An orange glow stretched across the city as the stars faded and dawn broke clear and crisp. Robert pushed the door to the house open and ushered Grace hurriedly inside. She slithered clumsily out of the coat, her shoulders straightening as its weight disappeared. Her skirts hung limp and muddy around her ankles as she moved closer to the fire in an attempt to dry the sodden material.
“You are too close to the fire, Grace,” he said, pulling her gently back from the flames.
“Go upstairs and put your old clothes on,” he said.
“I thought you said I wasn’t to wear them again?”
“I did.”
Too tired to argue she nodded and made her way wearily up the stairs to the bedroom. She found her jeans and sweatshirt neatly folded in the chest. The photograph of Jenny lay on the rug beside the backpack, forgotten in the earlier panic. Unable to help herself, her eyes fixed on the picture. Although the image tore savagely at her heart, her body and mind were too exhausted to muster even a sob. Clutching the photograph of her daughter she made her way down the stairs in search of Robert.
Shelves of leather bound books lined the walls of the room in which Grace found him. The metal box sat open on a desk which she recognized instantly. He smiled up at her as she entered the room.
“Warmer now?” he asked as she came to stand beside the desk.
“Yes, thank you,” she said, softly holding her hands out to the flames of the fire, “What are you going to do?”
His finger rested on a piece of paper which he slid across the desk toward her. Her eyes scanned the familiar words.
‘To be of the finest quality with exact dimension to ensure the absolute comfort of my dearest wife.’
“Is there anything you would like to say to Kate?” he said, lifting the quill and dipping it lightly in the ink well.
“I don’t understand,” she said, watching his hand as it carefully crafted letters on a sheet of paper. Intent on the words he was writing, Robert didn’t answer. Finally when he had finished writing he turned the page to her.
Dear Kate,
This is Robert Hamilton. I hope you don’t mind the intrusion and please forgive me for any inconvenience this desk or I may have caused you. I write to you in urgency about a matter of extreme importance regarding Grace’s daughter, Jenny. Enclosed with this letter is Grace’s cell. May I be so bold as to request that you deliver this item to Harry Hamilton without delay, along with one of the two leather pouches? The remaining pouch is for you, in compensation for any trouble this desk and I may have caused you.
Yours most sincerely
Robert and Grace Hamilton
Grace stared wide eyed up at him.
“It’s brilliant,” she whispered.
He lifted the note off the table, folded it in half and placed it neatly in the box.
“No, wait,” she cried as he was about to close the lid. “Pass me the cell?”
“What’s wrong?”
“The battery, I need to take it out of the cell or it won’t work in four hundred years time.”
He raised his brow in question but didn’t voice it. That, he thought could wait for another day.
Robert watched as she slid a sheet off the back of the cell. He noticed the slight tremble of her hands and resisted the urge to help her. He had no understanding of her world and reasoned that there was little he could do to help. Clipping a finger nail into the device she levered what appeared to be a thin metal block out of the cell and dropped it onto the desk. He assumed this must be the battery.
She laid the cell in the box, without the battery, and slowly closed the lid.
“It’s ready,” she said, resting her hand protectively on the cold lid of the box.
“Do you need to make a false bottom for the drawer?”
“No.”
“But I told Kate there was a false bottom to the drawer. She won’t find the box,” she said, starting to panic.
“She will find it Grace. There is already a false bottom to this drawer.”
He watched her visibly relax as he lowered the box into its hiding place. It seemed almost incomprehensible that this box would remain undisturbed, for nearly four hundred years. He prayed a silent prayer that it would be found in tact by Kate and provides the help Jenny needed.
“Thank you,” she whispered, as he pushed the drawer closed.
“My pleasure.”
“Robert, we’ve forgotten the legs of the desk?”
“No, we haven’t.”
“We have. In the future the desk appears shorter and smaller.”
He smiled knowingly down at her.
“That won’t be a problem,” he said, starting to clear the desk of its content.
“Do you have a saw?”
“I don’t need one, Grace. This desk was made when I was in exile with the king. It was designed to come apart for easy transportation. The legs are in two parts and the pedestals slide apart.”
Within minutes Robert had altered the desk to a smaller, shorter piece of furniture. Grace stared, mouth open at it.
“All those years the world believed you had this made for your wife and it was just a piece of furniture you carried around Europe,” she said, not bothering to hide the disappointment in her voice.
He bent and kissed her lightly on the cheek before dropping on one knee in front of her. He took her hand gently in his and trailed his lips over each finger.
“My dear Grace,” he said, taking her left hand in his, “would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
She stared down at him in shock.
“But I’m already... married,” she whispered.
“Not in this time you are not.”
She considered her marriage vows to Jack. She had pledged her life to him in front of God. But then hadn’t she broken that pledge the day she left him? Was the act of divorce the sin, or was it remarriage that God condemned? She had already committed the gravest of sins by sharing Robert’s bed. Did this mean that she was doomed to an eternity of hell? Her mind whirled in an ever more confused jumble of thoughts. She had broken every oath she had ever made, and now she feared the wrath of God.
Grace dropped her head and met his look. She could see the reflection of her face and the light of the fire in his eyes. She loved this man like she had loved no other. Their souls were bound beyond time. She was meant to be with him. Was it not God who had sent her to his side?
He watched her face as it broke from a look of terror into a beautiful and radiant smile.
“Robert Hamilton, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to become your wife.”
“In which case,” he said, slipping a simple gold band onto her left hand, “may I be so bold as to offer you a desk, customized for you... as a small token of my undying love.”
THE END
How are Grace and Robert connected to Simon and Corran of ‘When Fate Dictates’?
I’d love to tell you, but that would ruin the surprise, so I’m sorry folks, you are just going to have to wait for ‘Entwined’, book three of the Highland Secret Series.
To give you some clues, here follows an excerpt from ‘Entwined’.
ENTWINED
York- 16th December, Modern Day
Kate slid her thumb over the tracker pad, watching as the blue strip highlighted her friends’ names, one after the other. She lifted her thumb off the pad as the strip hovered over Grace’s name. For the past few hours she had been repeatedly dialing the number, but each time the call had gone straight to Grace’s answer phone.
Dropping the mobile on the duvet, she slid off the bed and reached for her leggings and jumper. The iPod docking station on the bedside table told her it was three o’clock in the morning - four hours since Grace had left. It was too late to call the hotel she was staying at, and she couldn’t call the police until she was sure Grace was missing.
Kate shivered as the wind howled past her house. She pulled the curtain aside and stared into the orange glow of the
street light, mesmerized by frantic flakes of snow as they whipped around its outer glass cover. Her fears were totally justified; Grace had promised to call her when she got back to the hotel and she hadn’t. Cursing for not insisting that her friend catch a taxi home, Kate grabbed her beanie and gloves and made her way downstairs.
She struggled to stand as the wind pounded her unmercifully. She ducked her head against the icy blast, gasping a quick breath before facing the oncoming wind again. Deep banks of snow rose up the side of buildings narrowing her passage to an almost impassable gap between the drifts. Blindly she stumbled through the city hoping with every trudging step that her friend was tucked up in bed, dreaming of her haunting Cavalier. Exhausted, Kate sought shelter in the recess of a doorway. Her leggings clung to her calves like frozen limpets and her legs burnt painfully now that she had stopped moving. Lifting her fingers to her mouth, she caught the woolen tip in her teeth and pulled the sodden glove from her hand. She watched the sign of the Cavalier Hotel swaying in the wind. She raised her head to the window of her friend’s room, hoping to see a flicker of light or movement of life. Her eyes streamed with tears as the lashing wind stung her face. Blinking furiously she tried to clear the watery fog. Her look fixed intently on the panes of glass, but the glazed section of the window offered her no reassuring sight.
A wave of impending doom washed over her as she left the shelter of the doorway and plunged once again into the open street. A curtain of snow fell steadily before her in a never ending stream of white. Kate lost her footing and stumbled, steadying herself against the base of a streetlight. Her breathing was shallow and painful, her mind clouded and confused. Her legs felt unsteady and weak as tiredness crept into every muscle and bone of her body. She closed her eyes against the pounding wind and rested her head heavily against the icy pole. Through the whirl of confusion, Kate understood that she had to find shelter. Willing her body and mind from its stupor, she took one deep burning breath and dragged herself from the pole. She swayed unsteadily on her feet but remained upright enough to stagger her way down Stonegate. With reason and direction long since lost, instinct drove her to Harry’s pub where finally, overcome with exhaustion, she collapsed heavily in the deserted courtyard.
Unable to sleep and painfully aware of the conversation that day break would bring, Harry slid out of bed and walked slowly to the window. His fingers drew the curtains aside and then tensed on the cloth. He blinked in an attempt to focus his eyes, certain he had caught a glimpse of something moving in the shadows of the courtyard. Cursing, he let the curtain fall and reached for his coat.
“Simon...”
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Elizabeth Marshall is the writing alter ego of a lady born in St Mary’s Hospital, at the Marianhill Monastery, in the province of Natal, South Africa and was brought up in a small, rural Natal village surrounded by a large Scottish farming family.
Her primary education was delivered by Nuns from the monastery in which she was born. Through secondary school into adulthood, Elizabeth’s life centered on a love of music, reading, writing and history.
After Elizabeth married she settled in the UK with her husband. She has worked at the Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School in England, Nottingham Social Services in England and is currently a Director of an IT Project Management Consultancy.
Elizabeth lives in the city of York, England with her husband and children. She spends her spare time with her head in a book or her fingers on the keyboard writing one.
‘Highland Secret Series’ by Elizabeth Marshall
Book One - ‘When Fate Dictates’
Book Two - ‘Beyond Time’
Book Three – ‘Entwined’
Also in the ‘Highland Secret Series’
‘Whispers In The Dark’
Book Four – ‘Rising’ due to be released soon.
Find Elizabeth Marshall online.
Website: elizabethmarshallwrites.com/
Twitter: twitter.com/@em_writes
Facebook: facebook.com/emwrites
Email:
[email protected] Amazon Author Page: amazon.com/Elizabeth-Marshall/e/B005DXY8LQ
Amazon Author Page: amazon.co.uk/Elizabeth-Marshall/e/B005DXY8LQ/
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Elizabeth Marshall, Beyond Time (Highland Secret Series)
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