Page 40 of The Lovers (Echoes from the Past #1)

TWENTY-EIGHT

Surrey, England

Quinn awoke later than usual. Midmorning sun shone through the stained-glass windows of her bedroom and filled the room with a colorful glow.

Birds chirped happily outside, and the wind moved through the trees, the leaves rustling as they fell from the branches and twirled silently to the ground, covering the grass with a blanket of autumnal color.

The room was chilly, but Quinn was warm beneath her down quilt.

Her head still ached, but she felt much better.

She’d tidied up the house before going to bed—against doctor’s orders, of course, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave things as they were.

It was too upsetting to see her private papers and possessions strewn all over the floor.

A few things were broken, but thankfully, nothing truly important—like her laptop—had been damaged.

Quinn held the ebony statue in her hands for a long time, marveling at the fact that something so beautiful and innocent could have unwittingly become a murder weapon.

She knew enough about human anatomy to realize that had the blow landed about an inch lower and struck her temple, she might have been killed outright.

The interesting thing about the possibility of her untimely demise was that it made her feel giddy with the joy of living.

Quinn got out of bed, took a hot shower, and dressed in a new outfit, putting it together from the items she bought from Jill’s shop.

She liked the way the vintage jeans fit her hips, and the peasant blouse brought out the green in her eyes.

Quinn carefully lifted the corner of the bandage to see if she might be able to remove it.

The wound didn’t look too bad, so she pulled off the plaster and replaced it with a much smaller one from her medicine cabinet.

She even applied a bit of makeup to make herself feel better and twisted her hair into an artful bun atop her head.

Quinn was just making some toast and tea when there was an insistent knock at the door. She frowned. She wasn’t expecting anyone, and the only person who would show up at her door this morning would be Gabe. Quinn wiped her hands on a tea towel and went to answer the door.

“I’m sorry to come unannounced. Terribly rude of me, I know,” Rhys said with a guilty smile. “But I heard about what happened and needed to see for myself that you were all right.”

Quinn stepped aside to let him in. “Did Gabe tell you?” she asked, annoyed with Gabe for calling Rhys. She was quite all right; there was no reason whatsoever to alert anyone.

“No,” Rhys replied sheepishly. “I saw it on the news.”

“What?” Quinn gasped. “I’m on the news?”

“Yes. ‘Historian attacked when she walked in on a robbery,’” Rhys quoted.

Quinn nodded in disgust. “I might have known. There was a reporter at the hospital last night—for an entirely different case, mind you. I feel strangely violated,” Quinn joked. “It seems odd that strangers know what happened to me.”

“That’s life in the public eye for you,” Rhys replied as he shrugged off his jacket.

“I’m hardly in the public eye. I’m a historian, for God’s sake.”

“Get used to it. Once our program is aired, you’ll get a lot more attention than you ever expected. Believe it or not, people lap this stuff up. ‘History made real, the dead brought back to life,’” he intoned, using an announcer voice that made Quinn laugh.

Rhys handed her a shopping bag. “Here, I brought you something to make you feel better. I know I promised not to force-feed you cake, but I think you’ll like these. I made them this morning just for you.”

Quinn pulled out a square plastic container out of the shopping bag and stared at the bell-shaped blobs of dough. “What are these?”

“Canelés. They’re French. Caramelized crust on the outside, chewy on the inside, with just a small dollop of custard filling,” he said, somehow making the description sound seductive. “I dare you to resist.”

“You truly are evil,” Quinn replied with a chuckle as she opened the container and inhaled the heavenly smell. “Are you trying to make me fat?”

“No, I’m trying to give you a moment of pleasure,” he replied, all innocence.

“And if you don’t want to get fat, come for a walk with me.

It’s a lovely day outside. I’ve never been here before, so you can show me around the village.

Was this a church?” he asked with some surprise as he gazed up at the vaulted ceiling and stained-glass windows.

“It was a private chapel a few centuries back. Now it’s my home, and I love it,” Quinn said proudly. “There’s such…”

“Peace,” Rhys finished for her. “It just envelops you, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Will you show me the rest?” he asked .

Quinn was glad she’d made the bed before getting into the shower. She led Rhys into the bedroom, watching his expression of delight.

“It’s breathtaking,” he said as he took in the massive four-poster bed and the heavy carved armoire. “Simply stunning. It’s like walking into another century. No television?” he asked as he looked around.

“No, I don’t actually own a television. I do have electric lights and running water, but those are my only concessions to modernity. I like the ancient feel of this place, and I don’t wish to spoil it. If I want to watch something, I watch it on my laptop.”

“It really is beautiful. The candles are a nice touch,” he added, referring to two massive candles in tall, medieval stands on either side of the bed.

The kettle began to whistle, and they returned to the main room, where Quinn poured them tea. She reached for a canelé and took an experimental bite. “Oh my God,” she murmured with her mouth still full. “This is delicious.”

“I know,” Rhys replied with a satisfied grin. “My specialty. I make them only for the most deserving people.”

“Flatterer.”

“Guilty as charged. Now, pass me one of those.”

Quinn laughed and passed him the container.

She suddenly realized that she felt happy and light despite everything that happened the previous night.

Gabe’s presence had been comforting and reassuring, but there’d been a spark of tension between them.

Gabe had made it clear that he no longer wished to be just friends, and Quinn felt cornered by his sudden intensity.

She was flattered by Rhys’s attention, but they didn’t know each other well enough to have any expectations of each other, and it felt good just to spend time with him without feeling as if an answer were expected .

“Take a coat,” Rhys said as they got ready to leave. “It’s chilly outside.”

“You sound like my mother,” Quinn protested but reached for her leather jacket and wound a colorful scarf around her neck.

They walked at a leisurely pace down the lane and toward the village.

The air was crisp and fresh. Leaves fluttered and twirled in the wind, slowly falling to the ground in front of their feet.

A cool sun held court in the cloudless sky but didn’t provide much warmth, and Quinn was glad that she’d listened to Rhys and taken a jacket.

“Did you grow up around here?” Rhys asked as he admired the pastoral views.

“No, my family lived near Lincoln, but I no longer consider it my home. Not since my parents left. I have a cousin who lives in London. She recently opened a vintage clothing shop,” Quinn said. “She was in corporate accounting for years and then just up and left.”

“There’s always a fork in the road,” Rhys replied. “You know when you reach it, but sometimes you’re just not ready to choose. I guess your cousin took the right path.”

“Yes. She’s not turning much of a profit yet, but she is so happy.

She even looks different.” Jill had gone from wearing suits and a neat bob to wearing colorful kaftans and letting her hair grow.

When Quinn visited her, she had it up in two buns on top of her head with several long tendrils framing her face.

She looked like a teenager, but the style suited her.

“Have you reached a fork in the road?” Quinn asked.

“Not yet, but it is coming,” he replied cryptically .

“I can’t say that I know what you mean. I’ve always known what I wanted to do, and I’m doing it. I love it, every moment of it. I never want to do anything else.”

“Then you are one of the luckiest people I know.”

“I’ve never thought of myself as being particularly lucky, but I suppose you’re right,” Quinn replied.

“Most people spend their lives working at jobs that bring them no satisfaction, but they have too many responsibilities and too much fear to chuck it all in and pursue something they love.”

“Not everything you love can be turned into a career,” Quinn said. “Don’t you love what you do?”

Rhys shrugged. “I love stories and films, but once you see everything that goes on behind the camera, you can never recapture the romance of the dream of making movies. It’s all about budgets, backers, temperamental actors, unions, and fickle audiences.

A truly beautiful, emotional story can never hope to have the commercial success of a film based on a Marvel comic, and that saddens me.

That’s why I like working at the BBC. We still produce quality television, or so I like to think. ”

“So, you are not courting any offers from Hollywood?” Quinn asked with a smile.

“God, no. I’m here to stay—at least for now.”

“Come, I’ll show you the St. Peter and Paul church,” she said as they entered the village.

“It’s quite interesting. There’s been a church on this site as far back as Saxon times, even before the Norman conquest. Of course, there’s practically nothing left of the original church except for a few blocks of stone in the foundation.

The current structure dates back to Tudor times. ”

Quinn took Rhys by the hand and pulled him along since he seemed to be hesitating.

He’d been about to say something but changed his mind.

They walked up the path toward the church, which sat squat and solid amid the ancient graves, its tower piercing the sky.

Even on a sunny day like today, the church looked dour, its gray stone unchanged by sunshine nor enlivened by the foliage of the surrounding trees.

There was something timeless and forbidding about the structure, almost as if it had made up its mind to withstand any turmoil or shifts in views and morality that had undermined the Church over the centuries.

Quinn only attended church on Christmas these days, more interested in festive ritual and feeling of belonging to a community than any type of communion with God, but she felt a proprietary pride in the ancient structure and was eager to show Rhys the interior.

As a lover of history, there were a few points of interest he was sure to appreciate.

As they approached the church porch, Quinn noticed a woman standing beneath a yew tree.

She was gazing up at the church, her expression so wistful that it nearly broke Quinn’s heart.

Maybe someone she loved was buried in the churchyard, or perhaps she was in sore need of divine intervention but didn’t feel up to actually going inside and asking for it.

She’d never seen the woman in the village before, but that didn’t mean she didn’t live there.

The woman seemed startled when she saw Quinn and Rhys approaching, her eyes boring into Quinn in a manner bordering on rudeness.

Quinn felt the woman’s gaze follow her as she preceded Rhys into the church.

She was grateful to step inside, hoping that the woman wouldn’t follow. Her intensity was unsettling.

She was gone by the time Quinn and Rhys came back out a half hour later.