An Untimely Romance: A Time Travel Romance (23 page)

Frank sat in thought.
“My memory deceives me so, as to the trigger, and whose finger, though it may
always have been a possibility of being my own, for what had I to live for?” 

Heather couldn’t bear
the thought, for she knew both Anna and Mr Clements had motives of their own,
so it could have been either one of them.

“The rejection you
passed on my proposal in such a cruel, unfeeling manner, I can still hear the
words you insulted me with.”

She looked down,
ashamed. “Yes, and they are for me to live with, and have haunted me ever
since.”

 No, not in your
lifetime
, she thought, remembering her words. How
could she?

“You see, before the
bullet made contact, life was kind and time granted me a pardon, so I travelled
forwards to your time, and, my dear, we met, on the bridge.”

Heather laughed, taken
back to one of her earliest recollections of Frank.

“So in your eyes we’d
already shared those intimate moments by the lake,” she said, slowly beginning
to understand how the events in time had played out for Frank.

“Yes, I remember
meeting you on the bridge that day, showing you round the manor. You were only
a step away from being a stranger, yet you kissed me on the staircase.” A warm
feeling welled up inside her as she spoke. “I guess to you we had already been
more than acquainted, hadn’t we?”

She grinned cheekily.

“Yes, Miss Richardson,
my duty to you as chaperone in Snowdonia was not to leave you alone with that
undesirable.”

She giggled at Frank’s
description of Ruben.

“You never said
goodbye; when I woke the following morning, you’d disappeared.”

“This I cannot account
for, as time has a strange plan from which I have no way of being released.”

“So where does this
leave us?” Heather questioned. “Will time ever allow us to be together?”

“This I cannot answer,
I am here and bring with me a warning. Tonight, Heather, is the night you die;
I know this to be true, as I have seen it for myself in visions.”

“How and where?
Frankie, it can’t be true. I know you wouldn’t let anything happen to me.”

“You must listen and
heed what I say, I have no way of saving you in your own time. As we speak, the
masquerade plays on, and Anna and I are heading towards the staircase. We have
but a small window, a scarce opening in time. You must let yourself fall back
into the nineteenth century, giving me the opportunity to save you; in return,
you shall save me. In doing so our fate will be sealed, the cause of our demise
only a memory lost in time.” His face deadly serious, he continued. “There
would never have been a gunshot, therefore I would not have travelled forward.
Leaving me no recollection of my part in the twenty-first century...” His voice
softened, and he smiled. “My love, we shall live out the rest of our days
together in the nineteenth century.”

Heather backed away.
“But what about my family, my mum and dad? We can’t live our lives centuries
apart.”

“I am afraid you are
not understanding me. There really is no other option,” he said, helping her to
her feet. “I must go; time waits for no one.”

“Please don’t leave me,
Frankie, I’m scared.”

“You have no need to
be. You know where to find me, and I am waiting.”

“Are you a dream,
another vision? Please hold me, Frankie. I need reassurance that you are real.”

He held her face softly
between his hands; she could feel the warmth of his touch, the familiarity of
his lips against hers.

“Get your filthy hands
off her, you bastard!”

Heather jumped back and
saw Ruben’s face crazed in anger as he crossed the bridge, hurrying towards
them.

“Out of my way!” he
shouted as he barged past Heather, who could see from his expression that his
pride was hurt. “And wipe him off your face. You disgust me!” Frank and Ruben
stood, their faces only inches apart. “How dare you touch my girl? I’m going to
kill you!”

Frank held his
composure, a gentleman to the end. Ruben’s fist struck out, and sent Frank reeling
at the force of his blow. Ruben’s anger not subsiding, he went in for a second
and third.

“No, Ruben, get off
him, leave him alone!” Heather pleaded, pulling him back.

Turning, his eyes met
with hers.

“You needed time away
to think?” he mocked. “No, Heather, you needed time away to cheat. Well, bitch,
I’m still waiting, and you’re going to give me the answer I want to hear, now,
tonight. No one takes what’s mine!” his voice thundered, turning towards Frank,
who had gone and was nowhere to be seen.

“You pussy! That’s it,
run, run away, coward!”

Without a second to
waste, he grabbed Heather’s wrist.

“And you’re coming with
me!”

“Ruben, you’re hurting
me!” she cried as he dragged her, stumbling, towards the manor, ignoring her
pleas for release.

The gardens lay in
darkness, the party well and truly over. His fingers tightened forcefully,
pulling her up the steps and opening the front door. Only the odd candle lit up
the hallway. Her steps faltering, the staircase threw her off balance as they
began their ascent. Heather’s eyes were drawn towards the hall and a ghostly
masquerade; unheard melodies played, though only in her head. Two silhouettes
rose elegantly from the hallway.

Reaching out her free
hand, she gasped, realising they were those of Frank and Anna.

“Frankie...” she cried
out.

“How can you call for
him when you’ve got me?”

Though his voice was
angry, she watched his eyes drowning in sorrow. Heather realised then that
Ruben did love her, just as much as she loved Frank, her Mr Boswel.

“Ruben, I’m so sorry.”
She’d never spoken truer words; she could feel his pain. 

“If you’re really so
sorry...” He paused on the top stair, looking down into her eyes. “Choose.”

A couple of steps
below, teetering on the edge, Heather felt a strange mix of emotions. She
turned again, an inner sense calling her. The silhouettes had now taken on
their own life-like appearance, and the masquerade danced on. On seeing
Florence and her Mr Cox, she couldn’t help but smile; such a jolly couple. The
nineteenth and twenty-first centuries were merging, and with them her one love,
seen by only her eyes, confronted by Frank and Anna’s reality as they stood
hand in hand, walking towards her up the staircase.

On reaching the stair
below, Frank’s eyes wandered from Anna towards the landing. Stopping, he
gasped, and with immediate recognition, his face lit up.

“Miss Richardson, you
came back,” he said, and released Anna’s hand, her cold eyes boring into
Heather’s.

Anna passed her with an
abruptness in her manner as she proceeded to the top of the staircase, a
shoulder width away from Ruben, though neither aware of each other’s existence,
as they were literally centuries apart.
Oh shit, Ruben
, Heather thought.
Though in turmoil, she knew he deserved an answer. Yet she felt unsure about
telling him her true feelings and intentions.

Composing herself
slightly, she breathed in deeply before speaking.

“Ruben, it’s always
been Frank; he’s my past, present and my future. He’s my life, so I could never
bring myself to marry you.”

Ruben’s face hardened,
though with a sadness in his eyes.

“If you want him so
badly, then go to him; he’s welcome to you.” His grip on her loosened.

Her eyes moved to
Anna’s, a madness apparent in the servant’s glare.

“Get out, bitch!” Anna wailed
vengefully.

Anna’s love was no more
than an obsessive insanity, and with Ruben’s release came her vendetta, her
longing for retribution. A hand materialized somewhere in time.
Almost in slow motion, Heather felt herself falling.
She caught sight of the
grandfather clock, which chimed just
once ... in two minds, yet her eyes were drawn to its face. Heather gasped, her
arms flailing as she tried to steady herself, though totally missing her
footing and her balance lost as she teetered on the stair. Face-to-face with a
darkened vision, Ruben took on a transformation of his own as he began to fade
to an unreality. He reached towards her, for her hand, but his efforts were in
vain. Stumbling, momentarily he too must have felt that awful sense of falling.
For a brief moment, Heather hung balanced between two worlds. Whether a
premonition or a silhouette, she couldn’t be sure, but Beth’s presence appeared
on the landing, stabilising Ruben’s footing, like she had always seemed to
stabilise his life. Heather felt a kind of relief, somehow knowing they’d both
be okay.

“I’m coming home,
Frankie,” she whispered.

A menacing aura emitted
an unearthly chilling cry from nowhere specific, piercing Heather’s ears like a
knife before evaporating like the early morning mist. Then, time lost in an
all-consuming slow motion, she picked up on the echoing tick coming from the
antique grandfather clock, which intensified with each simultaneous movement of
its pendulum. Both hands rested once again on the number one, the hands moving
slowly in reverse. She looked down at her body, clad in the ivory ball gown.
All the visions she’d seen taking place were like a never-ending circle.

“I shall never let you
fall. Never...” were the next words Heather heard, and startled back to reality
she felt the support of two strong arms holding her tightly.

As Frank’s face nestled
into her neck, with a slight tilt of her head his lips met with hers in a soft
yet passionate kiss. She could feel his teeth pressing against hers with
intensity, his kiss filled with emotion.

“I love you, Frankie,”
she murmured, “and the answer to your question is yes.”

~•••~

The following morning at Freesdon Manor
was a very sad one. Ruben bent his head to sit in the waiting police car, while
Beth, her face ashen, put her arm around his shoulder as they were driven away.
There were so many unanswered questions surrounding Heather’s disappearance.
What a birthday for both Faye and Walter, for the night of their daughter’s
eighteenth was the night they lost their little girl. The key for her new car still
lay in its little box, and as for New York, it would just have to wait.

“Maybe we’ll stay
another week or two,” Amy said, as if trying her best to placate her grieving
parents, her supportive arms leading them back to the annex. “I know Heather,
and she won’t have gone far.”

The kitchen door closed
behind them. Dannika, too young to understand the enormity of the situation,
played alone on the stairs. She looked up and was greeted by a portrait of the
handsomest of men, his jet-black hair in waves; seated by his side was a
beautiful young woman, heavily with child. Being the tender age she was, with a
child’s intuition, she smiled; it was as if she just knew, though that was her
secret, and hers alone.

A replay of a memory
trapped in time, played out once more, though on this occasion for Dannika. A
menacing aura emitting an unearthly chilling cry from nowhere specific, yet
piercing her ears like a knife, before evaporating like the early morning mist.
Dannika covered her ears, watching a silhouetted figure falling from the
staircase. A female form cloaked in a white gown lay lifeless, the staircase an
obvious journey to her death.

“Aunty Heather?”

She watched the
faceless figure pull itself to its feet, and walk back up the stairs and onto
the landing, the portrait being its final destination.

“No,” she said,
smiling; the figure was not of her aunt.

She watched as a
darkened orb appeared, floating behind two very happy smiles.

Frank had been there to
catch Heather when she fell, and likewise Beth for Ruben, but there were no
hands to catch Anna that night when she fell. Her soul was not meant to be
saved, forever lost in an endlessness of time. However, there was one thing
time could not erase. Dannika smiled as a small clear glass marble landed by her
feet. She picked it up, admiring it. You see, the memory of that one little boy
who wanted a life, in whatever way, was going to make sure that was what he
got, but that’s another story, for another day.

So, life continued for
Heather’s parents, though now it was no more than mere existence, as day after
day they grieved for what used to be; two inconsolable souls waiting for
someone who unfortunately would never come home. So from that untimely day to
this, the doors of Freesdon Manor remain closed.

End... Book 1

D
ear Reader,

Thank you so much for reading. We cannot
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J & L
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e would like to start off by thanking our
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And finally, a massive thank you to Jeff
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An Untimely Romance
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Thank you so much.