Ghostly Embrace

Brenda Hurley

Description

A ghostly story of redemption through the power of love. Louis never felt the knife that killed him, or saw the blood that seeped into the wood of the bed he was lying on. Trapped there in the bed of his own design and making, Louis, a craftsman from the 18th century, must confront the fact that he is a ghost who will never be able to touch or feel the world as he once did.As the years pass Louis struggles to deny his own anger and loneliness created by his death, leading him to haunt and petrify any one who owns his bed that keeps him captive.However, this all changes when he meets two women who live in a very different century to the one he knew and by chance he finds a way to visit them through their dreams.He finds Marina early in the 20th century and Katie, a modern girl of the 1970's.Separately they are able to show him light in his life again.

Sujets

• Romance

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 12 février 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781789019537
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

Extrait

Ghostly
Embrace
Brenda Hurley
Copyright © 2019 Brenda Hurley

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

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ISBN 9781789019537

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
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For Natalie, Sue and Bethany

Thanks for the encouragement you gave me
Contents
The Beginning

1
2
3
4
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About the Author
The Beginning
In that small bedroom, the cold grey corpse lay surrounded by his art that was testimony to his extraordinary skills. If the bed could speak it would have told a story. A love story that would seal his fate and cause his death.
Louis didn’t feel the knife as it plunged into his heart. He would never wake from his deep slumber. Never again would his mortal eyes see the light of day.
There was not much blood to be seen but the little there was seeped through the thin mattress that he had laid on and into the wooden slats that supported it.
Louis’s lifeblood and his spirit were absorbed into the wood, just as his sweat had been when he carved and tooled the bed he was to die on.
The carved love token that told the story of the creation of life.

Every chip and every mark he made under his hands became a real place in his imagination. He could feel that world growing under his hands as he worked, he could see beyond the wooden surface into a pleasing and beautiful countryside.
From the first mark he made, he was realising a dream. It was a labour of love fashioned from oak, a desired world that was made for and by Louis.
Louis had carefully planned the headboard’s design, its shape and size. It was his blank canvas of wood on which he could shape his fantasy.
Using the high central curve to depict the crown of the tree, the trunk stood solidly rooted in the centre of the headboard. Louis carved the tree heavy in leaf. Its spreading branches stretched out, reaching and disappearing into the upright edges of the board that connected to the posts of the bed. Grapes, apples, figs and oranges hanging heavily from the branches were immortalised there in the carved oak, a rich variety of fruit, part hidden under the leaves of the trees. There would be no hunger in his kingdom.
On a low horizon behind the tree, the sun stretched out its rays of light to touch the edges of this world; warmth, too, would be his gift.
Sheltered by the leafy branches of the tree on either side of the trunk, two figures stand. The couple, a man and woman, face each other in profile, their eyes locked, their steady stare shutting out all that is about them, everything save themselves. Their arms reach out, their hands clasp together, sharing the simple touch of love.
That gesture of love put them in the centre of Louis’s world.
1
the end of the 18th century
Louis
Was it his good nature that attracted people to him? Or perhaps it was his smile that appeared so readily on his face when he was talking to someone.
You couldn’t deny he had charm; whatever the cause, it made him friends.
Most would have said he was handsome. At five feet ten inches he was regarded as quite tall standing against the rest of the men in his village. His eyes were dark under his hooded brows; as to whether they were brown or black one couldn’t say at first glance, but they twinkled under his lashes when he was engaged in conversation, especially with a female. His nose was straight but not too long and his lips were soft and full. He had long unruly dark hair that habitually fell over his eyes when he was working at his bench. He would constantly be pushing it back from his eyes until in frustration he would tie it back in a leather thong in a tail at the nape of his neck.
He didn’t go unnoticed by the young females of his village whose hearts beat a little faster when he was near. A few dreamt of capturing him for themselves and imagined their wedding day, but none of the ladies captured his heart, though he enjoyed flirting well enough. He was never short of a lady companion if he wanted one, though love had never visited him.
The attractive thirty-year-old was already a master carpenter but he also had a gift for carving. He had an insight when he touched the wood in his hands. The knives and chisels became one with his sensitive fingers as he cut away through the bark and the outer layers of the wood until he found the birds, animals, fish or fowl hidden deep within, allowing the precious forms to be liberated from the prison that had locked them within the wood, or so it seemed to him.
He drew his inspiration from folklore and local legends that heightened his imagination when planning a new piece of work in wood. He loved the idea of spirits living in the trees and forest. Pixies, fairies, trolls, water sprites and the like intrigued him. How many trees had faces on their gnarled old bark with eyes that looked back at him as he walked through the wooded paths. They reminded him of the myths from long ago like that of the Green Man, a deity of pagan England that became an instrument of harmony between the pagans and the Christian church.
The pub in the village was called The Royal Oak; it too had the iconic face of the Green Man painted on its sign. Carving the strange mask-like face with hair and beard made of oak leaves and acorns stirred Louis’s imagination, as it had for many men for the last thousand years. The green man was a god of wilderness, nature and agriculture, wine, ecstasy and sexual abandonment that had been used as a decoration in stone on many churches since the New Christian Order.
Louis’s mind was flooded by the inspiration that came from the source of nature, feeding his imagination; his skill grew along with a reputation for his fine work.
He was his own boss and after a day’s work with no one to please but himself, you would find him in the local public house in the evening.
The Royal Oak served hot meals and with a tankard of beer in his hand to wash the meal down, it seemed a much better idea than cooking for one in his kitchen.
It became his regular habit, week in, week out. It was a way of unwinding the tensions of the day and relaxing his stiffened muscles. The other benefits of his habit meant that he met up with other workmen from the village; they made good company for each other, enjoying men’s talk and having a laugh over a pint.
When love came it turned his life upside down.
Sophia was a goddess in his eyes, socially in a sphere that was far too lofty for a man like himself.
He dreamt of her becoming his one true love, knowing it was only a dream because there was no hope of courting such a fine lady.
But fate had other ideas and when he did meet her she became the inspiration of his creation, the carved headboard that told the story of the Garden of Eden and the tree of life.
She was his Eve and he was her Adam, if she would have him.
2
The Village
Everyone knew Louis in the village of Ravensend. It nestled in a valley sandwiched between moorland on one side and fertile fields of crops that rolled on, reaching the tree-lined hills in the distance.
The village of Ravensend was made up of ninety homes, several shops, one public house and a small chapel. There was a factory just beyond the boundaries of the village that employed many of Louis’s neighbours, sorting wool, dyeing it and weaving the spun threads into fabric.
Louis’s workshop was in a small stone house. It comprised of a bedroom and a living room-cum-kitchen that led off into a decent-sized workshop, well lit by a large window and the only access door that opened onto the main road that ran through the village. It was a cobbled road that led from the factory to Broadwater Town that was some eight miles away. Pavements of dark grey stone slabs lined the main road, standing inches above the cobbles of the road.
The carts that rattled over them with their metal wheels spinning slowly and noisily were drawn by tired-looking horses pulling heavy loads as they carried the finished woollen product from the factory to the town.
Ravensend was a large prosperous village. The factory had brought money to the pockets of the villagers. Many earned more now than they could have done working on the land. For the folks that lived there, the shops were well stocked with all manner of goods and supplies. The monies that came from the businesses were spread and spent on making the homes of the businessmen as elegant as the owners could afford. Orders of fine furniture, elaborate doors, banisters and wall panels to dress the studies and offices of the middle-class merchants came from Louis’s workshop.
It had taken many years of dedicated work to create the elegant furniture he was produci