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    The Adventures of Grace Quinlan and Lord William Hayden In the Lost City of the Incas (Psyche and Eros Reborn) Volume 3
    The Adventures of Grace Quinlan and Lord William Hayden In the Lost City of the Incas (Psyche and Eros Reborn) Volume 3
    The Adventures of Grace Quinlan and Lord William Hayden In the Lost City of the Incas (Psyche and Eros Reborn) Volume 3
    Ebook82 pages1 hour

    The Adventures of Grace Quinlan and Lord William Hayden In the Lost City of the Incas (Psyche and Eros Reborn) Volume 3

    By Paula Freda

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    Excerpt: The circle of armed guards parted, allowing Hayden an unobstructed view. His throat constricted and he opened his mouth in a silent gasp. Face pressed against a wood post, Grace was tied to it by her head, arms and waist. The shirt on her back was shredded and bloody. "Bastards!" Hayden cried. At the same time he noticed she was barely conscious, and unable to turn her head because of the bindings. His name echoed through the square and he turned in the direction of Talbot’s voice. Holding a partially coiled whip, the Inca advanced toward him. Rage filled Lord Hayden as he noticed the blood on the leather tong, Grace’s blood. The guards seized him before he could lunge at Talbot, and held him immobile. Talbot regarded Lord Hayden quizzically for a moment, then without preamble, he threw the whip at his rival’s feet and motioned the guards to release him. The oddity of the Inca’s action caused Lord Hayden to think twice before following his first impulse to pick up the whip and flay the Inca to a lifeless pulp for the suffering he had caused Grace.
    "Pick it up, Lord Hayden," Talbot said. "You want to kill me, don’t you? This is your chance. A duel between us. The winner gets all, including Grace." Talbot unsheathed a long narrow knife. Lord Hayden’s rage, his anger and his determination in the face of obstacles decided him. He picked up the whip. The next events happened so quickly that he had only time to absorb their meaning and utter a broken rasp. The binding holding Grace’s head to the post was cut. Water was thrown in her face. She moaned and turned her head weakly and looked at Lord Hayden. Droplets of water hung on her face scratched and bruised. Lord Hayden watched them slide down her cheeks and mix with blood, tears and mud. It was evident she had put up quite a struggle. Her gaze was not totally focused, but he could read cognition in it as it settled on the whip he was holding, and then moved back to his face. It lingered there a moment, filling with hurt beyond reparation as it silently asked, how he could have hurt her so. Starting toward her, Lord Hayden opened his mouth to deny vehemently the accusation. The same guard who had cut the cord that had bound Grace’s head to the post, lifted his spear and with its butt struck her, knocking her unconscious. Talbot howled an order and a soldier tore the whip from Lord Hayden’s hand. The Inca’s laughter crackled and permeated the square. The circle of soldiers restraining Lord Hayden parted. Talbot advanced. "And now, Eros," he said, slithering hatred in his voice, "Psyche’s love is taken from you, as you stole it from me two millenniums ago." He paused to savor his victory, and then he ordered the guards, "Take him away!"...

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPaula Freda
    Release dateJul 12, 2011
    ISBN9781466057739
    The Adventures of Grace Quinlan and Lord William Hayden In the Lost City of the Incas (Psyche and Eros Reborn) Volume 3
    Author

    Paula Freda

    About the AuthorDorothy Paula Freda, is also known under her pen names Paula Freda and Marianne Dora Rose. Herbooks range from Fiction and Non-fiction Adventure, Romance, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Poetry, Articles, Essays and How-to-Write Instructional complete with Lessons and optional assignments.Homemaker, mother of two grown sons, and former off-the-desk publisher of a family-oriented print small press, (1984 thru 1999), The Pink Chameleon, that she now publishes on line, Paula was raised by her grandmother and mother, and has been writing for as long as she can remember. Even before she could set pencil to paper, she would spin her stories in the recording booths in the Brooklyn Coney Island Arcades for a quarter per 3-minute record. She states, "I love the English language, love words and seeing them on display, typed and alive. A romantic at heart, I write simply and emotionally. One of my former editors kindly described my work, '...her pieces are always deep, gentle and refreshing....'" Paula further states, "My stories are sensitive, deeply emotional, sensual when appropriate, yet non-graphic, family fare, pageturners. My hope is that my writing will bring entertainment and uplift the human spirit, bring a smile to your face and your soul, and leave you filled with a generous amount of hope."

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      Book preview

      The Adventures of Grace Quinlan and Lord William Hayden In the Lost City of the Incas (Psyche and Eros Reborn) Volume 3 - Paula Freda

      The Adventures of Grace Quinlan and Lord William Hayden

      In the Lost City of the Incas

      (Psyche and Eros Reborn)

      Volume 3

      Copyright 2005 - 2011

      by Dorothy Paula Freda

      (Pseudonym - Paula Freda)

      Cover photo and inserts licensed by Paula Freda from iStockphoto.com

      Smashwords Edition

      Author retains all rights.

      All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof.

      This story appeared in my novel In Another Life (from the Journals of Grace Quinlan and Lord William Hayden) under my pseudonym, Paula Freda. It is a work of fiction. Except for documented historical data and geographical locations, all names, characters, places and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

      DEDICATION

      With thanks to my Lord Jesus and his Blessed Mother Mary whose strength, guidance, and her Holy Rosary, are my anchor in this troubled world, I dedicate this novella to my husband, whose love, patience and kindness over the past 40 years have kept my dreams and my view of the romantic, alive and vibrant." Paula Freda

      The Adventures

      of Grace Quinlan and Lord William Hayden

      in the Lost City of the Incas

      (Psyche and Eros Reborn)

      CHAPTER ONE

      Row upon row of hundreds of various sized crates filled the warehouse. Similar warnings coated in dust marked each one.

      Property of the U.S. Government

      To Be Opened Only by Authorized Personnel

      An elderly man in a brown sweater and baggy pants rolled an empty hand wagon up one of the aisles between the rows of crates. Every few feet he stopped and listened. Stray wisps of thinning gray hair peeped from under his cap. In contrast, his eyebrows were thick and coarse over droopy eyes the color of dark slate. At his fourth stop, a smile touched his wizened mouth. He pushed the hand wagon into the aisle. The old man halted in front of a rectangular crate. He listened to the steady hum, like delicate voices of angels raised softly in song emitting from the crate’s interior. Extending his arm, he wiped the dust from the crate’s top with his sleeve and read the warning along with the serial number.

      The elderly man strained as he slid the heavy crate from side to side, using leverage and what muscles he possessed until the box sat securely on top of the hand wagon. He resumed rolling it. When he had reached the end of the aisle, he looked first to the right and then to the left. The right corridor leading to the exit was empty, the area dimly lit. He turned the cart toward the exit. The door was open. An unmarked truck waited silently, its driver silhouetted in the shadows, as silent. In anticipation, a portable ramp had been raised. The elderly man pushed the wagon and its contents up the ramp and into the back of the truck, and then pulled the tarpaulin covers shut. The truck moved, leaving the ramp behind.

      A sliver of moonlight passed through the space where the two flaps of the tarpaulin almost met. The old man sat on a stool beside the wagon, holding the crate steady as the truck rumbled on. With his other hand, he removed his cap and peeled away the coarse gray eyebrows and the thinning hair. Folds of wrinkled skin followed. Then rubbing his face gingerly, he began to laugh, softly at first. As the truck sped into the night, his laughter grew, deep bellowing guffaws, until it rivaled the roar of the truck’s giant wheels.

      * * *

      Elizabeth / Grace Quinlan fingered the carvings etched into the stone blocks of the ancient Temple of the Mayan God Kukulcán, also known as the Aztec God Quetzalcóatl. She mentally translated the symbols, prayers of a once sophisticated race, intellectually, artistically and socially advanced, though psychologically primitive and harsh. Human sacrifice, and barbaric practices and punishment had been a part of the Mayan’s sophisticated culture. Elizabeth sighed quietly. Her brow wrinkled. She recalled words composed by a woman yet unborn—

      Hayden, seek the relic of power,

      Where no Mayan walks,

      Where only angels dare to tread

      And devils hide.

      Lord Hayden had awakened one morning shortly after his return from Peru to find a handwritten message on his end table. What had made the words stand out was the signature—With gratitude, Agnes. Some years ago, during the war, a rumor circulated that a famed archaeologist had found a relic of great power and brought it back to the States. Soon after, the Defense Department claimed the relic, and it disappeared.

      Elizabeth traced the remaining carvings. Praises to the Mayan God, but nothing that held a corresponding clue to Agnes’ verse. Yet Lord Hayden insisted that this was the starting point; more precisely, the Sacrificial Well, north, past a thirty-foot-wide ceremonial causeway that led nine yards to the sacrificial cenote. The cenote was a huge oval-shaped natural well encased perpendicularly by broken rocky limestone walls that rose about sixty-five feet above the surface of the murky green water. A place of human sacrifice—Where no Mayan walks, where only angels dare to tread, and devils hide.

      Numerous mythological tales and local superstitions surrounded the cenote. It was Lord Hayden’s belief that Agnes’ verse referred specifically to this well. Whether the relic of power that she mentioned was in the cenote, or whether the surrounding temples, stelae and other monuments, were merely pointers that might eventually lead to the relic, remained to be seen.

      Lord Hayden had begged Elizabeth, to reach Grace Quinlan and ask her to accompany him once again on a relic search. He had shown her Agnes’ message. Fighting to restrain her excitement, she had calmly assured him that as soon as she heard from Grace, she would extend his invitation. Thus, here they were during summer recess, Elizabeth under the guise of Grace Quinlan, once more together with Lord William Hayden,

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