Page 102 of The Secret Castle in the Highlands

My mouth opened and closed.

‘Go on,’ Mason urged. ‘You deserve it. You never gave up on the Scarlet Highwayman.’

Doubts surfaced, threatening my optimism. ‘But what if there’s nothing in there? What if the pendant is missing?’

Mason flicked one eyebrow. ‘Well, you’re not going to know until you open it up.’

I fiddled again with my hair. This could be a major disappointment for us after everything.

‘Poppy,’ warned Mason.

‘Okay, okay!’ I breathed, reaching for the lid. It let out a petulant squeak, followed by a creak as it eased back.

Inside the musty interior nestled an ornament of gold, coiled up as if it were asleep. Come to think of it, I suppose it had been. I hooked in one finger and withdrew it, bringing the horseshoe pendant out and lowering it onto my trembling palm. In the evening glint of sun, it shimmied and twisted.

Tears clustered at the corners of my eyes. ‘Thank you. You’ve done it.’

‘No. We’ve done it,’ whispered Mason as he pressed a soft kiss against my lips. ‘We still don’t know the true identity of the Scarlet Highwayman, though.’

He eased the jewellery box closed, and I sat there beside him, marvelling at the loop of the gold pendant that spun around my finger. Again, I took in the rose carvings on the lid. I sat up straighter and then tugged my mobile out of my back pocket. They were familiar. I’d seen them before somewhere… Wait!

‘What are you looking at, Poppy?’

An image parked itself in my head. ‘Of course!’ I burst out in a frenzy of relief. ‘Those flowers. They’re the same ones I photographed at McKerron Castle so I could paint them.’

Another thought lodged itself in my mind about the tangled roses.

Under Mason’s puzzled gaze, I pulled out my phone and searched for the Rose Mount Royal Orchestra, hoping against hope that my assumption was right.

I scrambled to my feet in a most unladylike fashion, pulling an alarmed Mason with me. ‘We need to check something out. Come on and bring the jewellery box with you.’

We arrived at Port Starr cemetery as the sun was disappearing into the skyline.

Mason held Georgina’s jewellery box. ‘Where are we going?’ he asked, but I didn’t answer. I was too busy charging ahead up the gravelled path. The assorted headstones planed and arched and there was an occasional burst of evening song from a blackbird in the trees.

My trepidation started to rise. What if I was wrong? What if I was making a mistake? But that carved design on the lid of the jewellery box was unmistakable.

I rounded the path and took a few more steps. There it was.

‘Can I have the box, please?’ I asked Mason, my breath quickening.

He handed it to me and watched as I moved around to the rear of the headstone. I had no idea if there was something else there, but we had to check. It would be dreadful if we missed something. I hunkered down and pushed away the out-of-control heather that was forcing its way across. My eyes scanned the twinkly grey granite before settling on a small carving of two intertwined roses that had been engraved into it about four feet from the top.

I beamed up at Mason as I touched the carved roses ingrained there. Then I lifted up the jewellery box.

Mason’s eyes followed mine. ‘It’s the same design.’

‘I think we’ve found the Scarlet Highwayman.’ I shook my head, emotion surging through me. ‘It wasn’t Blake Summers.’

He dropped down beside me at Gideon Kelly’s grave. ‘How did you work it out?’

‘I remembered the mention of Gideon being a member of the Rose Mount Royal Orchestra and I just had a look at their website when we found the jewellery box. That emblem is almost identical to theirs. It also matches what I saw at McKerron Castle and the jewellery box he gave Georgina.’

Mason’s eyes drifted to the carving on the headstone and a broad smile broke out on his face. ‘Well, well. So, Gideon Kelly, music tutor to Oscar Lapley, was the Scarlet Highwayman.’

A contented warmth spread through me. ‘When I saw that lid, I knew I recognised that same carving from McKerron Castle. Remember, I took a photo of them.’ I swiped to the picture from a few weeks ago. ‘I spotted the carving in one of the bricks when we visited Eliza Compton together and I remembered thinking how beautiful it was.’

My attention swivelled between the carving on the gravestone, the impression on the jewellery box and the picture on my phone. The image of the wide, fluttering petals of the two roses, their stems wound together, shone out of the greystone and up into my face. ‘I took the picture and decided I wanted to paint a version of it. It really is the same on all three, isn’t it?’