Page 4 of Never Leave Me
Yet didn’t she realize the right man wouldn’t care about her VHL? The right man would love her regardless and would want to spend every moment of her remaining time together.
She lifted her face to the sunshine. The strand of pearls she always wore glistened, drawing his attention to her slender neck and tightening the longing deep within him.
He shouldn’t have had a row with her, should have stayed in the garden and enjoyed being with her. While he wouldn’t budge from his endeavors to save her, he had to make more effort to relish the time together.
He had to go out there straightaway, apologize, and sit with her, taking in every detail and moment with her. He’d ride with her to Serenity House for the afternoon and spend time with her there. He loved watching her interact with the families and children who stayed at her dad’s remodeled home as a place of respite.
Regardless of how ill she’d been and still was, she continued to pour her heart out into the Serenity Foundation, a charity she’d started last year to assist children struggling with terminal genetic diseases. Not only did she provide the house with a loving staff, but she also granted wishes to each of the children who were a part of the program, giving them an experience she hoped would improve the quality of their lives.
He was proud of her. She’d taken the vast inheritance left to her by her father, along with Marian’s share, and invested it in not only the Serenity Foundation but also a VHL research fund and had established an ongoing endowment for the Haitian orphanage where she’d once worked.
The truth was that he needed to do better at keeping his worries and frustrations to himself. In fact, he ought to plan a trip forthem, take her somewhere glamorous where they wouldn’t have to think about her disease for a few days.
A rush of adrenaline pumped through him. Yes, that was precisely what they needed. He powered his wheelchair so quickly he bumped against the wall and knocked into the coat of arms hanging next to the window. Half-hidden behind the thick curtains he rarely closed, the large shield wobbled.
He stuck out a hand to keep it from falling. At the same moment, the drapes shifted, giving him full view of the family coat of arms. Although long out of use and now nothing more than a symbol of bygone eras, it was still part of his family’s heritage.
The golden stag took up the center of a crimson background with an azure outer edge. The stag bore enormous antlers upon its head, a flowing beard down its chest, and a simple strand of pearls around its neck. It stood in the statant position, a regal creature with all four legs firmly planted on the ground.
He straightened the shield, then froze. Pearls?
The emblem had always been that way. He hadn’t thought anything of it previously. But with the vision of Marian’s pearls gracing Ellen’s neck just moments ago, his thoughts tumbled together. The larger teardrop pearl at the front of Marian’s necklace was the same size as the larger teardrop pearl on the strand around the stag’s neck.
He ventured more than one such style of pearl necklace existed. But how could it be a coincidence that Marian’s and the stag’s were the same?
He’d always thought the pearls a strange part of the family heraldry. But what if it wasn’t so strange after all?
2
HARRISONTOOKOFFhis spectacles and rubbed his eyes with his palms. He slipped his glasses back on, but his fingers were shaking so much he could hardly position them.
When he’d researched his family crest long ago, he hadn’t found heraldry belonging to other families containing strands of pearls. Crowns and coronets used pearls interwoven with leaves to distinguish marquises from earls and barons. But the Burlington arms had remained unique with its entire pearl strand around the stag’s neck.
What if the emblem was a message from the past? From Marian?
His mind spun for another logical explanation. Anything. But as he grasped for some rationalization, his heartbeat sped with excitement. Had she lived on in the past? Surely this was a sign.
He shook his head. Was he mad to continue to entertain the possibility that Marian had crossed the time and space continuum?
The more he’d studied the physics behind the structure of time,the more he’d realized time worked much differently than it appeared. Its operation was a great mystery that brilliant scientists were still attempting to understand. Most agreed time wasn’t linear but instead fluctuated within a quantum dynamic.
If thehereandtherecould coexist at the same time, wasn’t it possiblethenandnowcould also coexist? Based on a logical way of thinking, people had once believed the earth was flat and that the sun revolved around the earth. Both theories were proven wrong, which demonstrated that reality was often different than what was perceived.
He suspected the perception of time to a finite man was also different than reality. Even so, he couldn’t prove Marian had crossed to another era and was livingtheninstead ofnow. Or maybe he could prove it...
He released the curtain, noticing that the drape fell back over the shield, half-concealing the emblem. He hadn’t had any reason to examine it in recent months, since before all that had happened with Marian and Arthur. Now with the knowledge of Arthur’s research and the possibility of crossing time, he shifted the curtain again and studied the coat of arms with fresh eyes, trying to recall everything he’d once learned.
A stag. In heraldry it stood for wisdom. And long life.
The hair on his arms prickled. Long life? That wasn’t a coincidence, was it?
What did the antlers represent?
He plucked his mobile from his pocket and typed in a search. As the results popped up, he sat back in his chair, genuinely staggered.
Branch-like antlers were said to represent the Tree of Life and were also a symbol of healing.
And the pearls? What symbolism did they contain?
