Isabella's Heiress Read Free

He looked up to see a sky the colour of a dark, angry welt and clouds snarling with discontent as they rolled there way eastwards. Squinting through the mist that now surrounded him, he tried to get his bearings, before turning south and picking up speed. A tingle of foreboding ran though him as he approached Tower Hill. The words he had heard before leaving on this journey were still running through his head.
    She is here, now. She has come, the prophesied one.
    He thought back to the knock on the door of his rooms and the panicked call from the Council. In all his time serving the Cordoban Council, he had never seen so much apprehension and outright fear. Now, as the grey battlements of the Tower of London slowly loomed out of the mist, he started to listen for proof that he was not the only one here. As he strained to hear anything other than the sounds of his own footsteps the second part of the urgent message came back to him.
    They know she is here. They will come for her, we must hurry.
    Father Eamon had served a higher power for as long as he could remember, first as an altar boy, before decidingto take his vows and devoting his life to the service of the church.
    That decision had taken him to Paris, where he had attended seminary before heading back to his native Ireland. He had lived through the Battle of the Boyne and the start of the Protestant Ascendancy, avoiding capture, whilst continuing to serve the poor. He would have continued to serve had it not been for the fever that had struck him down three days before his forty fifth birthday. It had cut everything short but, Father Eamon reminded himself, had opened up a new world of opportunity.
    Now, as he walked towards an outline of a woman that was slowly breaking through the mist, he ran through everything that had brought him back to a place he had sworn never to return to. He thought back to the last time he had been here. The memories were still raw and he pushed them to the back of his head, reminding himself that he couldn’t win every battle, no matter how much he wanted to.
    Father Eamon grimaced. After four hundred years, you were bound to have some black marks against you.
    Taking a deep breath, he approached the woman in front of him.

    Emma Elliot looked up at the low clouds that sent the sunlight skittering across the pavement. She tugged at her feet, willing them to move. For the last ten minutes they had been stuck firmly to the ground beneath her and she had resorted to swearing at them in a vain effort to get them to shift. The mist she found herself in did not make her feel any easier about her current situation.
    Emma had no recollection of anything prior to cominground on the pavement and finding herself cloaked in a blanket of fine, cool drizzle. The mist teased her with tantalizing glimpses of railings and walls before closing back in and returning her solitude. It was also starting to seep through her clothes and skin, numbing her arms.
    â€œHello, is anyone there?”
    Her shouts into the air went unanswered, and Emma fought to stave off the feelings of isolation that threatened to overwhelm her.
    Then came the slow sound of clicking behind her.
    It was a little way off but the sounds echoed from every unseen surface. Emma froze and for a second couldn’t be sure that she had heard it at all but slowly, the noise became more distinct until the clicking filled the air. Emma wanted to turn and run but her legs refused to comply. She shouted into the mist. “Please, is somebody there?”
Oh come on, she thought, there has to be somebody there.
    As if in response, the sun dipped behind a cloudbank and the temperature dropped, causing her to shiver as the cold bit deeper into her.
    â€œOh god, please be the police, please, please, please,” she whispered.
    Emma felt the slightest brush on her shoulder as someone walked past her. It was a man, wearing a dark three-quarter length jacket that covered a black jumper and