Love's Labyrinth

by Anne Kelleher

  Praise for Anne Kelleher

  “What a fascinating book! Packed with energy and intrigue!”

  Amy Wilson – Literary Times

  A superb medieval romance with a time travel twist

  “A passionate time travel romance that is based on a love that flows forever. Kelleher’s novel [is] a spectacular medieval romance with a twist.”

  ~ 5 stars from Amazon Hall of Fame Reviewer Harriet Klausner

  “Anne Kelleher knows how to draw a reader into a story.”

  “The writing was great and the imagery was vivid. Highly recommended.”

  “Kelleher excels at painting strong visuals through her masterful blending of just the right few words. Brava, Anne!”

  “I enjoyed everything about this story. Great, quick read, enjoyable details, and interesting plot. Look forward to reading more from this author.”

  “What a delicious surprise this story is! I lost myself in the well-developed characters. I felt like they were old friends. I could picture each moment, thanks to the author’s vivid descriptions.”

  About

  Love’s Labyrinth

  The path to the heart can lead to unexpected places.

  England, 1999: When BFFs Olivia Lindsley and Alison O'Neill enter the labyrinth at Talcott Forest, a magnificent sixteenth century estate, they think it will be fun to pretend to be Elizabethan ladies, searching for an answer to the mystery of the true identity of Shakespeare's Dark Lady. Until they step outside the maze and realize they've come further than they ever thought they could…

  England, 1586: Both women think time travel is impossible… until they meet Queen Elizabeth, as well as the owners of Talcott Forest: Lord Nicholas and his amateur scientist brother, Geoffrey. Lord Nicholas and Geoffrey do their best to pass the two visitors off as cousins from the North, but Alison and Olivia's unusual ways soon raise suspicions of witchcraft… and worse. As tensions rise and the nooses tighten, Alison and Olivia must search for a way to return to their present, lest they lose their lives to the superstitions of the past, and their hearts to the dashing brothers Talcott.

  Books by Anne Kelleher

  Romances:

  Time Travel

  A Once and Future Love

  Love’s Labyrinth

  Paranormal

  The Ghost & Katie Coyle

  Historical

  The Highwayman

  Erotic

  Wickham's Folly

  Wickham’s Fancy (2015)

  Wickham’s Fate (2015)

  Science Fiction/Fantasy

  Silver’s Edge

  Silver’s Bane

  Silver’s Lure

  *Daughter of Prophecy

  *Children of Enchantment

  *The Misbegotten King

  *The Knight, the Harp & the Maiden

  Celebrity Supernatural Series

  Conjuring Johnny Depp

  Finding Southside Johnny (with Don Goodman)

  Raising Jerry Garcia (with Don Goodman)

  Walking with Elvis

  Short Stories

  After the Rapture

  Enhanced

  David Series - (High Interest/Simple Reading Level)

  How David Met Sarah

  When David was Surprised

  *Originally published under the name Anne Kelleher Bush

  LOVE’S LABYRINTH

  Anne Kelleher

  Dedication

  For my sweetest Meggie Moo, my pearl without price, with love, beyond limit or reason…

  A Note from the Author

  In the writing of this book, I have been deeply indebted to various scholars who, through the excellence of their work, enabled me to anchor my imagination more readily in solid fact. They include Anne Somerset, Elizabeth I; Alison Weir, The Life of Elizabeth I; Christopher Hibbert, The Virgin Queen; Antonia Fraser, Mary, Queen of Scots; and A. L. Rowse, Shakespeare the Man, which was one of the sources of the genesis of this story. My friend Josephine Putnam Vernon and I wrote the first draft of this story when we were still in high school. Both she and Lorraine Stanton have been to me the kind of friends Alison and Olivia are, and I hope I have in some small way conveyed the importance of those relationships in my own life through those characters. Finally, my deepest thanks go to my mother, who introduced me to the works of William Shakespeare when she directed a shortened version of Macbeth with my fifth grade class, thus instilling in me a love of the English language and an appreciation for its literature and its history that continues to grow to this day.

  PROLOGUE

  LONDON, 1587

  A HEAVY PALL of smoke hung in the thick tavern air, wreathing the faces of the patrons who, for the most part, were too deeply engaged in the contents of their cups to either notice or be bothered by it. And certainly no one paid the least attention to the two men sitting in the corner, for the one was readily dismissed as a prosperous Puritan in his expensive but serviceable garments of unrelieved black, and the other as nothing more than a well-to-do shopkeeper.

  Master Christopher Warren leaned over the rough plank table and addressed his soberly dressed companion beneath the babble, which rose and fell all around them. “We’ve heard you’ve a mind to offer your daughter’s hand to Lord Nicholas Talcott.” He waited just long enough to observe the shock register on the other man’s face, then leaned back against the grimy whitewashed wall.

  “Master Warren! How—how—” Sir John Makepeace sputtered and set his tankard down with a thud. “How do you know that?”

  Master Warren allowed himself the reward of a small smile. “We have our ways, Sir John.”

  “You and Walsingham’s crew—I’ve heard tales about you lot.” The country knight looked disgusted, his Kentish accent growing thicker as surprise yielded to dismay.

  “Have you, now?” Master Warren’s face was bland, and his lips beneath his thin mustache twitched. “Don’t be alarmed, Sir John. Everyone is well aware of your unimpeachable loyalty to Her Majesty.”

  “Then what business is it of anyone’s to whom I betroth my daughter? That’s still a father’s prerogative—least, so it was the last I heard.”

  “And so may it always remain, Sir John.” Warren raised his own tankard in a mock toast. “But because of your, ah, interest, shall we say, in the Talcott estates, some of us thought it prudent to approach you regarding this rather delicate matter.”

  “Involving Talcott?”

  “Ah, you begin to see.” The irony was lost on the other man completely, and Warren sighed inwardly. These country dolts were difficult to reach at times. It required the patience of a saint—of a mother, he corrected himself (after all, there were no more saints in this brave new Protestant world)—just to explain circumstances in a manner in which they would be understood. However, he reminded himself, if one took the time required, one’s efforts were usually rewarded with a kind of dogged loyalty that was difficult to find anywhere else, let alone purchase. And certainly not at Court, he reflected, scanning the tavern’s common room more by force of habit than out of any real concern he might be seen and recognized.

  This dingy tavern near St. Bartholomew’s Hospital was the last place anyone connected with the Court would come. And Sir John Makepeace was a Protestant of highest repute—known only for his devotion to his family, his lands, and the new religion. It mattered not at all if Master Warren were seen in his company. And if, of late, Sir John’s leanings seemed to be growing less than moderate, that only increased the chances that Warren could convince him to participate in the scheme to bring Lord Nicholas Talcott of Talcott Forest to a complete and final reckoning on the executioner’s block.

  He shifted to a more comfortable position on the hard bench and leaned across the table once more. “What if I told
you there could be a way to acquire the Talcott patrimony without the loss of your daughter’s hand to an avowed Papist family?”

  At that, Sir John looked even more taken aback, but, to his credit, conceded Master Warren, this time he took a quaff of ale and set his tankard down slowly before replying. “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s well known, Sir John, that you’ve had a taste for the Talcott acres for quite some time. You offered to buy them, I understand, some fifteen or twenty years ago, near the beginning of our Queen’s glorious reign, after the death of old Lord Talcott”—may his soul forever burn, he added privately—“and were quite rudely spurned. Am I correct? And then again, about ten years ago, was it? There was another bit of unpleasantness, I believe, regarding property lines? And this latest—forgive me if I speak plainly—this latest scheme, to offer your daughter to Talcott…You’re a rich man, after all. Talcott’s circumstances are not much better now than they were at the passing of his father. But there may be another way—without sacrificing your daughter.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  Warren shrugged. “Most of it is a matter of public record. It doesn’t take a genius—or a spy—to see that you’ve coveted those lands as another man might a whore. And I’m merely offering you the chance to acquire them. Legally, of course.”

  “Of course.” Sir John picked up the tankard and peered into it, as though searching the depths for the answers to the questions he wasn’t sure he wanted to ask. He raised his watery blue eyes and met Warren’s with the assurance of a man who knew he’d never walked any but a straight and narrow path. “I’m a godly man, Master Warren. I serve the Lord in all I do.”

  “As do all of us in Her Majesty’s service, Sir John. And that’s what brings me here today. Talcott’s the son of an avowed Papist, for all that he purports to have converted to our ways and forsaken those of his fathers. He—”

  “He never struck me as a religious zealot. If anything, I’d wager the man has no religion at all.”

  “Even worse,” Warren said smoothly. “We have reason to believe, however, that Talcott was involved with the plot to free Queen Mary.”

  “That Papist whore is one piece of mischief that’s well laid to rest.” Sir John’s voice rose above the taproom chatter, and Warren leaned forward, gesturing for him to lower his voice.

  “Aye, but you’re wrong, Sir John. Would that it were that simple. We believe that Talcott is a spy, actively working with agents of Spain, for the King of Spain has sworn to take revenge against our own good Queen. And if we can prove it, his estates will be forfeit, and you, Sir John, as a loyal subject of Her Majesty, could reap an ample reward.” Warren sat back, picked up his tankard, and let the words sink in, watching as uncertainty warred with greed across the knight’s face. He suppressed a sigh. This might take longer than he thought, and might ultimately prove fruitless. Sir John, for all that he coveted the Talcott acres, was nonetheless known as a man of decent reputation. But there would be another way, Warren thought. If Sir John were an unwilling pawn, there was always a way to find another. He would bring down the Talcotts if it was the last thing he did in this world, or hunt down their shades in the next.

  Every night in fevered dreams his father’s burned and bloody ghost cried out to him for revenge. His son would not rest in his own grave until he saw the proud Talcotts humbled, their name destroyed, their heritage stripped from them once and for all. Ever since he’d joined the ranks of Sir Francis Walsingham’s fledgling secret service, he had worked for this day. He wasn’t about to let the opportunity slip through his fingers. If Sir John was not to be tempted, there were plenty that could be.

  “I’ll do it.”

  The finality in the knight’s voice startled even Master Warren. He took a deliberate sip of ale to regain his composure, then signaled for the landlord to bring another round. “Excellent, Sir John.” He smiled and, glancing up while the landlord set two more tankards of foaming ale in front of them, found himself looking into the large, mild eyes of one of the other patrons. The deep-set eyes were fastened directly on both of the men, and instantly Warren was alert. He noticed that the young man was as plainly dressed as Warren himself, in a coarse linen shirt and leather jerkin, and that he toyed with a quill. A piece of parchment lay before him on the table. With a frown, and a muttered explanation to Sir John, he rose and approached the young man, who was now writing busily on the parchment. Warren eased behind him, ostensibly on his way to the jakes in the back.

  The younger man did not look up as Warren peered over his shoulder, swiftly taking in what the young man wrote. He narrowed his eyes at the scribbled scrawl. Poetry. He shook his head as a wave of relief washed over him. He jostled the young man’s shoulder when another patron bumped into him, and he seized the opportunity to get an even closer look. The young man glanced up, and their eyes locked and held. Warren had the immediate impression of a lively and searching intelligence and an impersonal curiosity that seemed to peer into the very depths of his mind. Instinctively he lowered his eyes, muttering a pardon. The young man shrugged good-naturedly and went back to scribbling verse.

  Warren hurried back to his own table where Sir John nursed his tankard filled with foaming ale. The little episode had unnerved Warren more than he cared to admit, and he wanted nothing more than to conclude this piece of business and be off. “Now,” he said, leaning in close, as the knight looked up, “this is what must be done.”

  CHAPTER 1

  “I’M TELLING YOU, Liv, that portrait was you,” Alison O’Neill declared as she folded her tall frame into the cramped seat of the tour bus beside her friend. “I’ve never seen anything like it—it could’ve been a photograph.”

  Olivia Lindsley looked up from the accordion file full of dog-eared notes and faded manila folders on her lap and smiled. The painting hanging near the ladies’ loo inside the English pub did bear a certain resemblance, she’d had to admit when Alison had pointed it out. But she knew enough about sixteenth-century art to know that any likeness was more an accident of technique than any real semblance she bore to the long-dead subject.

  “Oh, I’m not so sure about that, Allie. A lot of portraits end up looking a lot alike because that’s the way the painter knew how to paint people. And the mirrors back then weren’t exactly the same quality we have today, so unless the artist was a complete incompetent, it didn’t really matter.”

  “That portrait doesn’t look like another portrait. It looks like you. It’s got the same dark hair and eyes, the same arch to your brows, even that little half-smile you get when you’re thinking.”

  Olivia laughed softly at her friend’s insistence. “Did you have a chance to ask the landlord who she was?”

  “Oh, him.” Alison dismissed the landlord with an airy wave. “Said he didn’t know, but that the portrait had been there since Cromwell’s time. What do you think?”

  “Well,” said Olivia softly, slipping the tattered manila folder that held her father’s final notes on the subject of Shakespeare’s Dark Lady into the file folder, “I’d say that the clothing definitely belonged more to the late sixteenth century, or possibly early seventeenth, than Cromwell’s period. She wasn’t dressed like a Puritan, that’s for sure. I’d say it probably came from one of the noble houses around here, maybe to keep it safe from marauding Puritans, and was just left there and forgotten. There was so much upheaval during that period. Whole families were wiped out. There’s probably no way to ever be certain who she was.”

  “That’s a shame, then,” Alison said, settling her long limbs into a more comfortable position. “Because maybe she was one of your ancestors.”

  Olivia laughed again. “That’s even more unlikely, I’m afraid. The Lindsleys are Scots, and you know that my mother’s family came from Italy. Besides, Dad and I spent a whole summer here just researching the family tree the year you and I were sophomores in high school. Remember? Our people never set foot in Kent.”

  “Humph
.” Alison waved another dismissive hand. The bus was beginning to fill with tourists, together chattering as loudly as a flock of excited birds. “I still say it could’ve been you.”

  “Well, no matter who she was, let’s hope that the Talcott chronicles can shed some light on the identity of the Dark Lady,” Olivia said, patting the folders on her lap. The folders were covered with notes in her father’s cramped writing. “If I can find something that proves that Olivia, Lady Talcott, was the wife of one of the Talcotts of Talcott Forest, my father’s work will be just about finished.”

  “And then what about you, Liv?” asked Alison, her dark blue eyes gentle. “What are you going to do?”

  Olivia shrugged and glanced out the window. The parking lot was crowded with buses and tourists speaking at least a dozen languages, and the August air was humid. The bus was stuffy, and suddenly she wanted to be on the way to the last stop on her self-imposed itinerary. “I haven’t decided.”

  “But you did check into those schools you mentioned? The drama school at Yale? The ones in Manhattan?”

  “Not yet. But I will. As soon as we get back. It’s too late to enroll for fall now, anyway. And I really want to get this book finished and out of the way before I—” Olivia broke off.

  “Before you move on,” Alison finished. There was a short silence between the two friends as all around them the seats filled with the tour group, all talking at once, it seemed, about the lunch at the authentic English country tavern. “You know, Liv, I know how important your dad’s work was to him. And I know how much it meant to him that you worked for him all these years. But ever since I’ve known you, you always talked about how much you wanted to be an actress. You’re only twenty-four. It’s not too late.”