The Disappearing Rose Read online

  The Disappearing Rose

  Time Rose Book 1

  By Renee Duke

  Digital ISBNs

  EPUB 9781771456241

  Kindle 9781771456258

  PDF 9781771456265

  Print ISBN 9781771456234

  Kindle ISBN 9781771456258

  Copyright 2013 by Renee Duke

  Cover art by Michelle Lee, Copyright 2015

  Cover model photography

  by Carlos Le Guerrier, Copyright 2015

  Cover rose medallion image

  by Marion Sipe, Copyright 2013

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

  Dedication

  In memory of my brother,

  Ronald Forbes Duke,

  who disappeared from our lives in August, 1963,

  but is forever in our hearts.

  Acknowledgements

  The author would like to thank the following for providing historical background and insight: Professor David Dendy, M.A., Department of History, Okanagan College, and the late Dorothy Mitchell, founder of the Society of Friends of King Richard III.

  Family support throughout the creative process was much appreciated, too (thanks, Mum and Richard), as was input from my editors, Nancy Bell and Jessica Naccari, beta reader, Carole Field, and OSC kid consultants, Teryl Bates, Arman Benoit, Brendan Boychuk, Anna Danby, Taylor Dumaresq, Isabella Harmel, Jordan Janicki, Gabriel, L’Heureux, Joshua Lundquist, Georgia MacDonald, Lilly MacDonald, Jenna Matchett, Paige McLaughlin, Mila Mirchandani, Nina Mroz, Joshua Ridgway, Vaeda Russett, Brielle Ryan, Kyle Seed, and Alexis Vizcaino.

  Thanks, also, to my cover artist, Michelle Lee, my touch-up artist, Summer Bates, my cover model photographer, Carlos Le Guerrier, and my cover models, Antonella Feeney, Teryl Bates, Gabriel L’Heureux, Noah Law, and Tarran Bates

  Chapter One

  MISSING!

  Brothers, aged 10 and 12.

  Foul play suspected.

  That’s what the headlines would say nowadays. But not then. Back in the fifteenth century there had been no headlines. No amber alerts. No posters. Just a rumour that two young boys had vanished from the Tower of London. When, and how, was a mystery.

  A mystery that a twenty-first century boy was thinking about as he turned over in bed for the umpteenth time. He’d felt very weary when his family landed in England the day before, but it was now ten to five in the morning, and Dane Marchand had never been so wide-awake in all his eleven years. The lost princes were among the subjects being covered in a documentary his filmmaker father was shooting, and pondering their fate gave him something to do.

  On the bed opposite, a large black and white cat named Socrates lay in a sphinx-like position beside Dane’s nine-year-old cousin, who was still asleep. Dane’s mother described Jonathan—usually known as Jack—as a walking encyclopedia. He was also a whiz with languages, both ancient and modern. Dane did well in school and was fluent in both English and French, but he was no genius. Even so, he did not find his cousin’s intellect disconcerting. Awake, Jack looked more alert than studious. He liked card games as much as chess and read his favourite weekly comic, The Beano, as avidly as the ponderous academic works owned by his parents, Gareth Taisley and Augusta Hollingsworth Taisley.

  Dane’s mother was a Hollingsworth too. Britannia Hollingsworth Marchand wrote historical novels and would be researching one while she was home visiting her family.

  Shifting position yet again, Dane also shifted his thoughts and began to wonder what his sister Paige was doing. The Marchands travelled a great deal, and jet lag usually got to her as well. Taking his glasses from a nightstand, he slipped out of bed and tiptoed into the corridor.

  He found Paige there, sitting on the lower of two steps leading to an upstairs bathroom. She was wrapped in a blanket and looked a bit disgruntled. According to their father, thirteen-year-olds were supposed to look that way.

  Paige’s attentive brown eyes were a match for Dane’s, but her hair was a lighter shade of brown and a little wavier. Though two years older, she was only marginally taller, and had yet to become reconciled to the fact that a recent series of growth spurts had allowed her ‘little’ brother to catch up to her. That he was quite pleased about this irked her even more.

  “Take some of the blanket,” she whispered as he settled beside her. “It’s cold this time of morning.”

  Dane accepted the offer. “Been up long?”

  Paige shook her head. “I’ve been awake, though.”

  “Me too. How long do you suppose it’ll be before everyone else is?”

  “An hour, maybe. Could be longer. Aunt Augusta and Uncle Gareth work from home during the summer, and Jack doesn’t have to get up for school.”

  “He only got out yesterday,” said Dane. “Imagine being in class for almost all of July!”

  A few minutes later, a slightly overweight man came out of a door at the end of the corridor, his receding ginger hair offset by the bushiness of his grey-tinged beard and moustache. Wrinkled pants and a baggy sweater proclaimed Uncle Gareth dressed and ready for the day.

  “Do you always get up at this hour?” Paige asked him as he strolled toward them.

  Uncle Gareth nodded. “I do some of my best thinking before six a.m. What about you two?”

  “We’re kind of hyped up from the trip,” said Dane.

  “That’ll pass. You’ll probably feel shattered again by the time we get to Grantie Etta’s. I thought you’d all be resting up here for a bit after your long flight from Canada, but it seems your dad’s keen to get on with his filming.”

  “Aren’t you?” said Dane.

  “No. Two of the other historians he’ll be working with are archrivals. I’ve been serving as a referee ever since I found those letters over at Rosebank.”

  The letters were from the fifteenth century. Uncle Gareth had come across them in a large, rambling house owned by an elderly relative.

  Edging between them, he lowered himself onto the topmost bathroom step before continuing. “My colleagues have confirmed the letters’ authenticity and are in tentative agreement as to which of Grantie’s ancestors wrote them. What they do not agree on is how to interpret what he wrote. They’ve held opposing views on that particular era for years and will probably have conflicting ideas about the period pieces your dad wants to do.”

  Paige groaned. “I don’t even want to think about those. Or how he’s making us portray the children of King Edward the Fourth.”

  “He’s not making me,” said Dane. “I like acting.”

  Paige scowled. She and Dane often worked on their father’s films, but she had never shared her brother’s enthusiasm for the task. And she was definitely not looking forward to walking around in full medieval array in the heat of summer. She was a T-shirt and shorts type. Long gowns were not her style.

  “Edward the Fourth’s children are important background figures,” said Uncle Gareth. “The fate of the boy king, Edward the Fifth, and his brother, the little Duke of York, has been stirring up controversy for over five hundred years.”

  “I don’t know why,” said Paige. “It’s common knowledge that their uncle did them in so he could become king.”

  “Uncles were pretty treacherous back then,” Dane added, grinning.

  Uncle Gareth laughed. “King Richard the Third has often been cited as the classic example of a wicked uncle, but some people think he was framed.”

  �
�Well, I don’t,” Paige said emphatically. “He was only able to cheat Edward the Fifth out of the throne because the kid wasn’t old enough to do anything about it. But you can bet he would have tried to get it back later on. The only way for dear old Uncle Richard to keep it was to get rid of both his nephews before they could become a major problem.”

  “Perhaps,” said Uncle Gareth. “But any stories you might have heard about the little princes being smothered in their sleep or walled up in a room in the Tower of London are just that—stories. All that’s known for certain is that sometime between July fourteen-eighty-three and September fourteen-eighty-five, they disappeared without a trace. Which doesn’t necessarily denote a tragic end. They might just have escaped and gone into hiding.”

  “Is that what it says in those letters you found?” Dane asked.

  “Not directly. But one does say something about the boys being guests at Rosebank before and, more importantly, after their supposed disappearance.”

  Paige’s eyebrows went up in surprise. “Guests? At Rosebank? I know it was considered pretty fancy back in the fifteenth century, but I wouldn’t have thought it rated royal visitors. Mum told us it’s belonged to Grantie Etta’s family ever since it was built, and they weren’t members of the aristocracy or anything.”

  “You didn’t have to be an aristocrat to lend a king money. Edward the Fourth got on very well with rich merchants like the Wolvertons.”

  A sleepy-looking Jack emerged from his room, interrupting the conversation on the stairs.

  “Morning, you little layabout,” said his father, flicking at the boy’s mop of blond, slightly gingery, hair. “Finally decided to stir, have you? Your cousins have been up for ages.”

  “I’m on holiday,” Jack said crossly. “You like getting up at beastly hours. I don’t. It’s not in my genetic make-up.”

  “Oh, yes, I keep forgetting you were adopted,” Uncle Gareth replied solemnly. “And I don’t suppose they’d let us trade you in for a more compatible urchin after all these years.”

  Dane and Paige smiled. Uncle Gareth and Aunt Augusta had waited a long time to get Jack. They wouldn’t have exchanged him for anything on earth.

  “It’s okay, Jack,” said Paige. “We’re not usually early risers either. Dad’s the one who gets up with the birds in our house.”

  As if on cue, Alan Marchand emerged from the guestroom.

  “Good morning, good morning,” he said jovially. “It is indeed my habit to rise upon being drawn from slumber by the chirping of little birds. Today it was the chirping of little birds known as Canadian Whisperers—an inconsiderate species with exceedingly penetrating voices. If you’re up because they woke you up, Gareth, you have my permission to swat them.”

  “Da-a-a-d,” said Paige.

  Mr. Marchand cringed. “Oh! I’ve embarrassed her. I’m always embarrassing her. It seems like only yesterday, she idolized me, but now…” He let his shoulders droop dejectedly.

  “Oh, please,” Paige said in disgust.

  Mr. Marchand had always been a tease. Lately, Paige had been taking more exception.

  “They didn’t disturb me, Alan,” said Uncle Gareth, getting to his feet.

  “Good. They didn’t actually wake me either. Their mother had already managed to do that, tossing and turning. They get their susceptibility to jet lag from her. It never bothers me.”

  A minute or two later, Mrs. Marchand came to join them. So did Aunt Augusta, who claimed she usually got up at that time. As they made their way downstairs to breakfast, Jack appeared to be the only one who felt the day had begun too soon.

  Chapter Two

  The Taisleys lived in a large, comfortable brick house. Since it was barely a hundred years old, they considered it quite modern, but its location made up for its lack of history. It was located at the end of a quiet lane on the outskirts of Windsor, an immensely historic town, complete with castle. Once Jack was properly awake, he took his cousins on a walking tour that included England’s shortest street, a crooked house, the famous boys’ school in nearby Eton, and, of course, Windsor Castle. They also visited some souvenir shops and even watched the Changing of the Guard before going back to the house for lunch. None of them ate much, however. A tea room near the castle sold various types of baked goodies, and Jack had purchased some fancy cakes to share with Dane and Paige on the way home.

  After lunch, Uncle Gareth drove Mr. Marchand over to Grantie Etta’s to set up a shooting schedule with her housekeeper. Aunt Augusta followed with Jack and the rest of the Marchands an hour or so later.

  Grantie Etta lived near a small village between Windsor and the city of Slough. It was Aunt Augusta who had first called her Grantie Etta. As a small child, she had been unable to say Great Aunt, and the title had stuck. Miss Rosetta Wolverton was actually her great-great aunt, and the children’s great-great-great aunt, but they rarely thought about their exact connection to her. She was just Grantie, their very oldest relative. Toward the end of summer, she would be celebrating her one hundred and fifth birthday.

  Though they kept in touch, they had not been to see her since they visited England with their parents three years earlier, and Jack knew her far better than they did.

  “She has all her faculties and is still remarkably fit,” he told them as the car sped along a narrow, tree-lined lane on what they considered the wrong side of the road. “She has the odd day when she feels a bit poorly, but we don’t worry about her too much. Her housekeeper, Mrs. Purdom, lives in now, and she used to be a nurse. She does all the cooking and such, and a girl from the village comes in to clean.”

  Dane remembered Mrs. Purdom. He also remembered the staff being a little larger. So did Paige. “Doesn’t it take more people than that to run such a big house?” she inquired.

  “A lot of it’s been shut up now that Grantie can’t manage the stairs. Daddy found those letters behind a wall being knocked down to make a bedroom on the ground floor.”

  High iron railings surrounded Rosebank’s fields and gardens, and the house itself sat well in from the road, at the end of a long paved drive. It was indeed a big house. Wings added at a later date had kept the original brick and timber design, and the whole place had an old feel to it. Inside, however, the rooms used as living quarters were comfortably furnished, and had all the usual modern conveniences.

  Mr. Marchand was in the entrance hall talking on his cell phone when they arrived. He nodded to his family as they followed Mrs. Purdom into the sitting room where Uncle Gareth was talking to a small, slightly built woman with white hair, twinkling blue eyes, and a great many wrinkles.

  Grantie Etta was seated in an armchair. The rotund pug dog lying on a footstool beside her did not bark at their entrance but did get off the stool and waddle across the room to inspect them. Dane loved all animals. The pug seemed to sense this and gave him extra attention. Behind the old lady’s chair, a large scarlet macaw turned around on its perch and started to beat its wings.

  “Strawberry!” it screamed as Mrs. Marchand bent down to kiss her great-great aunt. “Strawberry! Strawberry!”

  “Be quiet, you noisy creature,” said Grantie Etta.

  The parrot paid no attention. It kept repeating the word.

  “Here.” Grantie Etta handed Dane a dish of strawberries. “People claim parrots don’t know what they’re saying, but this one does. I withheld his afternoon treat so you young ones could give it to him. He wasn’t amused.”

  Dane and Paige both had allergies, and one of Dane’s was to strawberries. Mindful of a probable rash from touching one, he used a tissue to pick it up and hold it out to the parrot. Taking the berry firmly in one claw, Grantie’s assertive pet began to nibble at it contentedly.

  “How old is he now?” asked Dane, stroking the bird’s head with his forefinger.

  “Thirty,” said Grantie Etta. “And he’s loved strawberries ever since he was a chick. Hence the name. The fat dog snuffling around your feet is Horace. I didn’t have him when you we
re here last, but he regards anyone holding a biscuit as a bosom friend. There’s some just there, beside you.”

  Dane selected a biscuit from a tin on the table and knelt down to give it to the pug. He then passed both treat containers to Paige and stood up to survey his surroundings.

  Grantie’s sitting room was an interesting place. The plaques and oil paintings lining the oak-panelled walls looked down on an impressive collection of knick-knacks sitting atop antique tables and stands. At the far end of the room, brightly polished ornaments of brass and silver were arranged along a sideboard standing between two glass fronted display cabinets. One of the cabinets was filled with dishes, clocks, and model furniture, the other with music boxes and jewel cases.

  “Quite a lot of clutter, isn’t there?” observed Grantie Etta.

  “But clutter with a past,” said Mrs. Marchand as she and Aunt Augusta joined Uncle Gareth on a tapestry-backed sofa. “Most of the things in this room have been in the family for generations.”

  “Most of the things in this house have been in the family for generations,” said Grantie Etta. “I doubt if anything’s been thrown away since the place was built. Hoarding is an old Wolverton tradition.”

  “And a grand old tradition it is, too,” said Mr. Marchand, coming in to join them. “Suppose your ancestors had decided to use those letters Gareth found to light their fire? I wouldn’t have had anything to do this summer.”

  “You’d have found something,” said Grantie Etta dryly. “You’re not the type to be idle for long. Would you like to see that medallion now?”

  “Do you mean the rose medallion?” asked Mrs. Marchand.

  “Yes. I offered it to Alan for those flashback segments he has the children doing. I thought it might be just the thing for Dane to wear. You remember it, don’t you?”