Match Made in the Highlands by Pam Binder

Author:Pam Binder [Binder, Pam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Time Travel, Medieval, Scottish
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Published: 2016-05-20T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Two

The good news was that torches were set in wall sconces along the corridors. The bad news was that because all the corridors looked the same, Irene was concerned they were walking in circles.

Afraid of getting lost, she employed a trick she used when visiting a new city. Most people kept track of street signs. Irene had a different method. She studied the fashions in the display windows. This strategy was particularly effective when you visited a country where you weren’t familiar with the language on the street signs. Usually no two displays in shop windows were exactly alike, and the same could be said of the portraits in the corridors.

While the facial features began to blur, the clothing of the men and women pictured was distinctive. As varied as the people in an international airport, the clothes ranged from unadorned muted colors to finery with elaborate headdresses that rivaled those worn by King Henry the Eighth or his daughter Elizabeth the First and her cousin Mary Queen of Scots. The frames surrounding each portrait were as diverse as the subjects themselves, from simple wood frames to ones carved and gilded with gold or silver.

When they rounded a corner, Logan quickened his pace. His expression lit up like a boy who’d learned he was going to meet his favorite rugby player. “Here we are.” He lifted a torch from the wall sconce and brought it near the portrait of a woman. She wore a gown with long sleeves embroidered with sprigs of lavender and earrings shaped like snowflakes.

“What do you think?” Logan said.

The whisper of a chill brushed her skin. “Can you bring the torch in closer?”

When he did, it cast a beam of light over the portrait while plunging the surrounding area in shadows. The portrait was surrounded by a wide silver frame, etched with the same images embroidered in the woman’s gown.

Irene moved in closer. The woman was in her mid-twenties, lovely, relaxed, happy. Irene reached out to almost touch the face, but she closed her fingers and pulled back at the last moment. “It’s not possible,” she whispered under her breath.

“The resemblance is just a coincidence, right?” Logan said. “Or maybe it’s one of your great-great-great-great ancestors. Did I use the correct amount of greats?”

“I’m not sure…” Irene felt as though the floor had dropped out from under her. “The resemblance is spooky.”

“Maybe the earrings are a family heirloom.”

“Maybe,” Irene repeated. She kept nodding, knowing she was trying to believe Logan’s logic. But she wasn’t sure. The resemblance was too similar. Irene touched the birthmark on the corner of her mouth, the one both her sister and her mother had. The same birthmark was visible on the woman in the picture.

She reached out for Logan. She needed an anchor. A safe place. Something solid. “I know this sounds crazy, but I think my mother was here.”

****

After seeing what looked like her mother’s portrait, Irene walked in a daze. Each corridor they traveled down looked like the last.

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