The Roses Of Halloran Hall

PART 5: As the truth of events long past is revealed to Abby, the future of the house becomes clear…

Gently, so gently, Spencer helped Abby to her feet, holding her tightly as though she might blow away in the raging wind. Abby was grateful for his strong arms around her. Sheltered within his embrace, she was shielded now from the worst of the wind and the spitting, spiteful rain.

“You said there was something you had to tell me,” Spencer said. “Well, there’s something I need to tell you, too. Something I should have said the other night when you told me how you felt about Halloran. But first, let’s go to my cottage. You’re wet through.”

They half-walked, half-ran to Spencer’s cottage. Away from the roar of the river, conversation was possible but neither of them spoke, each lost in their own thoughts.

A jumble of images played in Abby’s mind: Toby and Liza on the riverbank making plans for a future that would never come, their struggle as Liza had plunged into the water, and her last image of the couple, united in midstream, holding onto one another. How she wanted to weep for all that they had lost.

Spencer’s cottage was a welcome sight in the storm. They shed their coats and boots in the hallway. Abby gravitated towards the radiator.

“I’ll run you a hot bath,” Spencer said. “There’s no need.”

“A hot bath, a hot drink and some food,” he said sternly.

Abby nodded. “That does sound nice,” she admitted. “But first tell me, what it was you wanted to say.”

Spencer shook his head.

“Not like this,” he said as he bounded up the stairs. “Not while you’re standing there shivering.”

An hour later Abby was settled on Spencer’s sofa, resplendent in a pair of his jogging pants, a T-shirt and a thick woollen jumper. An enormous pair of woolly socks completed the ensemble.

Abby knew she wouldn’t win any

www.myweekly.co.uk prizes for sartorial elegance but right now she didn’t care. In her hands she cradled a large mug of tomato soup as she watched Spencer fiddle with the wood burner.

“I don’t really need it,” he said, indicating the glowing burner as he sat in the facing armchair. “Not after Russ insisted on putting central heating into the cottages years ago, but somehow it didn’t feel like home without a proper fire.” He shrugged.

Abby smiled.

“I know what you mean.”

“Are you feeling better now?”

“Much,” she said. “Thank you.”

The dryer in the kitchen issued a beep to indicate its cycle had finished.

“I’ll go and check on your clothes,” Spencer said. tightly together. As he looked back towards her, Abby could see a frown etched across his brows.

“This is going to sound a bit weird,” he said hesitantly.

Abby smiled.

“Weird can be good,” she said, eager to ease the frown from his face. “You should embrace it, so I’ve been told.” He laughed.

“When you spoke of how you felt about Halloran, how you seemed to know the place as if you’d been here before, I knew what you meant – because from the first moment I saw you, I knew you.”

The frown fell away, replaced by a smile of such warmth and depth it captured Abby’s heart.

“It was extraordinary,” Spencer said. “I’ve never felt anything like it before. And when I say I knew you, I mean I really knew you and loved you,” he added shyly, shaking his head. “I know it sounds crazy. It is crazy. But I love you, Abby. I think I always have.”

“It doesn’t sound crazy at all,” Abby said. She gripped his joined hands and gently eased them apart so she could lace her fingers through his. “When I told you how I felt about the house, I left out the part about how I felt about you. I was too embarrassed to say anything.” She watched Spencer’s eyes widen. “But everything you’ve just said, everything you felt… are feeling, is how I feel too. From that first moment I saw you in the rose garden, it was like being hit by a thunderbolt.”

The delight in Spencer’s eyes would live long in Abby’s memory. How she wished now that she’d screwed up her courage to tell him how she really felt about him the night he’d cooked for her.

Their kiss was everything Abby knew it would be; passionate and yet tender, fierce but loving and behind it stood an echo of a million other kisses shared between them across the years. As they parted, the anticipation of a million more held them in its thrall. For it was obvious “From the first moment I saw you, it was extraordinary. I felt that I really knew you and loved you”

now that theirs was a timeless love capable of withstanding any assault. Storms could rage and rivers could flood but nothing, not even time itself, would ever be strong enough to permanently come between them and keep them apart.

“I believe I was meant to find my way back here,” Abby said.

“And I was meant to be here waiting for you,” Spencer replied. “Even though I didn’t realise it.” Abby nodded. “I might be able to help you with that,” she said. “It’s the most astonishing thing but I followed Liza into the woods the other day, and there, in a clearing were two adults, a man and a woman. It took me a few moments to realise I was looking at Toby and Liza as adults.”

She watched Spencer take in this news.

“Liza was distressed. It was clear from what the couple were saying to one another that she was pregnant. The baby was going to be brought up as her own sister.”

“I never knew there was a child,” Spencer said. “No one ever talked about a baby. Not even Russ.”

“They called their daughter Patience.” Abby waited for the shock to register on Spencer’s face.

“Wait! What? Patience was my grandmother.”

Abby nodded.

“Yes, she was – but Liza was never her sister, she was her mother. And when I saw Toby and Liza as adults that day in the clearing, Toby looked just like you.”

Abby watched as a series of emotions swept across Spencer’s face as he worked through the ramifications of her words.

“So, I’m descended from the Thomases and the Hallorans,” he said at last, stunned. “No wonder Halloran has always meant so much to me.”

“At the riverbank, just now, I saw Toby and Liza again. They were planning to elope, to take Patience and run away together. They’d just finished making their plans when a branch was torn down in the storm. It struck Liza, knocking her into the river. Toby tried to rescue her but ultimately, he, too was swept away. They didn’t commit suicide. Their deaths were accidental.”

Abby squeezed Spencer’s hands. “I know it’s a lot to take in but I believe that, somehow, we’re their spirits reborn. The other day Liza spoke to me of destiny. She told me I was here to right two wrongs. I think the first was to be shown the truth of how the couple died…”

“And the second?”

“That you might stake your rightful claim to the estate, or at least a part of it. The cousins can’t evict you now.”

Spencer freed his hands from hers and moved in front of the wood burner.

“It would be nice if that were so, Abby – but while I don’t doubt what you saw and heard, there’s no way to prove that Toby was Patience’s father. There’s no one left alive to know that.”

“Russell knew,” Abby said. “Toby spoke to him. They had already arranged that one day when Russell inherited from their father, Toby and Liza would come home again.”

“Russ is dead,” Spencer said gently. “And while a claim on the estate would be an amazing thing, I’m not a greedy man, Abby. Halloran brought you and me together and I will always be grateful to her for that. It’s more than I could have hoped for but that’s enough for me.”

“I understand how you feel,” Abby said. Rising, she put her arms around him. “But Halloran shouldn’t be turned into a hotel or a spa or luxury flats. It should be what it’s always been – a happy, family home. If we can prove your birthright, order will be restored.”

Spencer smiled. “You do realise what you’re saying? The woman who’s spent her adult life travelling, could you commit to staying in one place?”

Abby nodded. “I thought the love of travelling was what kept me moving. Now I know I wasn’t travelling for the sake of it, I was searching. I was meant to find my way here and I was meant to stay.” She patted his chest. “But now I need to get dressed in my own clothes and then we should go up to the house.

“Russell told John Wiseman that he didn’t need to make a new will. That must be because he already had one. I just haven’t found it yet. Russell knew the truth about your heritage. He knew it was your birthright. You and he were close. He would have made sure the right thing was done by you.”

Spencer bent his head to Abby’s. “There’s a logic to all that you say, but I don’t think I should go to the house with you. I don’t want there to be any suggestion of impropriety. The cousins are excluded, therefore I should be too, given what you’ve just told me.”

Abby could see the sense in what he was saying but she hated the prospect of being parted from him so soon.

As if sensing the reason for her reluctance, Spencer said, “I need to go back to work anyway. The storm has ripped down the fences on the western boundary, I was on my way to check the damage when I felt compelled to go to the riverbank instead. Come back to the cottage this evening. I”ll cook us a meal and we can talk more then.”

Re-energised, Abby struck out for the house. Whilst she had been in the cottage the storm had abated. In the rose garden some of the branches had been blown free but, remarkably, most of the flowers were still intact, protected by the sheltering wall.

As she neared the house, Abby

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