Nest of Spices
by
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Time stood endlessly still as they allowed their affection for each other to enter a new and forbidden era, the tenderness in unfastening another’s buttons, the warmth of skin on skin replacing any need for cloth, and the closeness of such unimaginable intimacy.
He felt he would love Lizzibeth forever, her heat conducting into his own body, swiftly wracking as it was in silent uncontrollable paroxysms of pleasure far beyond his imaginings. This moment was so precious, yet it was pooled with his friend beside him puking his excesses all over the fire monument. His aim fell short of the unlikely lovers, but splattered their makeshift mattress. The tranquillity of this perfect moment was gone. They rolled away from him with disgusted yet nervous whispered exclamations. They held each other tight, too shy now to pull away and face the judgment in each other’s eyes, which only a few short moments ago, had held only compelling and undeniable desire.
Lizzibeth, cold and coy, awkwardly dragged her dress back around her beneath his embrace, and tried to push it down over her legs. He tried to help without moving from their adopted defense. He loved this intimacy, the softness, the smell of her. He felt he could have stayed there forever in her arms, until suddenly, the stench from his friend registered in his nostrils, forcing the instant sobering and fading of this indulgence.
What had he done? …
The coughing, spluttering figure beside them was slowly rousing. Lizzibeth, feeling mysteriously disappointed, yet strangely elated, eased herself clear of her lover, interrupting his restless regrets as he lay buttoning his clothing. He watched anxiously as she went towards their friend. She helped him to sit forwards clear of the mess, wiping his mouth with her handkerchief. Speaking soothing words to him, and ruffling his hair affectionately, she smiled at him as he staggered successfully to his feet using her shoulders to lever himself up. He propped himself against the stone column which until a moment ago had been his unforgiving pillow. He rubbed his head and pulled a face at her as if acknowledging the self-inflicted nature of his discomfort. She followed him onto her feet and was straightening and checking her crumpled clothing when their private, treasured tryst was shattered.
“Oy, you two toffs had better not be messing with my sister, what’s going on?” Lizzibeth’s huge brute of a brother was staggering drunkenly towards them from the Inn. “Looks very suspicious to me, I always knew you being friendly with them would lead to trouble, they’re not like us, Lizzibeth,not even ‘im, I’ve warned you, Pa used to warn you. Have these villains interfered with you, or hurt you?”
“Don’t be foolish Bill, can’t you see they’re more drunk than you are, and he’s just
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About the Book
‘At the end of its five hundred year life, the Phoenix builds a nest of spices, perches on it, and sings until the sunlight sets it alight; both nest and bird burn completely away and a new young Phoenix bird arises from the ashes.’
The consequences of a mother taking the secret of her new-born child’s paternity to the grave, are grave indeed.
Joseph Elliot, Lizzibeth Buxton and Henry Ferguson, are unlikely childhood soul-mates through a fortuitous, yet near tragic, twist of fate on Henry’s father’s Dorset estate in the autumn of 1843.
When Lizzibeth invites one of her two friends, as she surely must, to explore the adult world of physical pleasure, she could not know that this momentous and mutual right of passage, would share the same moment in their history as her brother’s crime. As Joseph begins to build his family life far away from the Dorset coast amidst the events and establishment of Scarborough as a successful Victorian seaside resort, Henry settles for a career in the army. They could not have known how both these past events would riddle the embers of their lives, as history begins to taunt them in their new situations.
Joseph and his wife graciously struggle to cope with these intermittent and sometimes malevolent flickers of the emerging truth from not only their own and Henry’s past, but also the Buxtons. Secrets spark from subsequent generations fueling this otherwise benign yet glimmering glow of deceit from the Elliot women.
About the Author
This is Linda Sidgwick's first novel. She has been a practicing physiotherapist for thirty years, specialising in the field of neurological disability.
Although always passionate about her profession, more recently she has augmented this career with additional responsibilities. She has taken a lead role in the Executive Committee of a local day service which champions the enablement of Ability for people with a disability. Then in 1998, she was selected as Team GB Physiotherapist for the Special Olympic World Games which has taken her to many interesting places, and given her some of her most memorable, challenging, and sometimes emotional professional experiences. More recently, since completing a Masters degree, she has become a regular guest lecturer on the local undergraduate physiotherapy course.
Writing for her Master’s dissertation created a yearning for the freedom to write from imagination rather than with the constraints of critiquing scientific research.
Linda lives in a small market town on the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors and has been married for thirty years. She indulges that her greatest achievements in life are her two children, of whom she is extremely proud, along with the welcome additions they have brought into the fold.