Beyond Time (Highland Secret Series) Read Free Page B

sleeping. Have you seen him yet then?”
    “Seen who?” asked Grace, feigning ignorance.
    “The ghost! Robert Hamilton. He used to own the place sometime back in the days of Charles II. Didn’t marry till he was in his forties. They say he haunts the house looking for his wife. Tell me you aren’t in room twenty three?”
    “Well, actually I am.”
    “Oh, you’ll never get a moments peace in there. That was his room, you know, his and his wife’s. It’s the most haunted room in the whole house.”
    “He must have loved his wife very much then?” Grace replied hoping to extract as much information from Kate as she could.
    “Hell yeah! He fought for Charles I, and then he followed the Prince to the continent. Lived like a pauper for years but still he remained loyal to the Stuarts. He met a woman here in York and fell hopelessly in love with her. It’s such a romantic tale. Actually, that desk you are sitting at now was his. Cost me an arm and a leg to buy but the story behind it was just so beautiful I couldn’t resist. His wife was an academic, a bit of an odd sort, but Robert had that desk made for her so that she had somewhere to read and write. It turned up in the cellar of the hotel you are staying at. The current owners found a letter to a local carpenter commissioning the work. In it Robert stated it was to be of the finest quality with exact dimensions to ensure the absolute comfort of his dearest wife. I used it myself for a while but it just didn’t suit me. Too low, it gave me backache.”
    Grace felt the panic rising inside her as her boss talked, seemingly without taking a breath.
    “Kate, what happened to Robert and his wife?”
    “Well, as far as I can make out they disappeared for a good many years, but they are both buried here in York.”
    “Did they have any children?”
    “Not so far as anyone seems to know. There is a story about his wife delivering a baby shortly after they were married. Some say the child was snatched, others say it died. Thing is no one ever found a grave for it. There weren’t any other children that we know of. I think his wife was a bit past it when they married. She wasn’t a young bride, but then he wasn’t a fledgling himself. The story goes that she was a widow but there don’t seem to be any records of her life prior to her meeting Robert so perhaps she wasn’t from York.”
    “So how come you know so much about this man?” Grace asked.
    “Because since I started this business he has done nothing but haunt me.”
    “Haunt you? Are you serious?”
    “Yes, of course I’m damn serious. He hangs around this office like a lovesick puppy. It’s like he’s watching the place, day in and day out. He stands where you are now, by that bloody desk, just staring at it. I would get shot of the thing if it hadn’t cost me so much money. I’ve tried to find a buyer for it but no one is prepared to pay the price.”
    “So you believe in ghosts then?”
    “Don’t you?”
    “Well no, not really. But I guess there is something odd about all this. Why do you think he keeps coming here?”
    “I don’t have the foggiest. It’s like he can’t let go of the damn desk. I just wish someone would take it off my hands, but I can’t afford to lose the money on it. Tell you what, Grace, you should go and have a word with the landlord of the Olde Starre Inne off Stonegate. Hear what he has to say and then see if you still don’t believe in ghosts.”
     
    Grace couldn’t face the pub that night. All she wanted to do was go back to the hotel and sleep. Unwrapping the sandwich she had bought from a bakery she sank heavily onto the mattress of her bed and looked up at the portrait.
    “Right, Mr. Hamilton, I now know that I am not the only one you torment. Pray tell me dear sir what it is you want, because tonight I intend to sleep.”
    The portrait didn’t answer. She hadn’t expected it to, only it had felt good to acknowledge out loud that she wasn’t deranged.