Kingdom Come (59 page)

Rory shrugged. “Sure. Go ahead.” She caught sight of Bud from the corner of her eye and introduced him. “This is Dr. Dietrich. He’s a colleague.  It’s okay to talk in front of him.”

Marc greeted Bud, his gaze returning to Rory. He stared at her a moment before chuckling. “Oh, boy,” he looked around for a chair and ended up sitting at one of the desks in the front row. “Where to start? I have to tell you that in my entire fifteen years in law, I’ve never quite seen anything like this. This is a first.”

Rory set her purse and briefcase down on her desk.  “A first for what?”

Marc leaned back on the chair, contemplating how he was going to explain everything. “Well,” he began. “First of all, I was contacted by a colleague of mine in London, a barrister by the name of Joseph Saladin. He is a partner in a high-powered firm in London that only works with the crème de la crème of British society. You know; the old nobility and barons and such. The firm has been around for about three hundred years. One of Joseph’s clients is an old family; like, over one thousand years old. He says they can trace their lineage back before the time of the Norman conquest.  Anyway, this family is one of the few left in England who still hold any power and property. They contacted Marc to see if he could find someone to track you down.”

About mid-way into Marc’s explanation, Rory’s heart began to race. The more he spoke, the more lightheaded she seemed to become. By the time he finished, she was sitting on the desk and gripping the sides of it so she wouldn’t slide off. 

“Me?” she repeated. “Why would they want to contact me?”

“Because,” Marc continued, “they apparently have a document that is about eight hundred years old with your name on it.”

Rory was having difficulty breathing. She didn’t dare look at Bud, fearful of what she would see in his face.  She began to shake uncontrollably.

“What…,” she began, swallowed, and started again. “What is the document? What does it say?”

Marc shook his head. “That’s the big mystery,” he replied. “Nobody knows. It’s been a family heirloom for eight hundred years, sealed up and addressed to you.”

Rory struggled to maintain her composure. “Maybe… maybe it’s to someone else named Rory Osgrove, somebody who lived eight hundred years ago.”

Marc sighed faintly and nodded his head. “That would make sense except it’s addressed to Rory Elizabeth Osgrove, daughter of Lucas, American, Year of our Lord Twenty and Twelve.  The only Rory Elizabeth Osgrove , daughter of Lucas, that we could find is you.“ He sat forward, shaking his head in disbelief.  “Completely disregarding the fact that someone knew about America eight hundred years ago, why in the hell did someone eight hundred years ago write to a person living in modern times? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Rory just stared at the man. Beside her, Bud was watched her pallor go from pale to paler. He knew the color was gone from his face, too, because the crazy story she had told for the past six months suddenly wasn’t so crazy any longer with this bizarre little twist. He was fairly shaken himself and the message didn’t even involve him. Clearing his throat softly, he turned to Marc.

“Where is this letter?” he asked.

Marc’s dark eyes moved to him. “The family has it,” he told him. “They made it very clear that they would not let it out of their possession, so my job is to find who it is addressed to and bring them to London. The problem is, I don’t even know if Dr. Osgrove is the intended person. There’s no way to prove it. Is it all some peculiar coincidence?”

Rory wasn’t looking at him any longer; she was staring off into space, a dreamy expression on her features.  There was something of longing and disbelief and joy there.  She didn’t say anything for several long moments. When she did speak, it was in a voice barely above a whisper.

“The name of the family is Hage, isn’t it?” she murmured.

That brought Marc to his feet. “How did you know that?”

She looked at him, then, a faint twinkle to the hazel eyes. “The man who wrote is Kieran Hage, Viscount Dykemoor and Sewall.  Is that confirmation enough that I’m the person addressed on the letter?”

Now it was the lawyer’s turn to look shocked. His wide-eyed gaze moved between Rory and Bud. “Then you know about this?” he asked, awed. “Who in the hell told you?”

She shook her head. “No one told me,” she murmured, suddenly feeling calmer and more at peace than she had in six months. She should have expected that Kieran would have tried to communicate with her beyond the grave.  Closing her eyes, she could see him again, smell him, feel the texture of his skin. Her heart was aching with joy and longing so strongly that it brought tears to her eyes. “But I can prove that it’s mine.”

Marc continued to stare at her as if she had just grown another head. At a loss for words, he simply shook his head. “With that knowledge, I’d say it’s proof,” he agreed, eyeing her. “Care to tell me how you knew?”

She smiled, some color coming back into her cheeks. She suddenly didn’t feel so alone or horrible any longer; there was so much elation in her heart that she wasn’t sure she could contain it. She desperately wanted to get her hands on that letter, more than she had wanted anything in her life.       “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” she said sincerely. “So when do we leave for London?”

“Whenever you’re available.”

“I’m available now.”

Marc nodded, a bit surprised by the swiftness of her reply but pleased nonetheless. “All right, then; I’ll call Joseph and tell him we’re on our way.”

Within twelve hours, Rory, Bud and the lawyer found themselves on a red-eye to Heathrow.

***

Rory’s first look at Southwell had her wiping silent tears from her eyes.  It was vaguely the castle she remembered, but the guidebook said that somewhere around the sixteenth century, the Hage family got the bright idea to add a wing on to the keep.  Then, one hundred years after that, they added a Georgian façade which altered the entire character of the place. It was no longer the stark, imposing and warring fortress that Rory knew.  It was a palace with big rooms, wide halls and gardens. Southwell had evolved.

In the rented Vauxhall sedan, Rory sat in the front seat while Bud sat in the back.  Marc was driving. The road through Notthinghamshire was a two lane little road with big hedgerows on either side; the village of Southwell was barely visible through the foliage but the castle was a clear view up on the rise. Bud leaned forward, his chin nearly on Rory’s shoulder.

“So this is Southwell, huh?” he asked softly.

She nodded faintly, her eyes drinking in everything. “This is it.”

“Is this how you remember it?”

Rory set the guidebook on her lap, dashing away an errant tear from the corner of her eye.  She had refrained, since the moment she had returned to that rocky beach in Nahariya, from doing any research or reading on Southwell or the Hage family. She didn’t what to know what happened after she had left, mostly because she knew how much it would shatter her already-shattered emotions.  She had decided early on that it was best just not to know what had become of those she loved. There was nothing she could do about it, anyway, and to know the fate of Kieran and Tevin would only wrack her with anguish. 

For her own sanity, she didn’t want to know.  But now, with Southwell looming large before her, she had decided to pick up the guidebook and read what she could.  She thought it might be wise so she wasn’t blindsided by anything.  But her heart was pounding and her hands shook, feeling more apprehension than she ever thought possible.

“No,” she replied to Bud’s question. “I mean, the walls look the same essentially, but everything else has changed dramatically.  Even the town; it used to butt up against the walls, but now the walls are clear and the village has moved away. It’s kind of weird.”

Bud’s chin came to rest on her shoulder as he jockeyed to get a better look. “It’s a massive place.”

Rory’s gaze lingered on the stone walls that were faded and mossy with age.  Other than natural anxiety, she wasn’t sure what else she was feeling… sadness? Excitement at having returned? Anguish because this was the last place she saw Kieran and Tevin? She wasn’t quite sure yet, but at the moment, the predominate emotion she was experiencing was awe; awe that Southwell was still standing after all of these years. The place was immortal.

Tillery sat in the driver’s seat, hearing the soft rumblings of conversation but not really hearing what was being said over the drone of the radio.  The whole situation was odd for him but it was also very intriguing. The more time he spent with Dr. Osgrove, who seemed like a genuinely sane and sweet woman, the more interested he became in the case. She still wouldn’t tell him how she knew about the letter or how she knew so much about who wrote it; she simply said that he wouldn’t believe her anyway. But the truth was that at this point, he’d believe anything. The entire situation was just too weird to believe.

Southwell had a car park to the west, a neatly graveled area where a few cars were already parked. Southwell Castle was still inhabited by the Hage family yet great sections of it were open to the public. As Rory discovered, they also had weddings and other events in the castle to help pay for the undoubtedly massive upkeep.   

As the car came to a halt, Rory bolted from the car without her coat and just stood there, looking at it. Bud climbed out behind her, collected her jacket, and held it as he walked up behind her.  Together, the two of them just stood there and stared at the structure; Rory because she was feeling an overwhelming sense of anxiety and Bud because he was frankly curious about her reaction.

Marc locked the car, put on his coat, and walked up beside the pair. He stared at the castle because they were.  Over head, fat dark clouds threatened rain and he glanced up, wondering when they were going to get soaked. He could smell the rain.

“Shall we go in?” he encouraged them. “My colleague should already be here.”

As if on cue, a man in an expensive camel hair coat stood in beneath the gatehouse, waving an arm at them.  Marc waved back and began walking towards the man.  Bud took a few steps to follow, noticing Rory was still rooted to the spot.  Her expression was odd.  He put a hand on her elbow, gently pulling her forward.

“Come on, honey,” he said softly. “We flew all the way here. We may as well go in.”

Rory glanced at him, took a deep breath, and smiled weakly. “I guess so.”

Bud didn’t let go of her arm as they tramped across the wet, greet grass, making their way towards the road the led into the fortress.  Rory’s hazel eyes were rivet to the well maintained, gravel road as they approached from the car park.

“Oh, my God,” she breathed. “The last time I saw this road… it was muddy and full of pot holes and big rocks.  It was horrible to travel on.”

Bud didn’t say anything; he kept his focus on the two men ahead, both of whom were now shaking hands and smiling at each other.  But Rory wasn’t looking at them; she was still looking at the road.

“And over there,” she pointed to what was now a big grassy area that seemed to stretch the length of the great wall.  It disappeared off to the east side of the fortress and was about fifty feet in length, bordered by a ridge of short, thick wooden posts and a road that skirted the edge of down. “That grassy area was full of Medieval homes. And right about where that street runs was the main road that led into the town.”

Bud still didn’t say anything as they came to the dirt and gravel road, neatly kept, that lead into the great gatehouse of Southwell.  The moment Rory’s boots hit the gravel, she suddenly found her attention drawn up to the castle.

It was an odd moment filled with a mixture of angst and exhilaration.  She looked up, seeing the modern walls, remembering the Medieval ones.She was transported back in her memories to what had been, what she remembered.  It was a comforting reflection, the last place she ever saw her husband. She could feel him everywhere.