Read Online Serere by Andy Frankham-Allen - Free Book Online

PART ONE: 18th Century
    Newington Green, England, 1788.
    Isobel Shelley waited, as she promised she would, but it was getting dark and the rain had started to fall. Not that either thing bothered her personally, but it was terribly inconvenient. She lifted her lantern, which she did not really need, of course, but appearances were important, and looked out to the northern carriage way. The Green was quiet, most people safely indoors, sheltered from the cold, but Isobel could not be sure she wasn’t being watched. Newington Green, home to the free-thinkers and dissidents, had history, and the people who tended to gravitate to this place knew better than to take things for granted. Probably one of the many reasons she loved living on the Green.
    The sound of hoof beats crunching gravel drifted over to her, and she focused on the approaching shape. A gig pulled by a single horse, two people jostling about in the carriage as the wooden wheels managed to find every ditch and trough in the path. Both figures were dressed in the finest cloth, one looking down, his head bobbling about as if he were asleep, but the second, holding the reins in his hands, was looking firmly ahead, mindful of the mood of the horse. The gig slowed, and stopped right next to Isobel. She smiled, finally able to see the countenance of the young driver.
    Young and as radiant as ever, Hareton Wesley smiled down at Isobel, and tipped his bicorn hat. “Miss Shelley, you are still a diamond of the first water, I see. A pleasure indeed.”
    Isobel curtsied slightly, with a smile of her own. It had been some time since she had seen anything of Hareton, and was not displeased to see him once more. “Young Master Wesley, an’ you and the gentleman like to follow me?”
    The gentleman in question looked up, clearly not asleep. An austere looking man of some fifty years (which certainly meant he was older), he raised an eyebrow at Isobel and edged his lip in the form of a very slight smile, which looked somewhat strange on such a Friday-faced man. Hareton looked at him, no doubt awaiting instruction, and the gentleman nodded. “As Miss Shelley says, so shall it be,” the gentleman said, in an accent that sounded almost German, although it had a cadence that Isobel could not quite place. She was not particularly well travelled, but accents did not usually stump her so. “Do lead on, dear lady.”
    “As you wish,” Isobel said and tuned away, lantern still held aloft, and led the way across the Green.
    * * *
    Once the door was bolted, and the candles lit, all pretence of formality ceased. Isobel flung herself into Hareton’s arms, and their lips met with great passion. For a full minute they remained like that, any thought of the gentleman momentarily gone. Only the distant sound of movement in the room served to remind them that they were not alone. Eventually a sharp clearing of the throat tore them apart, and Isobel looked over at the gentleman demurely.
    “Sorry. Hareton and I...”
    “Have a history?” the gentleman asked, his face no longer as severe as it had been out in the rain. Indeed, his features now seemed to be full of warmth. He pulled up a seat and sat at the table, removing his hat and wig, both of which had become sodden in the rain. His hair beneath the wig was silver-grey, pulled back and clubbed with a black ribbon, his upper lip covered in an equally grey moustache, but it was his eyes that pulled Isobel in: deep brown, mortal eyes, containing such compassion. It was rare to meet one of their kind with human eyes. Although they still managed to pass off as normal among the common folk, her eyes were pale, the pigment of the iris slowly fading with the passing of each year. And such was true of most of their people, except those who had yet to experience the Second Death. The gentleman before her was clearly one such person.
    Isobel batted her eyelids bashfully like a betty, although she was anything but. However it was an image she had