Time’s Perilous Desire
Surely Natasha Rowlands and Matthew Sheldon can settle down to enjoy their love affair across two centuries now? Apparently not – there’s Toby betrothal to worry about, a battered body on the doorstep and far too many wild young men in town.
Matthew’s half-brother Toby is betrothed. Well, almost. There’s a steely future mother-in-law, a hostile future brother-in-law, some nasty practical jokes and a distressed maiden to deal with first.
And then matters move far beyond a joke. As Natasha and Matthew find themselves attempting to negotiate their own developing love affair across two centuries, and sort out Toby’s problems, matters take a sinister turn for the worse.
Is there a maniac at large? Or is someone attempting to stop Toby’s marriage at all costs?
Book Three of The Clock House Mysteries series
Excerpt
The Clock House, Welhampstead, Hertfordshire. September 3rd 1810.
The scream was piercing.
Matthew fell off the bed. OK, to be completely frank he fell off me, hit the floor in a tangle of limbs and scrambled to his feet.
‘Breeches!’ I called as he reached for the door handle and he spent several seconds achieving decency before wrenching the door open and vanishing. At least we’d been so consumed with passion that he hadn’t taken his boots off and I only had to scramble down, locate my underwear, find my shoes and yank everything into place before I followed him.
The lack of knickers for Georgian ladies might have made snatching a passionate moment easier, but I’m a twenty-first century woman and I have no intention of going commando.
My name is Natasha Rowlands, I run a house renovation company and I live in the newly- converted Clock House in Welhampstead, a Hertfordshire commuter town. The Georgian building, a victim of the worst the 1970s could do, was a large project to undertake, but there were no real surprises except for the discovery that, when the double doors into the drawing room were opened up for the first time in a century, I could walk through them into the year 1810.
That was where I met Matthew who was about as stunned by my sudden appearance as I was by the sight of him. But, since early June when we had first met, the relationship between us had advanced, as you can probably tell. We discovered that he could come through to my time as well, but when we heard the scream we were firmly stuck in 1810, all because of Matthew’s half-brother Toby and his marriage prospects.
I left the room cautiously – it was actually Toby’s dressing room that had been taken over by Matthew on a temporary basis – and emerged from Toby’s bedchamber on the first floor.
There was no mistaking where the scream had come from. Lady Anderton, whose daughter Eleanor would be Toby’s bride if he survived the Ordeal By Future Mother-in-Law, was holding forth with some force.
‘Filth! I am shocked, to the core. Eleanor, we will leave immediately. Thank goodness we have not been here long enough to unpack.’ She broke off as Toby, who was still limping slightly from a knee injury, came in. He looked alarmed, as well he might. ‘You! Mr Cranleigh, I had thought better of you.’
I managed to sidle in to the bedchamber allocated to Lady Anderton and Eleanor and see what was causing the fuss. It was a pretty room and I had overseen the furnishing of it with choice pieces borrowed from Toby’s father’s country seat a few miles out of Welhampstead.
Lying on the little table on a lace cloth, like a toad on a lily pad, was a slim book. It was open on an illustration of a unclothed couple who were engaged in what, upside down, looked like a rather enjoyable, if physically demanding, set of acrobatics.
‘Lady Anderton, I do not know who put this here but I can assure you it was not Mr Cranleigh,’ I said, stepping forward and flipping the book closed. ‘I personally selected and arranged the books and magazines in this room at his request and I had only just finished when your carriage arrived. I assume you will accept that Mr Cranleigh has not sneaked into the room at some point between your arrival and the present to deposit this? Especially as he was taking tea with you and Lady Eleanor until you came upstairs just now.’ I sincerely hoped that was the case, because I’d been in no position to know.
‘Someone has played a most unpleasant trick upon us all,’ I continued firmly. ‘Mr Sheldon? Perhaps you could remove this.’ I gestured towards the slim volume and Matthew picked it up between finger and thumb and carried it out. I rather hoped he would hang on to it. As well as providing evidence of something, it looked quite entertaining.
