Freedom

Angel Rimron-Molloy

Description

In late Victorian England, Lily lives with her father and sister in a country manor. Forced into an arranged marriage with the man her sister loves, Lily daydreams of freedom. When a mysterious angel arrives in her life, Lily finds herself caught in a conflict between nature and industrialisation, between fairy and man, between her heart and her duty.

Sujets

• Fantasy (canción de Mariah Carey)
• Fantasy

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Date de parution: 31 mai 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528960106
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Freedom
Angel Rimron-Molloy
Austin Macauley Publishers
2019-05-31
Freedom About the Author About the Book Dedication Copyright Information Acknowledgement Chapter One The Storm and the Angel Chapter Two The Earl and the Fairies’ Village Chapter Three The Ivy and the Mill Chapter Four The Plan and the Ball Chapter Five The Guest and the Kiss Chapter Six The Reunion and the Plan Chapter Seven The Humans and the Angel Chapter Eight The Fire and the Cure
About the Author
Angel has been day dreaming up stories of knights on horseback, fairies with glittering wings and princesses riding dragons for about as far back as she can remember. This book was actually a school project but she ended up getting carried away. She is very pleased to be able to have one of her stories published. She hopes to have her second book out before her 18 th birthday.
About the Book
In late Victorian England, Lily lives with her father and sister in a county manor. Forced into an arranged marriage with the man her sister loves, Lily daydreams of freedom. When a mysterious angel arrives in her life, Lily finds herself caught in a conflict between nature and industrialisation, between fairy and man, between her heart and her duty.
Dedication
To everyone who has ever had an impossible dream, science tells us nothing is truly impossible, only ever highly improbable. Therefore, I set you a challenge—be that 0.001% that make that dream come true.
Copyright Information
Copyright © Angel Rimron-Molloy (2019)
The right of Angel Rimron-Molloy to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528912358 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528912365 (Hardback)
ISBN 9781528960106 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2019)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Acknowledgement
To my mother, thank you for always being there to help and support me, and thank you for helping to turn my dreams into a reality. Thank you to my grandparents for helping to inspire me to write this book in the first place. Thank you to my Auntie Julie for all your help and support. And finally, a big thank you to Daren.
Chapter One

The Storm and the Angel
Lily stared out of her bedroom window, watching the rain crash against the glass. The gardens were dark and there was no moon to light up the night. Lily’s room was on the second storey, so from her window she had a perfect view of one of the gardens. She looked down at the walled garden; with its lush green lawns and carved stone steps leading to the orchard, which, despite the gardener’s best efforts, were losing a battle against the ivy that seemed determined to swallow them up. The slightly raised stone-lined pond, decorated with an angel statue and four fish fountains, was covered in lily pads and lilies. The walls were loosely draped with ivy along the two raised banks on the left-hand side of the garden, each with man-made waterfalls and beautiful flowerbeds.
Lily watched the rain crash into plants and splash down into the pond, wondering whether the barometer in the hall was broken, considering that for the last four days it had been saying the weather was going to be hot. Lily had heard of April showers but never August storms. Then again, the Lake District had been given its name for a reason (mainly because of all the rain). Lily gazed out of the window, wishing she could fly away from her life and land down on the far side of the woods at the back of her house, where she would be free. Free to love who she chose; free to wear what she wanted; free to not be constantly told what to do by her three older sisters and her father; free to do what she liked for a change. That was never going to happen. She let out a sigh, knowing that she needed to take her father’s advice and get her head out of the clouds.
Ever since Lily was little, she had dreamed of elves, fairies, pixies and angels. She knew that they didn’t exist in the real world but still she couldn’t help it. Every time she went down to the woods behind her house, she always thought she saw flashes of glittering wings in the trees or heard the laughing of tiny people. Of course, that was only when she went down to the woods… and that wasn’t often. Her father and sisters were always telling her to act more like her age and less like a small child. A proper English lady never talked of fairies, or elves, or pixies, or angels; ladies didn’t get mud on their best dress, or go missing for hours on end and they never, never answered back.
The thing was, Lily couldn’t help it. She had to speak out about her engagement. Lord Valentine had taken over the title of Earl after his father’s death, about a year ago. Lord Valentine should have been the ideal fiancé. He was polite, of high social status, wealthy, keen without being overly keen about her, and most importantly, he wasn’t a lecher. The thing was, Lily didn’t love him; granted that he was handsome with his long blonde hair always pulled back in a ponytail and rich chocolate-coloured eyes but still, Lily felt somewhat unable to love him. He was only interested in his social status and his family business. Lily wanted a man who was adventurous and who wasn’t going to laugh over the fact that she loved the Alice in Wonderland stories and the fact that she had a love of fairies and other fantastical things.
Yet, despite the fact that she had protested about her engagement to Lord Valentine, her father had over-ruled her, saying that she was an ungrateful and impertinent woman. He had arranged the perfect husband for her and yet, she still wasn’t happy. Lily sighed. There was no escaping it. She would just have to endure it and marry the man. He wasn’t intolerable after all. She looked longingly at the garden, watching the flashes of lightning and listening to the thunder booming. Gazing absentmindedly at the far wall, she noticed a figure cloaked by the night and half-hidden from view by the ivy which covered part of her window. The figure seemed to be half man, half bird. He alighted on the top of the wall, before falling back into the orchard. Lily felt her breath catch in her throat and she prayed that the man would get back up.
After about thirty seconds, during which Lily had to remind herself to breathe, the man still hadn’t got up. She was about to run out of the room and get help when she realised, you don’t just see flying men. If she ran around telling people of flying men, they wouldn’t believe her. They would just think she was crazy and send her to a mental asylum. No, it was just the storm playing tricks on her mind. She would just ignore it and get up early tomorrow, after the storm had died down, to see what it was. Maybe it was just one of the pigeons from the dovecote getting caught in the storm. Yes, that was it. It was just a pigeon, nothing to worry about. She went back to her bed, pulling back the covers and climbing in. Even if it wasn’t a pigeon, midnight was too late to worry about it, and with that thought, Lily fell asleep.
When Lily awoke early, it was already light outside, although it was only four in the morning. The servants wouldn’t be up for another half an hour, so she was safe from being discovered, for the time being at least. She sneaked out of her room, moving down the hall, passing Catherine’s, Crystal’s and Ruby’s rooms and down the wooden spiral staircase, being careful to avoid the second stair from the bottom which had a tendency to squeak. She ran over the stone floor, past a portrait of her mother which was hanging on the wall, the cold stone floor slabs freezing her bare feet. She turned the corner, passing down a corridor to the heavy wooden door; standing on tip-toe to undo the chain at the top of the door. She swung the door open and ran out onto the gravel courtyard, passing the flower beds, planted with pale pink, deep purple, and creamy yellow hollyhocks.
Lily ran left, passing through the archway in the left-hand wall which led into the garden she had been watching through her window last night. She ran around the pond, up the ivy-covered steps, through another archway which led into the orchard. She turned around to her right to see where the pigeon had fallen; but to her surprise she didn’t see a pigeon or even another breed of bird. It was a man with two badly torn and bleeding white wings which poked out of his white shirt. He wore soaking white trousers and a frilly shirt that clung to his body, having been made almost entirely transparent by the rain from the storm. He lay face down, on a water-logged patch of ground. Lily took a step back. What was she to do? Was this man dangerous? Could she trust him? Well, whether she could trust him or not, she still had to try to help. Lily knelt down next to him, not caring about the fact that her nightgown was filthy with mud and rainwater. Everything she had ever dreamed of had come true. The magical creatures that she had thought lived in the forest really existed.
She couldn’t wait to tell her father that they were real! Wait, no, she couldn’t do that. Only God almighty knew what he would do upon learning that they were real. It would probably not be something good. Lily gripped the man’s shoulders and began shaking him gently. “Hello? Sir? Are you alive?” The man stirred, groaning in pain.
“Pray explain how you expected me to answer the question if I was dead?” He turned