Chapter 1

If someone had told Albert M. King ten years ago that on the 13th of August 2023 he would have seen a horse and cart attempt to subtly park in the shelter of the archway that connected Cracklam manor to the village wall, he would have thought they were insane. Though really, now he came to think about it, he would have thought the person in the cart much more insane. Now, if he had been told that, once a decade had passed, this was a common sight on the streets of Britain, then he would have questioned the messenger’s mental state. Still, anything can happen in ten years.

 

The cart, though really, it was more like a small wooden goods lorry, was made up of 15 cm slats, or at least, so he guessed, he was rather far away at his view point out of the top floor window on the opposite side of the cobblestone yard. He was counting in his head, one, two, three…eleven in total, with tiny, millimetre gaps between them, so if you were close, you could just peek through into the seemingly ordinary contraption. But, there was nothing ordinary about the fact that it had shown up, under his archway, at quarter past eleven at night. Not that he would really call it night, for one thing, the moon had not risen, and for another, his guests were still in the parlour, and had not progressed into the dance hall to inject a little more excitement into what promised to be a rather dull night. He was not known for his raucous parties, at least, not anymore. However, those days were long gone, left behind in the many miles between him and his old Glasgow home.

 

Oh, there was something. A figure, emerging from the vehicle, immersed in a black cloak. He cursed under his breath, for their face was not visible. Wait, it was! Just a little. He strained his eyes, leaning further towards the window pane. But all he could see was a little round cheek, pale as ice, but as she - for he was sure now, it was a she, those features were too feminine to belong to a man - turned, perhaps just to check she had come to the right place, or simply in agitation, for she had just knocked on the back door, her pale skin caught the lunar glow, and her face was like sunlight, hidden by a cloud. The moonlight was trapped in her eyes too, but he only saw their dark twinkle in the shadow caused by the hood of her cloak. Someone had let her in, and his courtyard was empty of her intrigue once more. He tried to examine the cart; he could not see the driver clearly, as he was hidden in the shadow of the canopy, presumably to protect him from the slight drizzle. The only clues that he was even there, was the vague outline of a dark shape, and the little puffs of smoke that billowed out of that particular patch of darkness.  Straining his eyes a little more, he saw writing on the visible side of the wagon, the treacle brown paint was only a shade darker than the fudge brown slats, but he could still just about read it; “R.N. registered.” Hmm…registered implied some sort of trade, and she didn’t look like the kind of girl who was accustomed to hard graft. Though perhaps, Mr King considered, he was wrong, after all he was not widely acquainted with such girls, or anyone with a job that would require a cart. In fact, he doubted he knew anyone who owned a cart, except perhaps the servants, but they didn’t count. He was of the class that were still permitted to drive cars, the important people of the world that had been exempt from what was often described as “Green politics gone mad.”

 

Looking back into the room, he tried to remember exactly why he was having this party anyway. He barely knew the guests. The squealing laughter of mindless women echoed through the ancient and historic rafters, tainting it with the sheer pointlessness of such a noise. It dug into his eardrums, fished through his body, and bit into his heart, but the eternal smiles and fluttering eyelashes, the hair which would bounce when heads were thrown back in uproar, would cover the wounds in honey and in syrup, and they could convince most men that they were angels, not demons.  There was too much pink. He didn’t like other colours at the best of times, but he could just about stand them. Pink, on the other hand, was vulgar. Vulgar and pointless. How many hours until they left? How many until his dear Cracklem hall, his home amongst his half a dozen houses, would be returned to the greys, navies, blacks and browns that he was fond of? Ah! Mr Drystan, the butler, had entered, and had begun to edge his way around the corners of the room. Now Mr King would discover who the strange girl was.

 

Her hooded face did not look up as he strutted through the stone archway into the dance hall, for that was where the back door led you too, after a tiny hallway separating the majestic room from the night outside. The roar as his pointy black shoes clashed with the stone floor echoed around the vast and shadow-ridden room. He stopped, a few feet in front of her, if she wanted to see him, she would have to make the effort of walking to meet him. He would not be ignored like this, for she still hid beneath the cape, and remained drenched in the protective shadow of the doorway.  Only the edge of her white cheeks burst out of the darkness of the garment. She withdrew a single, dainty hand and raised it to the wide brim of the hood, pulling it even further over her face for a second, then swiftly grasping it with her other hand too, drawing it back, letting loose an avalanche of wavy midnight locks. Her parted lips, two smears of blood side by side on her powder white face, let one solitary breath escape through the open gateway they had caused, before withdrawing the portcullis of teeth, in a wide, all knowing, and sensual grin.

 

Her strut was even more flamboyant than his as she let the cloak drop to the floor, stepping cautiously - but ever sure of herself - towards him. Her hips, a pair of black leather short shorts clinging on to them for dear life, rocked from side to side like a boat on the ocean. She paced forward slowly, she could tell from Mr King’s face how uncomfortable her never faltering eye contact was, but his anxiety only made her grin wider.  As she grew closer though, her gaze diverted, she avoided him when she was almost half way between him and her original position by carefully examining the walls, as if her inquisitive eyes had never seen anything so enthralling. In the last few steps she turned her head to face him once more, her raven ringlets pouring over her shoulders, covered by a cropped cardigan, as red as her lips, all the way down to her relatively small waist, where the high waistband of those ridiculous leather shorts met her little white vest top. She linked her blue eyes with his grey ones.

 

He knew those eyes. He knew her, he was sure of it. But where did he know her from? Did he know her at all? Perhaps he was just imagining it. But Albert King was not a man who knew a lot about imagination. Her eyes resembled the icy black-blue of Scottish seas, but they were strangely warm and comforting, especially compared to the cold beauty of the rest of her. The hall was silent apart from their out of sync breathing now that she had come to a halt only a breath away from him.

“I was looking for Sir Charles, I believe he lives here?” she said. It wasn’t the voice he was expecting; it was too refined, too high pitched and too graceful. Then again, the more he considered it, she was a graceful woman after all, perhaps it did make sense.

“He’s dead” Mr King said coldly “has been for a long time. I own his estate now.”

“Pity, I had some business to discuss with him” she began to circle him lice a shark in the water.

“And,” he cautiously ran over what he would say next, in an attempt to not seem like he was prying “What business would that be?”

“None of yours!” she replied, sharp and defensive, staring into his eyes with an un-called for hatred. Realising her social misdemeanour, she kept her eyes on the floor until she was standing in front of him once more, returning to her calm and collected manor. “So, who are you, the man who has taken my friend’s house?”

“I don’t see how it can concern you, after all it was my predecessor you came to see” his irritating smugness surfaced in the corners of his moth “anyway, you can’t have been that close really, you didn’t even know he was dead!” he shook the little wisps of blonde hair back off his receding hair line in a way that was all too familiar to her. She remembered it as one remembers a dream they had about a week ago, upstaged by one more exciting and more recent. She rested her left hand on the padded shoulder of his lack suit jacket, scrutinising it carefully before looking deeply into his rock-grey eyes.

“Didn’t I?” It was her turn to offer a devious smirk. She drew closer, her lips almost brushing his cheek, slowly sensing her way towards his ear. “I’m insulted Albert” she whispered intimately to him. She drew back, as if to allow him a proper look at her, he must have missed some clue to revealing her identity, she was giving him one last chance to spot it. Her voice cracked, it changed. No longer the elegant, flowing chime that had confused him so, it broke into a harsh, deep dialect that Albert had not heard for what felt like a lifetime. “Don’ y’ remember me?”

Of course he did. Ten years had had little effect on her radiance, but her impersonation of the ladies upstairs, with their refined voices and manners, had thrown him off for a minute. An infinite number of images flashed by his eyes. Images of her smiling, covered in play-dough, or triumphant after winning one of their many arguments, images of those eyes, filled with hurt and betrayal, every time he snubbed her, which had been often throughout their shared thirteen years of education. The edges separating a thousand days of summer blurred, forming a reel of warmth, laughter, rain and the eternal bleakness of Glaswegian skies. Weeks, months, years �" cooped up in a hundred different classrooms �" changing, ageing, growing closer and growing apart, never quite realising how important they were to each other. Oh yes, he remembered her.

“Grace?” his feverish whisper only a decibel or two louder than her raspy breathing. All the time he had been reminiscing she had played with her hair. Startled now, she drew it back over her shoulders, swiftly, in a rush of blizzard while flesh, she removed a small black gun from its sanctuary between her breasts as quick and jerky as water gushing down a river. She let it rest between the bridge of his glasses and his square, strawberry red nose.

“I thought the name was a good clue.” She stated, licking her lips, enjoying having power over him for once, it always used to be the other way round. “Rita? As in educatin’ Rita? Do you not remember the number of arguments we had over that? And ten years is a long time, but I don’t think I look that different.”
“In my defence the accent was a little off putting” he replied curtly.

“That was the point.” Her voice was sharp as a dagger, which he was surprised she wasn’t using; it was much more her style than a gun. “Now get in the cart.”

Author's Note

the t of don't is supposed to be missed out. because she's scottish, and Scots don't understand the concept of the letter t, that's why so few of them are t-total :P