilly, that’s all.’

‘You’re too hard on me, Rosalie,’ he said with a sigh.

‘They’re coming out!’ Marc walked to the edge of the water as four divers carried a box covered with mud and slime out of the loch.

They put it down on a plastic sheet laid out on the beach.

‘I guess it’s the moment of truth.’ Geoff kneeled down and brushed some of the mud off the cover with a rag before selecting a tool to open the casket. ‘I’m not sure how much will be left after so long in the loch or in what condition it’ll be.’

Marc wrapped an arm around Rosalie’s shoulders and together they stepped closer and bent down to look at the casket. Geoff slid a metal tool carefully along the groove between the casket’s lid and its main body, then tried to prise the box open. The lid didn’t budge.

‘I’m going to need more muscle,’ he said after several attempts. He turned round and gestured to Marc. ‘Look at the pattern on the lid.’

‘They’re birds … ravens.’

‘Just like on Harald’s shield,’ Geoff said.

So this was another link between Marc’s family and Harald, Rosalie thought. Marc had taken her on a tour of the Petersen farm one morning during their stay at the beach cottage. It hadn’t taken long to find the runestone with the same design as Harald’s shield. ‘Geoff thinks this proves you are related to Isobel’s husband,’ Rosalie had told Marc. ‘That’s why he sold Raventhorn to your father, who he said was very interested in finding Harald’s treasure.’

As they were walking back to the cottage Marc had declared that he owed it to his father to fund Geoff’s research. True to his word, he had given Geoff carte blanche to hire a team of archaeologists as soon as he’d got out of hospital. He had even indicated that he might have an idea where to find the chest. It looked like he had been proven right, and now Harald’s chest stood in front of them.

Marc pushed down on the wrench and the lid snapped open.

‘Let me see.’ Geoff bent down, pulled out a pair of gloves from his pocket, slapped them on and sifted delicately though the contents of the box.

‘There’s an awful lot of sediment,’ he said. ‘If the raven banner was ever here, it has degraded so much there’s nothing left. We’ll have to take the chest to the university research centre, of course. They’ll be able to tell us more. Hang on, it looks like there’s something here …’

His face lit up as he brought the small object out of the box and rubbed the mud off it with a cloth. ‘An amulet. Gold, I think.’ He held out his hand to show Rosalie and Marc.

‘What is it?’ Rosalie asked, bending down to take a better look.

‘It looks like a raven,’ Marc answered.

That night, Rosalie couldn’t sleep. Marc was working late, as usual. Even though he had sold off the largest part of Petersen Holdings and appointed Maguire executive manager now that Kirsty had moved to New York with the new firm, he still supervised, monitored and controlled most of the business, and since Geoff had moved into a small cottage on the estate after the wedding, he had turned the library into his own study.

She drew the curtains onto the clear night and stood at the window. The silver moon danced at the centre of the loch’s glassy surface. Darker shadows from Corby Woods laced the edges of the water. Not a breath of wind stirred through the trees, not a sound could be heard outside. The night was silent and still. It was as if it was waiting for something.

And yet she felt restless, no doubt because of the excitement of finding the chest and the beautifully carved amulet. The chest had been sent to the university lab straight away but Geoff had decided to keep the amulet and display it in a glass cabinet in the tower room for now. He had been very pleased to get an email late in the afternoon letting him know that there were traces of fibres in the sediment consistent with the presence of a piece of textile. ‘It was the raven banner, I’m sure of it!’ he had exclaimed.

There was another reason for her unrest – the phone call from Marc’s lawyer earlier that evening, announcing the death in prison of Jake Tyler, stabbed to death by an inmate – a Russian suspected to be on Anatoly Bazanov’s payroll. The lawyer had explained that even though Bazanov was now on the run, he was powerful enough to take his revenge on Tyler for keeping a record of their past association in the diary. Rosalie’s initial reaction – that overwhelming relief at never having to stare into Tyler’s cold blue eyes or listen to his voice ever again – had been mingled by shame at being such a coward.

Tyler may be dead, but his actions – and her mother’s past – would still come up during Rupert’s trial later in the year, since Rupert had been charged with attempted murder and fraud.

Rosalie narrowed her eyes to stare at Loch Bran. Something was moving on the shore. A large black bird. As a piercing shriek resounded in the night, raising goosebumps all over her skin, a disturbing thought crossed her mind. What if Isobel’s raven had just called?

The lights flickered, fizzed and popped, and everything went black. Marc put his pen down and got up from behind the desk. It was the first time in months that the lights had gone off. He would need to have a word about it with the electrician who had rewired Raventhorn. First, of course, he would find a torch and go down to the basement.

Somewhere on the ground floor, a door slammed followed by another one.

‘Rosalie? Is that you?’ he called.

There was no answer. Rosalie had gone to bed hours before and must be asleep by now. But if not Rosalie, then who was banging doors in the castle? Geoff didn’t live here any longer, having given Raventhorn to Rosalie as a wedding present, and Lorna never came at night.

What if it was … Isobel?

He immediately dismissed the thought as ridiculous and made his way down the corridor in the pitch black.

‘Marc! Where are you?’ Rosalie called.

‘Down here,’ he replied. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll fix the lights. Go back to bed.’

‘I can’t. Listen, it sounds crazy but there’s something we need to do.’ Rosalie’s footsteps resounded down the stairs and a few seconds later she was next to him and put her hand on his arm.

‘I took the amulet from the display cabinet. I think we have to take it to the loch.’

He could only make out her silhouette in the darkness. ‘What are you talking about? It’s the middle of the night.’

‘It’s important,’ she insisted as she followed him down to the kitchen.

He opened a drawer, pulled out a torch and switched it on. ‘I’m going to fix the lights and you’re going back to bed.’

He saw then that she had slipped a jumper on top of her pyjamas and had trainers on her feet. Ignoring him, she unhooked the key from the rack and unlocked the door. ‘No. I’m going out, whether you’re coming or not.’

He couldn’t leave her on her own. ‘All right, then.’

She smiled at him, slipped her arm under his and hugged him tightly. He was tired, the air was cold and sharp, yet there was something magical about being out under the shiny stars in the middle of the night.

‘Have you ever wondered about Isobel?’ she asked suddenly, breaking the silence.

‘Why should I think about her? She doesn’t exist.’

That was a lie. He often thought about the hooded woman he’d seen in Corby Woods, on the ruined Armathiel tower, and in the loch. He had even wondered if she wasn’t indeed behind Raventhorn’s sudden power failures, which caused Rosalie to trip and fall into his arms, or the hot dreams that had tormented him for nights on end.

He shook his head. ‘My love, I do understand your passion for mystery and romance, but believe me, there is no Isobel. She and her raven are just a fantasy.’

All was still near the loch. The air, the water, and the woods. Rosalie opened her hand and the amulet glinted in the silver moonlight. She stepped forward, put the amulet on the tree stump that stood on the pebbly beach.

‘What are you doing?’ he protested. ‘You can’t leave this here. It’s a valuable antique.’

‘Geoff will understand. If he is right, Isobel has been looking for Harald’s treasure ever since he was shot dead by an arrow. There’s nothing left of the raven banner but if she has the raven amulet, she might stop haunting the woods and the lochs.’

She pulled on his hand to drag him away. He shrugged, and followed her. He could always come back early the following morning to get the amulet and put it back in the display cabinet.

‘There. They will both be at peace now. Let’s go home,’ she said, and a warm feeling spread inside him.

It still amazed him that he had found somewhere he could call home. And it amazed him even more that the woman he loved with frightening intensity loved him back.

‘Yes, you are right. Let’s go home.’

He turned to look at the loch one last time and the words died on his lips. On the loch shore stood a woman. Only it wasn’t really a woman. It was a mist, a reflection, a cloud in the shape of a woman. It had to be! A raven flew down silently and hopped on the pebbly shore. Its beady eyes gleamed in the moonlight, and in its beak was the amulet.

* The End *

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