An Untimely Romance: A Time Travel Romance (3 page)

“But this
is
special, baby,” Ruben groaned, past the point of no return. “You want me, and I
want you to give yourself to me. Please...”

He grabbed at her
strapless bra, pulling anxiously at the hooks, trying to release her. Heather’s
urge and desire were so strong, yet reasoning stepped in again and brought her
back to reality. She wasn’t easy; she knew she was better than this.

“If you want me as much
as you say, you’ll wait,” she panted. Her mind was strong, despite her body
raging with lust, every nerve end tingling. But it was a want she knew she’d
have to wait for.

“Wait! How long am I
supposed to wait?” Ruben scowled, angrily pushing her away. “You want me as
much as I want you, so why do you tease me? Why are you acting like a child?”

“I need more, more than
this,” Heather sobbed. “I want you, I want the relationship, I want it all.
It’s only three months till my eighteenth... not that it has anything to do with
age.” She paused, momentarily composing herself and wiping away her tears. “I
want us to get to know each other properly. I want my birthday to be our
special night. I want to give myself to you for the right reasons, not just
because I can. I need you to wait until I’m ready.”

She reached her hand
over, reassuringly touching his shoulder, but Ruben pulled away abruptly,

“I didn’t realise you
were only seventeen ... little girl!” he hissed. “That was a secret you kept damn
close to your chest.” His voice was cold, filled with anger.

“B-b-b-but you never
asked...” Heather stammered sheepishly.

Scowling, he replied,
“What will people think?”

An awkward silence fell
between them as they sat in the hot tub like strangers.

“Well, I suppose you’ve
left me no choice, have you? I’ll wait, I’ll be patient, until you’re eighteen,
that is. I’ll wait because you’re special, my girl. Now go home, Heather, and
stop wasting my time. I can’t deal with you tonight.”

As she got up to get
out of the hot tub, Ruben grabbed her arm, jolting her towards him.

“Don’t ever pull a
stunt like this again,” he snarled between gritted teeth.

Shocked, red-eyed and
confused, she ran into the house, dripping wet and uncomfortable. She shivered,
redressing as quickly as she could before heading for her car. She didn’t stop
to look back, she couldn’t, but she knew things would be better in the morning;
after a good night’s sleep they always were. Still wet, she dithered as she drove
home, trying to retrace their earlier journey. After a few detours, her sense
of direction kicked in, proving fairly accurate, and within an hour she passed
over the cattle grid leading back to the manor.

She pulled up,
breathing a sigh of relief. Was that her phone vibrating? She opened the glove
compartment. A message from Ruben. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to read it
after the night she’d had, though curiosity prevailed and, taking a deep breath
and wiping her tear-stained face, she pressed the keypad.
Soz about tonight,
girl, but what I want I usually get. Ea’s to ur 18th. P.S. you’re one hot b...

“Typical, missing
text,” she cursed, but it didn’t take much for her to fathom what he had meant.

Apart from a florescent
security light, which worked on a timer system, Freesdon Manor lay in complete
darkness. Heather was still shivering as she locked her car, deciding that due
to her lateness she’d take the main entrance on the off chance that either of
her parents were still awake and might overhear her. She felt totally at odds
with herself and the evening’s events, as contradictory thoughts of Ruben were
re-enacted over and over in her mind. The last thing she felt like dealing with
at the moment was an inquisition, and she decided she’d spend the remainder of
the night in one of the manor’s refurbs. All the rooms to be viewed by the
public had undergone extensive historical makeovers to the highest
specifications, and almost all now stood in their oldie-worldy attire, like
time had thrown them back a couple of centuries.

She hurried up the
steps, opened the front door and stepped into the hallway. She felt around for
the small mahogany table to her left, where her dad always left a box of Swan
Vesta matches for emergencies. The manor was lit only by candlelight, either
chandeliers or free-standing candelabras. Heather’s eyes slowly grew accustomed
to the darkness and she located one of the lights. She struck a match and
carefully lit three of its four candles. With heavy legs and an addled mind,
she dragged her tired body up the nearest of the two grand staircases, carrying
the candle.

On reaching the top, a
shard of light manifested itself, orb-like in appearance and growing ever more
intense. She watched in horror, frozen to the spot. A deathly chill hung in the
air, and she wrapped her arms around herself, a cold awkward shiver penetrating
through to her spine. As the orb grew nearer, it circled her in sweeping
motions, as if to intimidate her. Then it paused, before opening like an exotic
fan. The orb began its descent, masking the staircase with its iridescent glow,
then proceeding to light up the hallway before continuing through an open
arched doorway.

Ghostly sounds rose,
echoing through the lower floor of Freesdon Manor. Sweet music flowed like
fingers running across the ivory keys of a piano. Muffled voices and vague
laughter filled the air, and Heather saw darkened silhouettes moving in time to
the music, dancing in pairs to a fading melody, their ghostly forms eerily
brushing the floor. Then a momentary pause as the light withdrew and began its
sinister retreat back up the stairwell, a multitude of apparitions fading away
to once again leave the lower floor in complete darkness.

Unable to move and
almost too scared to breathe, Heather stood rigid, in a cold sweat, the light
holding its own inhabitants, their form taking on the blurred image of two
figures hand in hand. She felt an unbearable coldness, like nothing she had
ever felt before, almost like an out-of-body experience. The figures didn’t
pause, or veer to one side or another, but travelled through her body as if she
wasn’t there.

“Mum, help me!” she
screamed, reaching for the banister to steady herself, her eyes darting around
in disbelief.

What were they?
Where have they gone?
she thought to herself
.

Engulfed by the light,
she looked down in panic, only to be met by another shocking unreality. For
only a second, in the blink of an eye, her body was clad in an ivory ballgown
and her concentration lapsed momentarily, unable to cope with what was
happening. Where the light evaporated and took its leave, she really had no
idea, but once again she stood alone on the vast landing. Had she been
dreaming, or was it just Freesdon Manor’s nightly shadows playing tricks on her
mind?

“Ballgown?” She laughed
to herself, realising she was still dressed in her damp blue maxi dress. “Get a
grip, Heather,” she muttered, though still visibly shaken, trying to convince
herself that she had lost her sanity momentarily.

Turning round suddenly,
she heard the loud tick coming from the antique grandfather clock, which seemed
to intensify with each simultaneous movement of its pendulum.
How strange
,
she thought as she glanced up at its ornate Roman numerals, decoratively etched
around its large face. Both hands rested on the number one. Suddenly, the clock
hands began to move slowly, in reverse. The nightmare had started again, a
retake she wasn’t prepared to play a part in. Heart pounding, she raced to a
large oaken door of one of the bedrooms, but due to her haste, the candles lost
their light, leaving only the smell of burning and a smoke trail as she fumbled
around in the darkness. Once inside, she raced blindly to the middle of the
room, located the bed and jumped on top, pulling the covers tightly over her head;
a soft candlewick her safe haven.

Voices again, cries and
laughter entwining in the air around her, yet she was sure there was no one but
her in the room. The movements were subtle but definitely present as the bed
rocked one way and then the other. There was an intensity in the air as the
groans and cries grew louder, like two invisible souls making love in her
presence. The bed became stationary again. Although the voices were muffled,
she could clearly hear that one was a man and one a woman, but try as she
might, she couldn’t quite make out any words spoken between them. Then a door
slammed, and the room fell silent.

The silence only lasted
a short while, and soon echoing footsteps could be heard, slowly at first, then
quickening, pacing back and forth around the room, getting closer. Heather felt
a presence beside her, and her nostrils filled with a fragrance that was
neither soft nor pretty, but masculine. She knew then that she wasn’t alone.
Going out of her mind, she froze, holding her breath, in fear of her life.
Petrified, she lay still for what seemed like hours, but as time passed with no
more disturbing phenomena, her curiosity became too much to bear, and building
up her courage she peered out from the safety of the covers.

There was a definite
warmth in the room, and she realised the sun was rising, greeting her with its
light. Relieved, Heather sat up, trying to make sense of everything, and as she
did so she could make out the faint outline of a face moulded into the
underside of the pillow lying beside her. She reached over in disbelief. Then
there was a gunshot, loud and clear, no mistake. She held her hands to her ears
and watched as feathers flew and danced in the air before floating down to
settle. Once again, her eyes were drawn to the pillow, and she could now see
straight through it, through a perfect bullet hole... What was really going on in
this house? There must be a logical explanation, but she didn’t wait around
long enough to find out.

The Morning after the Night
Before

H
eather woke up in her own bed with an immense sigh of relief, still
feeling tired due to a lack of sleep following the unexplainable happenings of
only a few hours ago, and still wearing her damp dress. She lay for a moment,
gathering her thoughts. The heady aroma of percolating coffee oozed between the
cracks of her bedroom door. A small knock came, and in walked her mum, steaming
coffee in one hand, a plate with two slices of toast in the other.

Sitting on the side of
her bed and passing her the mug of coffee, her mother asked, “It was sun-up
when I heard you crawl in this morning. Been anywhere nice, Heather?”

“Nowhere special,”
Heather answered nonchalantly between sips. “Just that small pub in the
village, you know, the Sheep Inn. Met up with a work colleague and then went
back to his for drinks, got talking and time just ran away with me, ya know how
it does.”

Her mum listened in
silence.

“Well, I’m nearly
eighteen. And I didn’t want to wake you, so I just went straight to bed.”

“Say no more,” her
mother interrupted. “I won’t tell ya father...” She winked and placed the plate
on the bedside table, before slipping from the room.

Heather was far too
tired to even begin to put her mother straight; anyhow, she seemed too wrapped
up in her own life at the moment, and Heather began to wonder if she really
cared. She never really listened, and just spent her life butting in and
talking over everyone she came across. Heather took a bite of toast. Despite
her funny ways, there was still no one quite like her mum.

As for her strange
experiences during the night, Heather thought it best to keep those to herself,
at least for the time being. Her parents would probably only put it down to
nightmares anyway. One thing was for sure; she wouldn’t be sleeping in the main
house again, not if she had anything to do with it.

Locating her mobile
phone wrapped up in the quilt, she checked the time.
Twelve o’clock? It
never is!
Normally up with the lark, she was disappointed she’d lost the
whole morning. She noticed she had five missed calls and three text messages.
Strange
,
she thought; usually she’d be lucky to get that many in a week. She opened her
inbox and looked at the senders: Ruben, Ruben, Ruben again...

The first had been sent
at 9.04 a.m. and read:
Good morning, princess, lying in bed thinking about
you. How’s my girl? X.
The second message, sent at 9.37 a.m., read:
Lying
in the hot tub thinking of you, counting down the days till your 18th. I want
you here ... any chance? Luv you already. Text me xxx

Short, but sweet.
Heather smiled, butterflies convulsing in her stomach. She could feel herself
falling for Ruben big time. She’d spent so much of her young life on her own,
wandering the grounds, with only herself for company, but for the first time in
a long while she felt wanted. Part of her wished she had stayed the night after
all, and could be there with him now. Excitedly she opened the final message
sent at 11.33 a.m.:
Thanx for text! Phone’s off now! Catch ya later.

Heather frowned, taken
aback by his abruptness, the switch of character. She didn’t think
unpredictability was a nice trait, yet she was intrigued. Panicking, she began
texting back, a mishmash of spelling mistakes as she wrote a long line of
apologies followed by:
I can’t wait to see you xxxx
. She sat up in bed
and stared at the screen for a good ten minutes, but the reply she longed for
never came.

Despondent, she got out
of bed, dropped her dress in the washing basket, before showering in her
compact en suite, re-emerging fifteen minutes later and putting on a pair of
black three-quarters and a strappy peach-coloured top. She quickly towel-dried
her hair and ran a comb through it.

As she entered the
kitchen, she saw her mum with her back to her, busy making lunch, and her dad
sitting by the fireplace in the dining room, lost in the sports pages of the
Gazette, his favourite paper.

“Afternoon!” he
shouted, looking up as she hurried past. “What about this boyfriend I’ve been
hearing about, then? Your mum tells me you spent the night with him.”

Her mother turned,
catching Heather’s glare. Not one for confrontation, she looked down, fidgeting
uncomfortably, and then left the sandwiches she was preparing and started to
load the dishwasher.

“We do like to know who
you’re keeping company with, and that you’re home safely, you know. After all,
we are only your parents,” her father said in a sarcastic tone. “The business
isn’t even up and running yet,” he continued, “and we want to give the right
impression to folk round here, don’t we?”

“Is that all you care
about, how you look and what people think?” Heather had just about taken all
she could, and was fuming. “To start with, I slept with no one! I stayed in the
main house last night so as not to disturb you and mum; you can check the room
for yourself if you don’t believe me. And for your information, I was out with
Ruben, my boyfriend! It wasn’t late either, I was back before twelve
thirty.” That was a little white lie, but a few minutes were neither here nor
there in her opinion.

Her father’s expression
softened a little. “Wine shop Ruben? My manager?” he questioned further.

“Well, I don’t know
another one!” she snapped.

“In that case, why
didn’t you tell your mother? He’s a good lad that one, I give you top marks for
your choice. Invite him round for dinner, tonight if you like. His dad has many
connections, and not just in these parts; it could be a great help, if you get
my drift.”

He didn’t elaborate,
and seconds later was once again engrossed in his paper.

After Ruben’s mixed
messages, her mum’s lack of tact and her dad’s selfish reaction, Heather needed
space, and time on her own to think. Voices were crying out inside her head.
Why weren’t her parents angry? Why didn’t they seem to care? And the events of
last night were still playing on her mind.

She wandered into the
gardens and passed the conservatory extension, now a beautiful tearoom,
decorated in the same old-fashioned style as the house, with pull-down blinds
at each of the windows to dull the heat of the day. The vegetable gardens were
thriving, and the borders lay in full bloom. She admired the bouquet of colours
as she walked by, and as she passed the strawberry patch, she picked a couple
of the ripest and popped them into her mouth. They were the sweetest, juiciest
strawberries she’d ever tasted, but then home-grown produce always had one up
on the supermarkets.

It was another warm,
sunny afternoon, and Heather was desperate for some peace and quiet. Without a
breath of air, the lake held no ripples, and as she stared into its clear
waters, her perfect reflection stared back.

“Is all this really
worth it?” she questioned.

The family life that
Freesdon Manor was supposed to offer them had just turned into a money-making
obsession, and the funny thing was, she was the only one who could see it. Her
parents just carried on, totally oblivious, sometimes even to her existence,
and she’d never felt so alone.

Walking to the middle
of the bridge, she stood for a while, breathing deeply and taking in the warm
fragrant air. She looked out across the lake, emptying her mind, and an inner
peace descended upon her. She finally felt at one with herself.

“Good day, Miss
Richardson.”

Heather jolted from her
thoughts as a dark-haired man approached her. His voice, his face sparked some
kind of recognition, but it was just a hazy memory. As she looked at him more
closely, she suddenly saw herself as a thirteen-year-old girl, the day
they arrived at the manor. He was the odd-looking boy she had met only once,
and had never seen or thought about since.

“Hello, Frankie,” she
said, her mind wandering back to the day she first met him...

~•••~

The metallic grey four-by-four turned off
the A-road that Heather felt had gone on forever. The scenery changed in an
instant upon entering a country lane, and all she could hear was the excitement
in her mother and father’s voices. A new life in the Devonshire countryside was
a far cry from London, the city she had grown up in and loved, having become
accustomed to the way of life there. She was missing her friends already, and the
thought of home tutoring didn’t excite her in the slightest. She would even
miss the wrath of the teachers when she wasn’t behaving in class. All she could
see was green hedgerow after hedgerow, tree after tree, with the odd cow and
sheep dotted around, breaking the monotony.

“You might be excited,
but I’m not!”

The car fell silent.
Heather’s mum turned slightly, loosening her seatbelt.

“It’ll be a much better
life for all of us, just you wait and see.”

“Well, I’m going to
hate it, and it’s all your fault, both of you. This isn’t what I want, it’ll
never be what I want!”

“Heather, pack it in!
How could you possibly know what you want at thirteen? Quiet now, you’re
upsetting your mother,” her father scolded, his eyes holding hers in the
rear-view mirror.

“That’s it, my life’s
over! All I’ve got is God knows how many years of boredom ahead of me.”

She didn’t give her dad
a chance to chastise her further, and tore open the zip of her royal-blue
duffel bag that contained her most precious possessions. Pulling out her iPod,
she pushed the earphones into her ears angrily. The mood in the car had taken a
sudden nosedive, and they travelled for the rest of the journey in complete
silence.

Heather was a typical
teenager, with her tantrums and mood swings. Her beauty was already blossoming
beyond her years, with a pretty elfin-like face framed by a shock of
autumn-brown hair, thick in texture and falling a few inches past her
shoulders. Her eyes were the lightest of blues, and her looks
almost picture perfect, but the petulant frown she wore overshadowed the
artistry of her features. She’d loved nice clothes and dressing up for as long
as she could remember, and had enjoyed parading round in her mum’s high heels
from an early age, but on this occasion comfort was more important. So, just
for the journey, she’d chosen a pair of navy-blue tracksuit bottoms, a white
vest top and a pair of her oldest trainers that she’d never got round to
throwing out.

Time passed quickly,
and soon she felt the car begin to slow down as they passed over a cattle grid
and through an open iron gate. She sat up in the back seat, trying not to make
it too obvious that she was interested. The hedgerow and fields that had bored
her previously had transformed into lush landscaped gardens, tended by men in
scruffy jeans or old khaki dungarees. The flowered borders were alive with
every colour imaginable, crying out for admiration. Architectural statues of
horses rearing on their hind legs, and gargoyles like watchtowers, their faces
uninviting, surveyed their surroundings. Grand patio areas ran between
perfectly shaped hedges, some donning rectangular bases, finished off perfectly
with a round pom-pom effect, positioned in perfect lines like soldiers on
parade. Heather had never seen a garden quite like this. A small lawn with a
path down the middle was as good as it got in London, and that was if you were
lucky.

“What you see is only a
tiny part of the Manor’s gardens,” her father piped up at the change in
Heather’s demeanour. 

She felt a sudden rush,
a kind of excitement, and thought that perhaps life in the country wouldn’t be
as bad as she had originally thought after all. She hoped the manor itself
would impress her just as much.

The first thing that
came in to view as they passed through an extensive vegetable garden was
scaffolding and more scaffolding, with men working like ants, quickening their
pace as they saw the car approach.

“Don’t worry, Heather,
we’re in the annex, in the west wing of the house. There’s no scaffold or
workmen there, and it can’t be seen from the main entrance,” her mother
reassured her as the car pulled up.

Heather had never seen
anything this grand; yes, it needed a lot of work, but its immense build made a
statement of its own, two storeys high, a courtyard meandering through the
middle, almost making it look like two separate buildings.
Must be at least
a hundred rooms
, she thought to herself, trying to take it all in.

“Let me out,” she
insisted. “While you settle in, I’ll have a proper look round for myself.”

With her iPod back in
her bag, she threw the strap over her left shoulder, jumped out of the car and
set off in the direction of the gardens.

It was a beautiful
afternoon, the sun filtering through the trees’ branches creating variegated
patterns; it was like a bewitching paradise. The sweet fragrances of the summer
flowers hung in the air, and Heather had never smelt anything so sweet. Totally
relaxed, she ambled between the long tendrils of a weeping willow tree on the
banks of a large lake, and smiled as she was welcomed by its mirror-like
reflections that shone up to greet her. She sauntered onto the ornamental
bridge and stood for a moment, looking down into the clear waters, and saw
large mottled Koi surfacing in their search for food between the contrasting
colours of decorative water lilies. The warm breeze softly lifted wisps of her
hair, which then fell like soft kisses on her forehead and cheeks.

“Good day.”

Heather jumped as a
deep, husky voice interrupted her, disrupting the tranquillity in which she had
found herself. She immediately turned in the direction it had come from, and
saw a boy standing on the left-hand side of the bridge.
An odd-looking boy
,
she thought. He was three or four years her senior and dressed in clothes of an
unfamiliar style.