Tom by 1941aaa I was orphaned at an early age and was most fortunate to be taken in by Peter and Mary Withers, for I took the place of the child they never had. Peter was the gamekeeper for Lord Carlton on his estate in Wiltshire and Mary helped out in th...

  My father passed away about a year ago and so I was now alone in my house for my mother had walked out from us many years ago when I was only a child of five. The reason for that, my father told me later, was because of him being caught getting another...

Chapter Nine They all began to talk at once as soon as it sunk in that it appeared that Hugo was correct in his assumption of where my remains were lying. Sophie went to one of the bell pulls and rang for a servant and asked him to fetch six men and some...

Chapter Eight With the loss of Alice and Arthur, the spirit had gone out of the other children in respect of their ghost hunting activities during that winter. So they looked forward to the summer to resume their hunting for my grave in the gardens, but t...

Chapter Seven This letter made a staggering impact on the family when it was produced that night at the dinner table by Sophie. ‘Odds bodkins!’ Thomas exclaimed. ‘This would definitely have killed father if he’d seen this. So Richard was my grandfather an...

Chapter Six Call it a quirk of fate if you wish, though I am more of a quirk than the fact that both Grace, wife of Henry, and Sophie went into labour at the same time to produce their offspring in unison. In some way I was pleased that the doctor was see...

Chapter Five When I wasn’t watching the children play and grow, I spent time looking over the shoulder of William while he was at his desk in the study. This was a definite no go zone for female members of the family as this was where all the business of...

Chapter Four Sophie, if you remember, was the baby that smiled at me at her birth, the daughter of my sister Joan. She was six years old now, and had been brought over to the hall with her parents for the ball being held in the main hall. I had already wa...

Time. That man made name for the passing of the seasons and the years. To me, it had no meaning. It was limitless as far as I could see. I was nearly twenty years of age by this reckoning, and likely to remain so for eternity. But I still wanted to fight...

Chapter Two In that instant I was outside of my body to see the pistol ball come erupting out of my chest in a gout of blood and gore and watched myself pitch forward to fall on the carpet. Caroline screamed and then fainted as I turned to see Edward stan...

PROLOGUE Our story opens on Wednesday, June 22 nd 1727. The day King George the first, died in Germany, but more importantly, it was the day I was born. I was christened Richard Oliver Philip Stapleton in our family chapel, the second son to Earl Cecil St...

Cronos. Part Seven. ‘Home darling,’ Brendan said when the ship was still. Audrey stretched and they went up to look at the house as it was back in 1919. ‘When was it built?’ Audrey asked as she held her arm round his waist. ‘I don’t really know. We were l...

Cronos. Part Six. The familiar hum came along with the slight tremor and the screen of the earth went like a television set with its snow flake effect. It then cleared to show just a haze where the Earth was and the ship was now trembling quite a bit, som...

Cronos. Part Five. It was a whirlwind two weeks being chaperoned everywhere for the getting together of her trousseau though her escorts threw their hands up in horror when she said that she expected to honeymoon in the wilds of Argentina. Brendan’s mothe...

Cronos. Part Four. ‘Did you make notes when you were here last?’ he asked. ‘No, I only made sketches of the dead Brontosaurus at the site,’ she answered as she got her notebook out and thumbed through the pages. ‘Well I know I did,’ as she continued to tu...