Ever Crave the Rose (The Elizabethan Time Travel Series Book 3) by Morgan O'Neill

Author:Morgan O'Neill [O'Neill, Morgan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Time's Arrow Productions TM
Published: 2017-06-13T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

The world grew cold and still around her.

With trembling hands, Catherine held the Elizabethan era letter preserved in a double-sided glass frame. For the past few minutes, she’d read and re-read Jonnie’s newest message, his anguished, desperate words, until she felt such a state of helplessness she could not imagine what her next move would be. Her emotions teetered on the brink of raging grief, even madness, and she swallowed hard against the terrible ache rising in her throat.

Think, she told herself. You must not give in. You must figure out what to do.

Closing her eyes, she listened to the ticking of the clock, the only sound in the room and, perhaps, the entire house. She was alone for now, Richard and Joan having taken Duffy out for a much needed walk, Trudy off to the grocer’s.

Catherine gathered her courage and read the message once again.

October 1562

Catherine!

I don’t know how to tell you this. I can barely think. Devastating news. One month ago my darling Anne was kidnapped, brutalized, and murdered, before being dumped at our doorstep…

She shuddered as her gaze skipped down to the bottom of the letter.

Please, Catherine, I beg you to FIND A WAY TO UNDO THIS!

Jonnie

Tears rolled down her cheeks and plopped onto the glass covering the letter. She turned the frame over and stared at Jonnie’s WWII military photograph, his handsome smile. Then she imagined his expression twisted, stricken with grief.

Oh my Lord, Jonnie…Anne. Oh ANNE!

She lowered her head into her hands and wept uncontrollably. Then, after uncountable, wretched minutes, she reached for her phone and placed a call to Father Daniel at the Vatican.

He needed to be informed about the new information from Jonnie.

* * *

Daniel exited the lift and re-entered the grand foyer of the Vat. He reached for his mobile phone to let Tim know he planned to catch the next flight back to England.

It chimed at that instant.

“Pronto?” Daniel asked.

“Fa-Father.”

He could barely hear a woman’s voice, mingled as it was with the sounds of weeping.

“I’ve... I learned something, Father... The date of Anne’s kidnapping and the name of the man who...murdered her.”

Daniel stopped in his tracks. “Mrs. Howard?”

“Yes, Father,” she whispered, her voice barely audible, fragile.

“Are you with someone now? Are you all right? And...how could you know that?”

She heaved a sigh. “It’s in the letter. There’s a new note from Jonnie. Let me read it to you.”

“Mrs. Howard, I fear this is too much.”

“No, please let me do this.” Catherine paused for a moment and then read the message to Daniel.

My God! he thought in horror when she finished. “I have no words,” he said, struck hard by the savagery of Anne’s torture and murder. The inscription in the brass floor memorial had not prepared him for the horrible intensity of Dr. Brandon’s letter.

“Father, I Googled this particular duke of Norfolk,” Catherine added, her voice sounding a bit stronger now. “He has a ruthless look.”

Daniel searched his memory, but recalled little about the duke, only that he was related to Queen Elizabeth I and was outwardly Protestant, but may have had secret Catholic leanings.

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