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“There’s no way I could sleep until I’ve looked around this place, Finlay—I’m way too curious and excited.”

 
    “A FTER YOU,” F INLAY SAID, OPENING THE DOOR AT THE foot of the tower house.
    The windows were so small and high that little light was let in, and at first Kate had no idea what sort of space she was walking in to. As her eyes adapted she discerned different shades of shadow, and gradually the shades took on shape and form. Rows of wooden pews flanked a central passage leading to a dais with a simple altar. The ceiling was braced with thick wooden beams, and the walls were lined with dark oak panelling.
    “This is the chapel,” Finlay said in a reverential whisper.
    Kate understood why Finlay’s tone had changed. She’d always thought it seemed more likely that man had created God rather than the other way around, but even so she experienced an almost religious sense of awe as she stood there. Grand churches and cathedrals distracted a congregation with the glories of their architecture and artistry; this plain, dimly-lit little place left a person with nothing to think about but God, and seemed far more holy as aresult. Pointing to a double door on the right, barely distinguishable from the panelling it was set in, Finlay said, “The banquet hall’s through there, if you want a look.”
    Kate followed him through a slender, slanting shaft of sunlight, their footsteps echoing on the flagstones as they made their way along the rear of the chapel and up the narrow passage between the end of the pews and the panelled wall.
    Finlay opened the double doors to the banquet hall and stood aside to let Kate enter. She hesitated before doing so, as enchanted by what lay in front of her as she had been when she opened the door in the outer wall and caught her first sight of Greystane. “Finlay,” she whispered, “it’s amazing!”
    The ceiling was dominated by a chandelier which wouldn’t have looked out of place in the ballroom of a grand hotel. It hung over a long table, which had at least thirty antique chairs around it. Their legs were elegantly bowed, their upholstery a plummy velvet. The far wall was taken up by a tall fireplace, above which hung a round leather shield crossed by two rusty old basket-hilted broadswords. Sunlight streamed through the deep-set windows in the long wall to the right, while the opposite wall was lined with oil portraits in ornate gilt frames.
    One picture in particular caught Kate’s attention. It hung the wrong way around, so that only the blank canvas backing was on display.
    “That’s Jamie’s picture,” Finlay said, following Kate’s gaze. “He was sent off to fight with Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1745 while his older brother stayed at home. Landedfamilies often hedged their bets and backed both sides in those days. Anyway, Charlie’s men were slaughtered at Culloden, a bleak moor not far from here. Jamie was spotted running away from the enemy, not at them, and was never seen again. The story goes that he was too ashamed to show his face in the glen. His portrait was turned to face the wall, and it’s hung that way ever since.”
    “You mentioned a run of misfortune in the family—is the ‘curse’, or whatever you might want to call it, down to Jamie?”
    Finlay shook his head. “Jamie brought shame on himself and disgrace to his family, but not the sort of bitter hatred that lies behind a curse.”
    “If Jamie’s not to blame, then who is?”
    Finlay moved on to the next painting and said, “Him …”
    The portrait showed a weak-jawed man with shifty eyes and strands of ginger hair combed over a balding pate.
    “And especially her.”
    Kate looked at the man’s portrait with little more than passing interest, but caught her breath when she saw the picture hanging next to it. It showed a young woman with shoulder-length blond hair, cold blue bedroom eyes, and a seductive smile. Kate stood rooted to the spot as she stared at the old oil