by Freda, Paula
The Adventures of Grace Quinlan and Lord William Hayden
in the African Jungle
(Golden Sofala)
Volume 5
Copyright 2005 - 2011
by Dorothy Paula Freda
(Pseudonym - Paula Freda)
Cover photo and inserts licensed by Paula Freda from Istockphoto.com
Smashwords Edition
Author retains all rights.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof.
This story appeared in my novel "In Another Life (from the Journals of Grace Quinlan and Lord William Hayden)" under my pseudonym, Paula Freda. It is a work of fiction. Except for documented historical data and geographical locations, all names, characters, places and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
DEDICATION
With thanks to my Lord Jesus and his Blessed Mother Mary whose strength, guidance, and her Holy Rosary, are my anchor in this troubled world, I dedicate this novella to my husband, whose love, patience and kindness over the past 40 years have kept my dreams and my view of the romantic, alive and vibrant." –Paula Freda
The Adventures of Grace Quinlan and Lord William Hayden
in the African Jungle
(Golden Sofala)
CHAPTER ONE
Three months, three haunting, endless months without Grace. Lord Hayden checked his desk calendar. His next class was a study period. A stack of test papers awaited his attention. He removed his glasses to rub his eyes tiredly. Even his clothes appeared tired. He had forgotten to take his suits to the laundry last week. The dark maroon tweed he wore today bore several wrinkles. He had also forgotten to retrieve his reference book on Medieval Artifacts, the subject of his next class. He had lent the volume to Professor Eldridge and needed it to supplement his lecture. He folded his glasses and slid them into their case in his breast pocket. Rising, he left the room to cross the hall to her class.
With five minutes more to the beginning of the next period, Elizabeth’s students had not yet arrived. Through the upper part of the door paned with glass, Elizabeth was clearly visible standing in front of the blackboard. Lord Hayden reached for the doorknob, when what appeared to be an equation she had written on the blackboard distracted him.
Elizabeth/Grace x Lord Hayden x the truth = "Contempt."
Grace Quinlan/Professor Elizabeth Eldridge contemplated the equation she had drawn on the blackboard in an irrepressible moment of self-pity, day after day, reliving each moment of her adventures with Lord Hayden. How sweet, until the bitterness of reality intruded. If only she had had the courage to confess her true identity during their first expeditions together, he might have forgiven her by now. Those moments they had shared between life and death might have dissolved his certain anger at her deception, perhaps even justified her reasons.
It had taken all her willpower not to accept his marriage proposal, and every ounce of propriety and prudence not to remain and share herself completely with him. Too late now, too long a deception. He would never forgive her now, and would hold her in utter contempt. Never again would he ask her to accompany him on his archaeological excursions, or share his thoughts with her.
The bell announcing the beginning of the next period reverberated through the building. Filled with unhappiness and anger at herself, she scrubbed the eraser across the board before anyone came into the room.
Often truth stares one in the face, but remains unseen until a certain instant when it becomes so obvious that even a dolt can recognize it. Today, Lord Hayden reflected, he was the dolt. The students filing past him into class, noticed the scowl on his face, and wondered why he was staring at Professor Eldridge as though he would like to murder her.
"Professor," the Dean, tapped Hayden’s shoulder. Passing through the hall, he, too, had noticed Hayden watching Professor Eldridge through the door. "So you’ve heard," he said. "It’s a pity, losing one of our best teachers."
"What?" Lord Hayden turned to the Dean.
"Dr. Eldridge," the dean replied, reading the puzzled look, "she’s leaving us."
All the anger drained from Lord Hayden, and his gaze riveted on the grey-haired man, almost as tall as himself, and clad in a dark brown pin-stripe suit. "What do you mean, she’s leaving us?"
"I thought surely she had told you... your close association. But I see she didn’t. I’m sorry, Lord Hayden. I would have spoken to you sooner. She handed in her resignation two days ago, giving as her reason, not feeling up to carrying on her duties; considering retiring from the teaching profession altogether. She broke down in tears as she handed me the letter. Did you know that her eyes are actually green, not grey? When she removed her glasses to dry her eyes, I noticed immediately. Funny, I suppose I never looked that close at her face. I always thought her eyes were a muted grey. The dark grey lenses…"
Lord Hayden smirked as he glanced back at Elizabeth who had begun addressing her class, the truth irrevocably confirmed.
"In any case," the dean, continued, "I thought since you have both worked together over the years, you might know a little more about her reasons for resigning." He waited for Lord Hayden to answer, and when no response came, he concluded, "Well, if you’re in the dark like the rest of us, perhaps you could speak to her. She might confide in you."
Lord Hayden knew fully well what was wrong with her, and it was a curious sensation that he felt. First the anger, then an unexpected relief, followed by a buoyancy of spirit. Grace Quinlan was Professor Elizabeth Eldridge, and Professor Elizabeth Eldridge was Grace Quinlan.
The reasons for her disguise were not altogether difficult to decipher. He knew his times, a far cry from what the future held in store for women. He also knew that Professor Eldridge had always been attracted to him, while aware that he was not attracted to her, at least physically. So she had contrived quite a deception, and by golly, it had worked. That did not lessen the frustration of two years spent pining for someone who had been under his nose all the time. But it made clear to him why he had fallen in love with Grace—Elizabeth, over and above any woman he had ever known. She was the perfect combo. The one he had been waiting for all his life. For years his mother had been after him to settle down, although he doubted he would ever do so in the full sense of the phrase. He was an adventurer. But Elizabeth was also an adventurer. "I’ll speak to her," he assured the Dean.
The Grandfather clock in the small vestibule of Lord Hayden’s cottage, struck seven, and chimed. The phone rang at the same time, and the sounds blended like cottage cheese and milk. Lord Hayden answered the phone on his desk inside his study. For all his wealth and countryside estates in England, he preferred his New England cottage. He had been born and reared in this town, although his parents hailed from England. Lord John Hayden and Lady Laura Hayden traveled extensively collecting ancient artifacts. During one of their trips, they rented this cottage and decided to call it home. Several years ago, with the passing of their own parents, they returned to England, to oversee the inherited properties, and then decided to remain, although they continued their American citizenship.
On the telephone, the Dean said, "Your talk didn’t do much good."
"I haven’t spoken to her yet," Lord Hayden said. "I was planning on calling on her tonight at her home." He turned to the large window draped with lace curtains that his mother had hung during one of her frequent visits. Elizabeth’s home, sm
aller and surrounded by a white picket fence, was clearly visible across the road.
"Well, you’re too late," the dean said. "She left for the airport an hour ago. I must add she’s been acting strange of late, almost as if she were running away from something."
"Yes, I know," Lord Hayden quipped. "Is it the local airport?" And on the Dean’s affirmation, "Then perhaps it’s not too late." He hung up the phone, hurried into the vestibule, threw on his black wool coat, and rushed out the door.
At the other end of the phone line, Dean Haggert replaced the receiver, smiling. He proceeded to pour himself and his wife a glass of wine from the decanter on the mahogany coffee table in their spacious living room. He said to his wife, chuckling, "I could have told him a year ago that he was falling for her."
As Lord Hayden drove toward the airport, he cursed each and every red traffic light and stop sign he encountered. He must arrive before Elizabeth’s plane took off, because this time she truly would disappear from his life.
Her bags already loaded on the plane, Elizabeth, free of her dowdy professor’s disguise, sat on the bench in the waiting area, listening for the announcement over the loudspeaker that her plane was ready for boarding. She felt miserable about leaving Lord Hayden, but it was impossible for her to remain at the University and continue to see and feel the loneliness in his eyes. Far worse, of course, to see that loneliness replaced with disgust, if he learned the truth about her. Running away was the selfish thing to do. It meant abandoning the man she adored to that same loneliness. By all rights she should face him and reveal her true identity and apologize for her deception. Both she and Elizabeth would lose him, of course. To Grace, her adventurer, the would-be lover. To Elizabeth, her archaeologist, the professor, the peer, the friend, the one man with whom she desired to share her life. One solution alone to her dilemma remained. Lord Hayden must know the truth. And he would, once she had left the State. In her letter to him she would confess all and beg his forgiveness. Once he learned the truth, he would quickly forget her.
She had been a fool to dream of a life with him, and have dared so much for that dream. Now she must pay the price—never see Lord Hayden again, and be remembered only as a foolish deception. In another life, Eros, I will find you again. And this time I will win your love honestly. The loudspeaker blared the number of her plane and boarding gate. Elizabeth rose, turned and collided with Lord Hayden who had just reached her.
It was indeed Grace Quinlan. Lord Hayden’s mind absorbed her image: the red-gold hair, soft, wavy, shoulder length, slightly askew where she had run her hand nervously through it. Flashing emerald eyes, startled and widening with alarm. The blue fitted suit, the same she had been wearing on their first meeting on board the flight to Palermo. And it was Professor Elizabeth Eldridge, as well, her chin thrusting up with determination, lips pursing in just that certain way, eyes that reflected the knowledge and love of the past he so admired about her.
Dog-tired, after a whole day’s worth of classes, test papers, students, and the most startling, emotion-provoking news of his life, all he wanted to do was take Elizabeth home, have a glass of wine, and sit beside her on the couch and take her into his arms. He was in no mood for argument or explanations. That she loved him, he had not the slightest doubt. She had told him enough times. That she was afraid to tell him the truth and had chosen to run, also clear to him. In one fluid movement he lifted her into his arms.
"What do you think you’re doing?" Elizabeth squealed, trying to wriggle free of the strong arms holding her gently but firmly. Her words went unheeded as he carried her through the terminal.
"Don’t you dare bully me? You have no right‒‒" Her face turned scarlet as she met the bewildered stares of would-be passengers.
"I beg to differ," Lord Hayden finally answered, heading toward the double doors that led outside. "After your ingenious charade, I have every right."
Elizabeth stiffened. He knew. She stopped squirming and hid her head against his shoulder. He knew. For shame, she must face him.
When he put her down beside his car in the parking lot, Hayden saw that her eyes had filled with tears that were sliding down her cheeks, tiny torrential rivulets that sent a spasm of regret to his aching heart. "Elizabeth, I’m sorry," he staggered, closing his arms about her. "I didn’t know how else to stop you from leaving."
Elizabeth raised her glistening eyes to his. "How did you find out?"
"Elizabeth over Grace, times the truth, times Lord Hayden, equals Contempt," he explained. "Plus several other clues that did not dovetail until I saw you and said equation on the blackboard.
"You saw that?" Elizabeth asked. And at his nod, "And now that you know, you don’t hate me?"
Lord Hayden shook his head.
Elizabeth caught the flicker of a smile on his lips. "You’re not angry with me?"
"I was at first. No man enjoys being played a fool. But then I remembered how much I love you, and how I’ve pined for you. And you’ve been here close to me all along."
"Yet when I interacted with you as Professor Eldridge, you felt no attraction to me. You were not unkind; you pitied me."
"Yes, to my shame. But I made no secret of enjoying our talks. Finding the mind I admired and the face and body that flame my desire belong to the same woman, is like a miracle. Neither my ego, nor my anger can stand against it. I love you Elizabeth, Grace, whatever you wish to call yourself. Will you marry me, Professor Elizabeth Eldridge?" At her hesitation, he entreated, "Come on, I’m just following orders. Didn’t you advise me to marry Professor Eldridge?"
"Oh, William," Elizabeth sighed wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling his face down to hers in order to kiss him hungrily.
The policeman heading toward them stopped short. He turned to the woman who had alerted him to a man forcibly carrying a woman from the terminal. The policeman shrugged. "I’d say everything is in order." The woman took one more look at the lovers kissing. "It certainly appears so."
Later, in front of her house, Elizabeth wiggled out of Lord Hayden’s ardent embrace. "If I’m to request my job back tomorrow, I need to get some sleep. It’s been quite a day and I’m tired.
Lord Hayden pulled her back into his arms. "You haven’t answered my proposal, not in words, anyway."
Elizabeth snuggled against his chest, hearing his heartbeat under the dark wool. He wore the black coat well, but then most anything looked good on him. Was that true because he had a splendid torso, or because she loved him so? "Yes, dearest …William … I’ll marry you."
Reluctantly, he let her go and, besotted, watched her enter her home. She threw him a kiss before closing the door.
That night sleep eluded him. He still reeled from the full realization that Grace and Professor Eldridge were one and the same. Though his initial anger at this discovery diffused the moment he thought he would lose Grace/Elizabeth forever, he marveled at her ingenious plan to win his heart and wondered what lay ahead for him as her husband. He had to admit he felt somewhat intimidated, at least his ego did. But he loved her, admired and desired her above any woman he had ever known. He refused to quibble with his subliminal self. Egos mellow with age, and there was no other being with whom he wished to grow old, than Elizabeth/Grace Eldridge.
Rather than lie sleepless, he moved about his study to compose his restless yearning for her. Open on his desk was a text he had borrowed from the school library that dealt with the ruins in Zimbabwe, a site that he had contemplated visiting for a long time. The illustration to which the book was opened drew his attention once again. Not for the first time, a puzzled expression wrinkled his brow and he withdrew a magnifying glass from the top center desk drawer and focused it on the 5 x 7 illustration. The conical tower depicted, part of the long-abandoned city of stone, had puzzled archaeologists for centuries. Among the answers sought about the tower were: What did it stand for? Was it solid? Or hollow? Left only with the choice of blowing it apart, at least in his time, to discover the answer to the la
tter, they had left it alone, preferring to speculate rather than disassemble. Lord Hayden replaced the magnifying glass in its case in the desk drawer.
To the senses, the tower in the temple ruins appeared solid. Yet…
CHAPTER TWO
True to her word, Grace Quinlan, or as she was known at the College, Elizabeth Eldridge, requested to return to her post. The Dean showed his approval by tearing up her letter of resignation that he had kept in his desk drawer in the hope that Lord Hayden might indeed change her mind, and raising her salary. If the news of their engagement amazed the faculty, and shocked the students, their wedding day, on Christmas morning flabbergasted everyone, including the Dean. Incredible what a dye job could accomplish. One could swear that the red-gold hair was natural.
The students who attended the ceremony would never look at Professor Eldridge the same way again. She was beautiful! And in this regard, the Board of Directors were relieved that she was now a married woman. Times were indeed changing. But, as Lady Hayden, who continued to wear her grey-tinted glasses, reserved suits, and pile her hair up discreetly in a bun—red-gold though it was—they were content to keep her on the faculty. Her pairing with Lord Hayden also increased the college’s intellectual status. "The perfect match," Dean Haggert remarked at the elaborate wedding reception when Lord Hayden and his wife had considered departing immediately after the ceremony on another archaeological venture after reading. the contents of a cablegram handed to them as they left the church steps.
The cablegram, Zimbabwe … stop … a revelation … stop … Come at once, was signed by Dr. Jonathan Moore, a World History professor who Elizabeth had met at an archaeological conference in New York some years ago. The two had corresponded sporadically.
Fortunately, Lord Hayden’s parents prevailed upon the pair to remember their manners and their guests, and the trip was postponed until the following morning.