Introduction
What if the love of your life lived 131 years before you did?
Listen to the Prologue and Chapter One of A Love Beyond the Glass, a time-slip romance by Ruth G. Roseler.
When Natalie Byrne buys an old house in the Adelaide Hills, she expects renovations, dust and a fresh start. She doesn’t expect an antique mirror to connect her with a woman living in 1895—or to open the way to Will Baird.
But crossing time comes with a complication Natalie could never have imagined.
Because the woman on the other side of the glass isn’t simply part of the past.
She has a life of her own.
And loving Will may eventually ask Natalie to decide what—and who—she is willing to sacrifice for an impossible love.
This free reading sample contains the Prologue and Chapter One of A Love Beyond the Glass.
PROLOGUE
Verran House, near Mylor, South Australia — September 1895
Edith Verran watched William Baird walk away from the house. He crossed the lawn without looking back. She had asked him not to. That had seemed sensible when she said it.
Now she stood at the east-bedroom window wishing, just once, that Will would ignore her. He reached the lower garden and stopped. Edith gripped the window frame. For a moment she thought he might turn around.
He didn’t. Half an hour earlier, they had argued beside the east stairs while George spoke with a visitor in the morning room. The visitor had come to discuss the coming election. South Australian women could vote now, and men who had spent years deciding whether women should have that right had moved on to deciding how they ought to use it. Edith had nearly challenged him.
George had answered first. His response had been kind and reasonable. That was often the difficulty with George. He was a decent man. Will had seen Edith remain silent.
Later, when they were alone, he said, “Does George know you signed the petition?”
“He knows I supported it.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“No.”
Will looked towards the morning room. “Why haven’t you told him?”
“Because it would hurt him.”
“And this doesn’t?”
Edith knew what he meant. George had never forbidden her opinions. He had never been cruel to her. He had offered her family security when they badly needed it, and when she married him she had believed affection and gratitude might be enough. Sometimes they almost were. Then Will came home.
“Don’t make George the villain,” she said.
“I haven’t.”
“You think I should leave him.”
“I think you should stop living as though wanting something makes you wicked.”
She looked at him. “And what exactly am I supposed to want?”
His expression changed. She wished she hadn’t asked.
“Me,” he said.
Neither of them spoke. From the morning room came George’s laugh. Edith closed her eyes. Will stepped back.
“Tell me to go.”
She opened her eyes again.
“Go.”
He waited.
“And don’t look back.”
Now, from the bedroom window, Edith watched him reach the stone bench beneath the pear tree. He took something from his coat and placed it on the bench. Then he walked towards the road. This time he did not stop.
Edith waited until the gate closed behind him. She should have stayed where she was. Instead, she left the bedroom, went down the back stairs and crossed the lawn. The object on the bench was wrapped in Will’s handkerchief.
Inside was a gold locket. Edith stared at it.
“You fool.”
She wasn’t sure which of them she meant. The locket was oval, with a small wattle branch engraved on the back. She opened it. Two pressed flowers lay beneath the glass. Under them were the words:
Wherever your heart rests, mine shall follow.
Edith closed her eyes. She should leave it there. She should give it back. She should tell George everything.
Instead, she closed the locket around her hand and returned to the house. By the time she reached the east bedroom, her skirt and shoes were wet. She sat at the dressing table. For several seconds she simply looked at the locket.
Then she fastened it around her neck. The central mirror changed. Edith went still. The bedroom remained around her, but another room appeared inside the glass.
It was the same room. And it wasn’t. The wallpaper was damaged. The furniture was neglected. Daylight filled a room that should have been dark with rain. A woman stood before the mirror.
She wore trousers and a loose shirt. Her hair touched her shoulders. She was older than Edith, perhaps in her early forties. She was staring straight at her. Edith stood so quickly the stool fell behind her. The woman flinched.
Edith raised one hand. After a moment, the woman raised hers. Their palms met against opposite sides of the glass. The mirror turned warm beneath Edith’s hand.
Images flashed through her mind too quickly to understand: strange carriages moving without horses, a bright object held in a woman’s hand, Verran House beneath an orange sky. Then a name. Natalie Byrne. The bedroom door opened.
“Madam?”
Edith turned towards Elsie. When she looked back, the other woman was gone. Only Edith remained in the mirror. Her hand was still pressed to the glass.
One thing had stayed with her. A year. 2026.
CHAPTER ONE
The old Verran place
Natalie Byrne knew the house needed work before she got out of the car. It was large, grey stone and clearly once grand, with a broad veranda and an overgrown garden. Two enormous trees partly hid it from the road. Beside her, Peter Callaghan looked at the house and then at his shoes.
“I told you not to wear those.”
“You said the property needed work. You didn’t say I’d need hiking boots.”
“They’re not hiking boots. They’re sensible shoes.”
“At my age, sensible shoes are the beginning of the end.”
Natalie smiled and opened her door. She was forty-two. Her marriage was over, her work could be done from almost anywhere, and for the first time in years she didn’t have to consult anyone about where she lived. Buying a neglected house outside Mylor might not be the wisest expression of that freedom. But she wanted to see inside.
Peter joined her at the bottom of the veranda.
“The building report is extensive,” he said.
“I’ve read it.”
“The roof needs work.”
“I know.”
“There are problems with the water system.”
“I know.”
“And asbestos in the old kitchen.”
“I know.”
He looked at her.
“What?”
“You’re still smiling.”
“Am I?”
“Yes.”
That probably wasn’t a good sign. Peter unlocked the front door. The entrance hall was bigger than Natalie expected. High ceilings, a wide staircase and large rooms opening from either side gave her some idea of what the house had once been. Most of that grandeur had faded.
Natalie didn’t mind. A portrait hung above the drawing-room doors. She stopped. The couple in it stood formally together. The man was fair-haired and handsome. The woman beside him wore a dark green dress.
There was something about her face.
“Who is she?”
“Edith Verran. That’s her husband, George.”
Natalie stepped closer.
“How do you know?”
“The vendors left notes on a few of the things staying with the house.”
“When was it painted?”
“1894.”
Natalie looked at Edith again.
“Anything else?”
“Not much. George’s family owned the place. There are boxes of old papers somewhere.”
That interested her. Peter headed towards the next room. Natalie stayed in front of the portrait for another moment before following him. They looked through the ground floor and then went upstairs.
The house was in worse condition than the photographs suggested. Natalie saw enough cracked plaster, damaged timber and evidence of water problems to understand why Peter kept watching her for signs of common sense. Unfortunately, she liked the place. The east bedroom was larger than the others. An old cedar dressing table stood against one wall. Natalie walked towards it.
Three mirrors rose from the back: a large central mirror with two narrower ones angled towards it. The glass had deteriorated around the edges, but the dressing table itself was beautiful. Natalie tried one of the drawers. Locked. She crouched and looked beneath the handle.
Two initials had been scratched into the wood.
E. V.
Edith Verran. For a moment she thought something moved in the mirror. She turned. Nothing.
“What?” Peter asked.
“I thought I saw something.”
He glanced around the empty room. “A mouse?”
“Thanks.”
“Happy to help.”
Her phone rang. Richard. Natalie stared at her ex-husband’s name until the call stopped. A message arrived almost immediately.
“Heard you’re looking at the old place near Mylor. Please call before you do anything.”
She read it twice. Of course he’d heard. Peter was watching her.
“My ex-husband.”
“Ah.”
“What does ‘ah’ mean?”
“Nothing.”
“It absolutely means something.”
“It means I’m an estate agent and therefore professionally incapable of having an opinion about your ex-husband.”
Natalie put the phone away.
“Good.”
“Although if he intends to talk you out of buying the place, I’d prefer you didn’t call him until after settlement.”
She laughed. They finished upstairs and went back outside. Peter was explaining the vendors’ position when a car pulled in behind hers. A man got out carrying two takeaway coffees. He was perhaps in his mid-forties, casually dressed, with rolled plans tucked beneath one arm.
“Peter Callaghan?”
Peter raised a hand. The man walked over.
“Then you must be Natalie.”
She looked at the coffees. “Should I know you?”
“Ben Hocking. Heritage architect.”
Natalie recognised the name from the building report.
“You called the east wing an accumulation of incompatible ambitions.”
“I was being polite.”
She liked him immediately. Ben held out one of the coffees.
“For me?”
“For whichever one of you is considering buying the house.”
“That would be me.”
“Then you’ll need it more.”
Natalie took the cup.
“You don’t think I should buy it?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You implied financial ruin.”
“That’s different.”
Peter wandered towards his car, apparently deciding he no longer needed to participate. Natalie looked back at the house.
“Would you take it on?”
Ben followed her gaze.
“I inspected it six years ago. I’d like to see it restored.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No. It’s the answer of a man who already has too much work.”
“What’s the first thing you’d do?”
“Roof.”
“And after that?”
“The east bedroom.”
Natalie looked up at its windows.
“Why?”
“Water is getting in above the fireplace.”
That made sense. She was about to ask another question when she saw someone at the window. A woman. Dark hair. Green dress.
Natalie froze. The woman lifted one hand and pressed it against the glass. Natalie’s coffee slipped from her fingers. Ben turned towards the house.
“What happened?”
The window was empty. Natalie stared at it.
“What did you see?” Ben asked.
She didn’t answer. She had seen Edith Verran. And somehow, impossibly, Natalie knew Edith had seen her too.