Page 169 of The Protective Gryphen

“Oh, boy,” she muttered. “What did Curly and Larry do now? Moe tends to know better.”

He snorted.

“There’s a mystery that goes along with this castle. A BIG mystery.”

That wasn’t what she expected to hear.

“What does that mean?” she asked. “Really? You’re being serious?”

He couldn’t help himself.

Ian started telling her.

“There’s this old journal, and apparently, it was destroyed or fell apart.”

She listened.

“I read through the journal, and a knight built this castle for his wife. She was Irish, and it was an arranged marriage. He was Scottish and I imagine so brave.”

Elizabeth was smiling.

Ian sounded happy at last.

“Do tell. What else?”

“Well, he went off to war against the British, and she found out she was with child. Every few days she wrote to him in the journal, thinking he died and she’d never see him again.”

“Okay, and?”

“And the pages were missing. So, we explored the castle, to see if we could find any in the construction. Well, we did. Gryphen and I found some pages in the lower level in the family crypt.”

As soon as it was out of his mouth, she paused.

“Stop. Freeze. What do you mean there’s a crypt in the freaking castle that I never wanted in the first place?” she asked.

He laughed.

“You can’t kill them. You agreed. In fact, you should thank them. This is a cool-ass mystery.”

“I did no such thing, but I happen to love them, so they will live to see the sun set. After the wedding, we shall discuss this. Go on.”

“Anyway, the crypt without the bodies had pages of the journal. The crypt belonged to the wife of the knight who built it.”

She let him tell her everything.

“Well, she’s not buried here. The knight is, and there’s a second set of remains, but they aren’t hers.”

She couldn’t believe this.

“So the castle has unknown remains in the basement? Is that what you’re telling me?”

He was so excited.

“Yeah, and missing ones. This is like your life.”

Unfortunately, she was aware.

“Uh, Callen is going to remove the bodies before I see this place, right? Because as much as I love a dead body, we all know what goes with old castles and crypts.”

---