Page 1 of Here in Your Arms
Chapter One
University of Glasgow, Special Collections Office
1978
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The rain in Glasgow had a way of making everything look older, like the past was still alive and just waiting to be uncovered. Rose Carlisle tilted her umbrella against the wind and hurried up the worn stone steps of the University of Glasgow’s Special Collections Department. The grand Gothic architecture, with its towering spires and endless stone corridors, never failed to stir something deep in her. From the moment she’d first nervously pushed through the door of the building, she’d felt as if she’d belonged.
When she first applied for the Quarter Abroad Program through the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, she never thought she’d actually be accepted, let alone assigned to work in the archives of one of Scotland’s most prestigious universities. But here she was, twenty-one years old, three thousand miles from home, touching history with her own hands.
She paused at the heavy wooden door, giving her coat a sharp shake to rid it of the lingering rain before stepping inside. The smell of old parchment, ink, and dust clung to the air, a scent Rose Carlisle had grown to love.
Moving through the open foyer, her boots tapped softly against the polished hardwood as she followed the long corridor toward the rear of the building, where the interns' offices were tucked away.
She was just returning from a late lunch—an unconscious habit at this point. More often than not, she was too absorbed in her work to think about eating, losing hours at a time siftingthrough ancient manuscripts. Tea, at least, was a staple in the office, steeped regularly enough that she never went too long without something warm to sustain her.
Lately, she had fallen into a predictable rhythm, ducking out late in the afternoon, grabbing a quick sandwich from the café across the street, and returning well before her official break was up. She rarely used the full hour she was entitled to. And, just as often, like tonight, she had no intention of leaving anytime soon.
There was so much work to be done, but that wasn’t the only reason she stayed. It wasn’t just guilt over the sheer volume of uncatalogued collections or the knowledge that there would never be enough hands to sort through it all. Rose happily and voluntarily put in many extra hours every week because she loved this work. Because every ledger, every brittle parchment, every forgotten artifact felt like a bridge between past and present. She was driven not by obligation, but by curiosity, by the thrill of peeling back layers of time and uncovering voices long since silenced. It was more than a job. And when she was here, surrounded by centuries-old manuscripts and the quiet hum of history, she felt like she was exactly where she was meant to be.
It wasn’t all glamorous, of course. Most of it was tedious, painstaking work—hours spent sifting through barely legible scrawl, cross-referencing documents, or attempting to decipher crumbling pages eaten away by time. Some days were outright boring, filled with nothing but inventory lists and financial ledgers, the kind of records that only mattered to the long-dead men who kept them.
But even then, she loved it. Because every now and then, buried among the dry notations and endless accounts, she would find something—a personal letter, a forgotten name, a glimpse of a life lived centuries ago. Those were the moments that made itall worth it. The thrill of discovery, the quiet magic of uncovering a story that no one had read in hundreds of years.
The office was settling for the evening, the rhythmic tapping of typewriters slowing, the shuffle of papers fading as professors and archivists packed up for the night.
Rose set her crocheted purse down at her desk and flopped into her chair, considering the legal pad of notes she’d left next to her typewriter. There, she’d made herself a list of projects for the week and consulted the next item on her list. She loved crossing things off her list—however, it normally took days to make one simple scratch across the paper, the jobs usually being days and not only hours of work.
Across the room, Dr. Eleanor Fraser, Rose’s mentor and supervisor, sat at her desk, stubbing out a cigarette in an already full ashtray. Dr. Fraser—brilliant, eccentric, and practically married to history—was the center of it all, the queen in a student’s universe. She sat behind a cluttered desk, half-buried in an open manuscript, her hair barely held in place by a pencil. A half-filled cup of tea sat beside her, possibly long forgotten.
It appeared, just at that moment, that she realized Rose’s return of more than a minute ago. She glanced up quickly, her gaze moving from Rose to the large round clock above the door, and then carefully closed the manuscript.
“You’re staying late again, then?” Dr. Fraser asked as she stood from her desk. Her sharp, discerning eyes flicked over Rose with a touch of concern. She gathered her satchel—a battered leather thing, heavy with books and papers—and pulled on her coat, flipping her hair out from the collar.
Rose smiled. “It’s not every day a girl from Wisconsin gets to sift through 700-year-old manuscripts. We don’t have these in America. And haven’t you said, time and again, the best finds happen when no one’s looking?”
Dr. Fraser smirked, her sharp green eyes brightening. "Aye, well, sometimes I mean that figuratively, but in your case, I see you’ve taken it as a challenge."
"I’m just trying to make the most of my time here," Rose said.
“You remind me of myself at your age—young, eager, no sense of time.” Dr. Fraser hesitated, as though weighing whether to say more, then softened, lowering her voice. “You’ve a fine mind for this, Rose. Better than some of the full-fledged scholars who come through here.” She sighed, her gaze briefly distant. “Just remember to live in the present, too. History can be an enticing mistress, but she doesn’t give much back.”
Rose waved off her concern, voiced here not for the first time. “I’ll be fine. Go have a pint for me.”
Dr. Fraser snorted. “Aye, and if I had my way, I’d have three.” She glanced again at Rose’s list on the yellow paper. “What will you work on tonight?”
Rose consulted her list again. “Um, I’ll be cataloguing estate records from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, those ones from the parish of Moy and Dalarossie,” she informed her. “I think you said they were in a cardboard box in the reading room.”
Dr. Fraser nodded. “They are. Mind the ones with the gold-embossed bindings; they’re fragile. And for God’s sake, don’t spill any tea on them. Not that I suspect you of such sacrilege."
Rose held up her hands. "I’d rather burn in hell than stain a medieval manuscript."
Dr. Fraser smirked. "Good girl. Lock up when you’re done. Good night, Rose.”
With that and a final nod of farewell, the professor departed for the day, disappearing down the corridor. Rose leaned back in her chair, rolling her shoulders with a sigh. The fluorescent light overhead buzzed faintly, but her desk was bathed in the soft glow of her green-shaded banker’s lamp.
Her original plan, when applying to the Scottish program almost a year ago, had not exactly been this.
