Waking Elizabeth (25 page)

“Hey!
 
How was your appointment?” I heard Jess’
voice and I simply fell apart, sobbing into the phone, unable to utter a single
word.

“Ellie?
 
What the hell?
 
Talk to me!
 
You’re scaring me!”

“Jess,”
I cried, “You’re not going to believe this!
 
I should have known there was something wrong!”

“What?
 
What in God’s name could have happened in a
span of thirty minutes?
 
Where are you?”

“I’m
in the car with Thomas.
 
I just left Dr.
Cross’ office.
 
He started talking weird
about things he assumed I knew and he left the room to deal with a patient and
there was a file labeled with Ronan’s name and I looked at it.”

“Okay
…” Jess stammered, “What did it say?
 
I’m
assuming it’s something horrible by the way you sound.”

Fresh
tears stung my eyes as I remembered looking at the name on the page, “He’s got
the same thing I do with this past life crap.”

“Of
course he does, why else would he be seeing Dr. Cross.
 
Certainly that wasn’t a surprise, Ellie,”
Jess was remaining calm, as was her nature.

“Jess,
he’s Dudley.
 
Robert Dudley,” I said the
name and my mouth felt dry and thick with the shock of it.

“Shit
Ellie, I know I’m suppose to know who that is, but remind me,” Jess answered.

“He
was Elizabeth’s … guy.
 
The one she had
the relationship with for all those years.
 
The one from all my visions.”
 
It
seemed unreal as I said the words.

“No
way,” Jess whispered, “He has to be messing with you.”

“No,
he’s been seeing Dr. Cross for over ten years, according to his file.
 
He first started having regression at the age
of seven!”

“Holy
crap!
 
And you just randomly found him at
the Tower of London?” Jess asked, still whispering.

“Yes!
 
But … why didn’t he tell me?
 
How could he keep this from me?”
 
I was getting angry but the tears still
flowed.

“I’m
sure he was going to tell you.
 
There was
no way he was going to keep something like that from you,” Jess was attempting
to calm me down.

“He
could have mentioned it before we slept together!” I was livid, “That certainly
should have come up, don’t you think?”

“Oh
….” Jess answered, “Gotcha.
 
Okay, so …
this is news.
 
Half of me wants to say
congratulations and the other half wants to cuss him out.
 
You’re absolutely right.
 
He should have told you before that
happened.”

“Considering
he’s known about me for days!
 
Why is it
okay for me to allow him to know something so … personal and him not feel the
need to share the same?”

“Babe,
these are all good questions and ones that you should be asking him,” Jess
answered calmly, “Why don’t you call him and meet him somewhere and you two can
flush things out.”

I
shook my head and dug through my backpack with my free hand, “No.
 
I’m not sure I want to see him.
 
I can’t believe he hid this from me.
 
What was I to him, some sort of damn experiment?”

“Ellie,
you’re angry, and I get that.
 
But he
didn’t know about you until you told him.
 
He didn’t come after you specifically after finding out.
 
You should give the man a chance to explain
himself.
 
Although, I would be pissed
about the sex stuff.
 
That definitely
should have come up,” Jess answered.

“No,”
I thumbed through my folder that Geoff had made me and seeing his handwriting
across the pages made me suddenly yearn for the comfort of my house and the
normalcy I had before my trip to Lily Dale, “I don’t want to talk to him right
now.
 
I know where I’m going, where I
feel I need to go.”

“I
can try to get out of these meetings, I don’t think you should be alone right
now,” Jess said.

“No,
I’m fine.
 
I promise, I’m fine.
 
Don’t change your plans for me.”

“Are
you sure?
 
You’re freaking out a little
right now and frankly I’m a little worried, not that I know how to handle this
regression stuff.”

“I’m
good.
 
Thomas is driving me.
 
I may not be back for dinner.”

“But
you’re coming back tonight, right?
 
Don’t
make me worry about you,” Jess scolded me, “I have connections here, I’ll have
all the James Bond people in this country looking for you if I can’t find you.”

“No.
 
I promise, I’m fine.
 
But I may not be home tonight.
 
I don’t know, I’ll check in with you and let
you know where I am.
 
There’s just
somewhere I have to go.”

Chapter
27

R
onan took the
stairs of the Grange hotel two at a time, refusing to wait another second for
the elevator on the ground floor.
 
He ran
down the hall towards the suite and once he reached it, he banged impatiently
on the door.
 
Jess opened it, her hand on
her hip as she eyed him with visible irritation, “Well hello, Romeo, Ronan or
Robert … what name do you prefer today?”

Ronan
closed his eyes in exasperation, “I deserve that, wholeheartedly.
 
Where is she?”

“Not
here.”

“Where
did she go?
 
I’m worried about her, I must
speak with her,” he said desperately.
 

“She’s
not in London,” Jess pulled the door open so that he could enter.

“She
didn’t fly home, did she?”

“No,
not yet …” Jess shut the door behind him as he entered the foyer of their
suite.

“You
have to tell me where’s she’s gone.”

“You
have exactly five minutes to convince me why I should or I’m kicking your ass
out.”

“I
was going to tell her.
 
I’ve thought
about telling her a million times over the last few days.
 
But every time I got … scared.”

“Scared
of what?
 
She told you, and she’s had a
hell of a shorter time to process it then you have.”

“When
I found out that she had gone to see Dr. Cross my heart sank.
 
I knew it was too late and that she’d found
out.
 
I immediately tried to call her and
she’s refusing my calls.
 
When she didn’t
show at three I knew for certain that she knew and she was avoiding me.”

“She
runs, it’s what she does,” Jess sat on the couch and faced him, “It should have
come up, Ronan, especially before …” Jess narrowed her eyes at him, “She feels
like she was an experiment or something.”

Ronan
shook his head, “She came to me!
 
I
didn’t search her out or find out about her and pursue her.
 
It was by total chance that we met at the
Tower.
 
But I knew from the second I
first touched her, from the moment I saw her staring at her father’s armor at
the Tower, I knew who she was.
 
I could
see that her memories of Elizabeth were becoming stronger the more she was with
me and I wanted desperately to explain the reason but I didn’t think she would
believe me.”

“Did
you believe her?” Jess asked him.

“Of
course.”

“Then
why would you think she would be any different,” Jess shook her head.

“I
didn’t want her to think I wanted to be with her solely because of Elizabeth’s
influence.”

“Do
you?” Jess asked, “I mean, her pull towards you is pretty powerful, I can see
that being around the two of you.
 
I’ve
known her for over a decade and I’ve never seen her like this before.”

“No,”
Ronan answered quickly but then shook his head, “Yes, the gravitation towards
her is there, no doubt, but it’s not the reason I want to be with her and yet
it’s impossible to ignore,” Ronan ran his hands through his hair and looked
towards the floor, “I’ve never felt this way about anyone before.
 
I’ve dated women, plenty of women, but there
was always something missing.
 
When I
found Ellie, that something was filled, a million times over.”

Jess
sighed, “Look Romeo, I’m on your side, but I’m stuck between a rock and hard
place.
 
She told me she doesn’t want to
see you … at least not right now.”

Ronan
instantly cut her off, “If I could talk to her and explain things, I know I
could make her see.
 
Where is she?
 
Is she coming back any time soon?”

 
“She’s not coming back tonight,” Jess
shrugged, “She said there was some place she had to go and she wanted to do it
alone.
 
I tried to go with her but she
wouldn’t let me.”

“Why?
 
Why would she need to do it alone?
 
And why is she not coming back tonight?”

“It’s
like almost two hours from here and she didn’t want to get home late.
 
She said she wanted time to feel whatever she
needed to feel.”

Ronan
mentally calculated the two hour distance while trying to recall the places on
her itinerary that they had not seen, “Two hours, two hours,” he mumbled before
the realization hit him and he stared at Jess with concern, “Jess, she’s not
gone to Warwick, has she?”

Jess
attempted to downplay his question but failed to hide her reaction, “No … why,
would that be bad?”

“He’s
buried there.
 
Dudley’s buried at St.
Mary’s church just outside of Warwick Castle.”

“Okay,
so … why would that be bad?
 
If
she did go there.”

“Ellie’s
visions and their severity are deeply impacted by her surroundings.
 
She nearly collapsed when she was at
Elizabeth’s grave and you know what happened when she was locked in the tower
briefly,” Ronan was already standing, “Jess, if she’s gone there I need to
know, I need to go to her.”

“In
all fairness when she gets completely pissed at me, you guessed, I didn’t tell
you,” Jess got up and quickly went to the bar to retrieve a piece of paper,
“She’s staying here, she was going to check in and go to St. Mary’s after.”

Ronan
looked down at the piece of paper that Jess had torn from the notebook on the
counter and despite the circumstances the corners of his mouth twitched in
amusement, “Really?”

Jess
rolled her eyes, “It was the only place that had a room available.
 
Believe me, she was unhappy with the choices
offered and she didn’t laugh when I mentioned how ironic it was.”

Ronan
reached for Jess who hugged him solidly in return, “Don’t screw this up.
 
She’s hardheaded and stubborn but she’s got a
huge heart and loves 1000 percent when she allows herself to,” Jess pulled away
to look at Ronan, “She might love you a little more than that.”

“She
comes by the hardheadedness naturally but I have some insight into how to deal
with that,” Ronan smiled, “Thank you Jess.
 
I’ll make this up to her or spend my entire life attempting to.”

“I
know you will,” Jess said, opening the door for him, “Text me and let me know
something, okay?”

“I
will.”

I
flung myself upon the giant four poster bed and stared at the ceiling,
exhausted from the tears which had poured from my eyes over the past two
hours.
 
I looked horrid, and unfit for
public which was made all the more apparent by Thomas’ insistence that he check
me into the hotel while I waited in the car.
 
I had gotten him a room as well, since I was basically forcing him on
this little overnight venture.
 
He had obliged
with a smile, the pity on his face for me clearly evident.
 
His room was right next to mine and they were
the only two rooms available in the entire damn town.
 
All the other hotels were either down for
renovation or filled with wedding parties.
  
I stared at the little bronze plaque above the door to my room that read
Elizabeth and Dudley Suite.
 
I rolled my
eyes.
 
How totally and completely
painfully unbelievable.
 
I had almost
declined the room before Thomas urged me to accept after driving around town
for nearly an hour trying to find accommodations.
  
Typical, I thought to myself, that
she
would force this painful situation
in such a way.
 
Over the past few hours I
had blamed everything bad that had ever happened in my life on
her
.
 
Every scar, every sickness, every injury and broken bone, all of them
must be tied to her in some sort of fashion.
 
She was clearly controlling everything that happened to me now.
 
I fully recognized that she was that
powerful.
 
She forced me to agree to that
stupid trip to Lily Dale and once there forced me to that conversation with
Mona that would change my life forever.
 
There was no unseeing what I had seen, no erasing it from my
memory.
 
Her life was clearly embedded
with mine to such an extent that I had a hard time knowing where hers ended and
mine began.
 
I was angry, livid!
 
She had lived her life, why couldn’t she
allow me to live mine?
 
I thought back to
the first day I had met Ronan and the instant reaction I had to him.
 
I wanted to smile with the memory but all I
could do was cry.
 
How did I know what
was real and what was history?
 
I wanted
to be with him and missed him when he was away but how could I be sure that it
was my feelings and not hers?
 
Even now
as I was tucked away in the Leicester House Hotel in Warwick, I wondered what
had driven me to come?
 
I had to believe
that the answers were here somewhere.
 
I
rolled from the bed and attempted to right my appearance.
 
My eyes were puffy and swollen and there was
nothing I could do about that.
 
I shot a
quick text to Thomas and told him I would be heading out soon to Warwick
Castle.
 
I would start there, not feeling
up to my next venture quite yet.
 
Thomas
immediately responded that he would accompany me, even though I was going on
foot.
 
We made small talk on the way
there with him never asking anything too personal.
 
He could clearly see that I was upset but he
was never intrusive about asking why.
 
He
opened doors for me and walked beside me like some sort of bodyguard.
 
Truthfully I was glad he was there.
 
I felt that I would have been even more upset
had I been alone.
 
We arrived at the
Castle a mere 40 minutes before they closed for the day.
 
The ticket attendant must have felt pity for
me because he waived us through after I flashed my heritage pass and refused to
charge Thomas for a ticket.
 
I thanked
him profusely and flipped through the guidebook until I saw a picture of the
relic I sought.
 
With Thomas at my side I
rushed to the great hall and spotted the glass case on the far wall.
 
I walked towards it with Thomas lingering a
few steps behind me.
 
The saddle was old
and faded and smaller than anything I could imagine being comfortable.
 
There was a plaque on the glass that
explained the saddle belonged to Elizabeth and she had used it during a trip to
Bristol in 1574.
 
The room was sparse so
I was able to get fairly close to the glass case and rest my hand upon it.
 
I was exhausted, nearly depleted of strength
but I instantly had a hazy vision of her travel through the city.
 
He was there, ever present at my side on his
own magnificent mount.
 
He smiled at me
adoringly as I offered a gentle wave to my subjects who were chanting my
name.
 
I felt a swell of pride.
 
My people loved me.
 
They were truly happy.
 
I wondered if my father would be proud of the
way I ruled.
 
There was a scuffle in the
crowd that gathered on the street and Dudley instantly put himself in between
me and the crowd, his horse prancing as if sensing his master’s angst.
 

“Your
majesty, I’m gravely afraid for your wellbeing.
 
We should return to the castle post haste,” Dudley said, directing his
horse as close to me as possible.
 

I
smiled, ever at ease with him at my side, “Yes, Robin.”

Dudley
quickly barked a set of orders to those surrounding us before taking control of
the reins of my horse.
 

I
pulled my hand away as tears fell down my cheeks.
 

“Ms.
Regan, we have ten minutes until they close,” Thomas said softly next to me,
“We should make our way to the entrance.
 
We can always come back tomorrow.”

I
nodded, “I’ve seen enough here.
 
But
there is another place I’d like to go.”