The Veil

By Marie Morin

Margaret Hamby had no idea what awaited her at the most haunted castle in the UK or she might have run the other way.

Simon, the first Lord Marlboro, haunts the halls of the castle Dr. Jonathan Sinclair has chosen to conduct his research into alternate dimensions. But from the moment clairvoyant, Meg Hamby, arrives, he is obsessed with her. And that obsession leads to violence and super charged emotions no one expected—least of all Meg.

But then she’s never been the object of a living mortal’s obsession. How could she anticipate becoming Simon’s?

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Concepts Publishing
• Release date: May 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005210458

Book preview

The Veil

By

Marie Morin

( c ) copyright by Madris DePasture writing as Marie Morin, 2021

Cover Art by Alex DeShanks, May 2021

Smashwords Edition

New Concepts Publishing

Lake Park, GA 31636

www.newconceptspublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

Chapter One

Marlboro Castle was rumored to be one of the most haunted places in the world and Margaret ‘Meg’ Hamby, for one, didn’t doubt that in the least. She’d begun to feel a prickle along her arms, neck, and spine almost the moment the brooding castle cum tourist attraction had come into view. That sense that she was near a great rip in the veil increased the closer the van carrying her and the majority of Dr. Jonathan Sinclair’s research team came to the medieval estate.

You picking up anything?

Meg jumped slightly when the object of her thoughts abruptly spoke and whipped her head from the view beyond the window to Dr. Sinclair, who’d swiveled around in his seat at the front of the vehicle. Contrary to her expectations, he wasn’t addressing Kevin, who’d been fiddling with the knobs on the instrument he carried on his lap almost since they’d climbed into the van at Heathrow.

Discomfort wafted through her. Instead of answering immediately, she glanced at Kevin questioningly as he responded without looking up. I’m getting a reading alright, he said, a thread of excitement underlying his attempt to sound professionally detached.

Dr. Sinclair twisted a little more in his seat and studied Kevin, one of his young research assistants. What sort of readings?

An increase in the magnetic field—slight elevation. It seems to be climbing, though.

Meg?

Annoyance flickered through her. It wasn’t that she was particularly offended when people she hardly knew took the liberty of calling her by her first name. It was an informal world and half the people in it didn’t seem to know, or use, the surnames of even their friends. It was the liberty, uninvited, that Dr. Sinclair took in calling her Meg when no one but her family and closest friends did. She’d been hired in a professional capacity, however, and she strongly suspected Dr. Sinclair’s insistence on being addressed as Dr. Sinclair while he took the liberty of calling everyone else by their first name was his way of maintaining his importance and pointing out the lack of importance of everyone else.

She hadn’t particularly wanted to join Dr. Sinclair’s research team to begin with. The scientific community viewed people like her with varying degrees of contempt, but contempt nonetheless. Despite his assurance that it wasn’t his objective to prove, conclusively, that she, and everyone else with the sort of ‘gifts’ she claimed to have, were quacks and charlatans, she strongly suspected that was exactly what he had set out to do and she would’ve flatly refused to have anything to do with his research except for one circumstance.

She needed the money.

In a more perfect world, she wouldn’t have been forced to expose herself to ridicule just to survive, but the world was far from perfect.

Instead of answering him, she lifted her arm. He stared at the arm she held up for his inspection for a long moment, blankly, and then noticed the rise of the fine down along her forearm. After studying her arm for a moment, he lifted his icy blue stare and met her gaze. You interpret that as an encounter?

Meg felt her cheeks heat faintly. No, she said flatly. I would interpret it to mean that there’s a high likelihood that something is here.

He looked as if he wanted to question her further but since Nick, who’d taken the wheel when they climbed into the first van, began to break as he neared the entrance, Sinclair returned his attention to the castle. As Nick turned in through the gates, he dismissed her and focused on his pet project. Just pull up to the front. It’s the only door wide enough to accommodate all of the equipment.

A liveried attendant and an older man dressed in a suit emerged through the double doors that led into the great hall as Nick put the van in park and switched off the ignition. Dr. Sinclair was the first to exit the van. Nick got out on his heels and strode around to the back while Dr. Sinclair went to meet the owner of the castle.

Meg heard snatches of their conversation while she waited for Kevin to place his meter tenderly in the carrying case and secure it. Mildly impatient at the delay considering the hours she’d spent strapped to a seat, Meg studied what she could see of the castle. She didn’t know what expectations she’d harbored about the place, but her reaction was one of surprise. Even the stones the ancient fortress had been built from looked ancient, not just the architecture.

She supposed she’d had some misconception that it would look like the faux ancient reproductions she’d seen back home—deliberately, if carefully, ‘distressed’.

Of course, there were structures in the U.S. that actually were ancient, by American standards anyway, but she’d never traveled much. Beyond the carefully renovated village at Jamestown she’d toured as a child that dated back to the early 1600s and a few antebellum homes in her native deep south, she hadn’t seen many antiquities—certainly nothing that dated back over nine hundred years.

By the time Kevin finally opened the door and climbed out, Dr. Sinclair had disappeared inside with the man who’d greeted him. Stiff, sore, and exhausted from the hours of travel, Meg got out carefully, feeling twice her numerical age of twenty seven … at least. Either the other members of the research team were young enough to bounce back faster, or they were too eager and excited to notice their own discomfort. They were very busy unloading the two vans that made up the research convoy. Moving a short distance from the rest of the group, Meg divided her attention between watching the unloading for her bag to appear and studying the castle and bailey.

From what she’d been told, parts of the inner wall dated back to shortly after the Norman Conquest and possibly even parts of the castle itself, although that much wasn’t conclusive. Despite William’s obsession with records, all that was known for certain was that the first Lord Marlboro that had been awarded the estate had been ordered to erect fortifications around the manor that had been standing on the site at the time and that he’d lived in the manor that had been built by the previous owner for a time, focusing his efforts on the wall—which eventually became the inner curtain wall when a second wall was later built outside the first that was even taller and stronger. He might have had the manor raised and started from the ground up, or he might have incorporated as least parts of the original structure when he finally turned his attentions to living quarters for themselves. It had been an ongoing project for generations after his time, however.

You think she’s getting vibes?

I don’t know about her, but I am!

Right! I forgot you had the ‘gift’!

I never said I had any kind of gift! Kelly retorted irritably. Only that I’m sensitive.

Maybe she’s gone into a trance? Kevin said in a low voice that was even more audible than the other comments, snickering.

Anger flickered through Meg. She’d suspected from the moment she was introduced to the group that their opinion of her was no higher than Dr. Sinclair’s, and it still irritated her to be treated like a nut case—a deaf one. I was mesmerized by your ass, she said sarcastically, surging toward the van and grabbing her suitcase as he set it on the ground.

His face turned red, but she wasn’t certain if it was because of her comment or the snickers of the others. She’d didn’t care either. Grabbing the handle, she turned her back on the rest of the team, most of whom were Dr. Sinclair’s students, and headed inside.

Witch! Kevin muttered.

She ignored that, too. He was gay—not that she gave a damn about that!—though it probably explained why he was angry about her comment—but he was a sarcastic asshole and she wasn’t inclined to like anything about him when he seemed to have taken sights on her for harassment. Of course, from what she’d seen, he was almost equally vicious to everyone, but he seemed to take special delight, or have an especial resentment, of her for being included in the ‘team’.

The interior of the castle was gloomier than the weather outside and Meg paused on the threshold to allow her eyes to adjust to the light from the wall sconces scattered around the huge room. Kevin brushed past her, deliberately bumping her in the process and forcing her to take a step back to catch her balance.

Excuse me, he said tightly.

Derik, directly behind him, managed to brush her breast as he deliberately squeezed past her instead of taking the wider route behind her. Wasting your time studying his ass, but you can study mine all you like, he murmured with a leer as he moved past her.

Meg rolled her eyes, but she hurried inside and out of the way as the rest of team followed on his heels, lugging equipment inside.

Dr. Sinclair broke off from his discussion with the owner when he saw his equipment arriving and strode briskly toward the group to direct them. Since his focus freed up the other man, Meg made a beeline toward him before he could disappear.

Excuse me—hi! I’m Margaret Hamby. I was wondering if rooms had been assigned?

The man, who’d clearly been intent on going about his own