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Informationen zum Autor Linda Buckley-Archer is the author of the critically acclaimed Gideon trilogy. Originally trained as a linguist, she is now a full-time novelist and scriptwriter. She has written a television drama for the BBC and several radio dramas, as well as various journalistic pieces for papers like the Independent . The Gideon Trilogy was inspired by the criminal underworld of eighteenth-century London.The Time Quake TWO A SPENT ROSE In which the party struggle to know what to do about Kate’s affliction and Gideon brings some promising news The hot summer of 1763 was drawing to a close, and there was something in the air, a quality to the light, that made the residents of Lincoln’s Inn Fields cherish every last warm evening before the first chill of autumn sent them scurrying indoors. Only a few streets away, amidst the raucous cries of street hawkers and the incessant thunder of wagons, starving children begged, soldiers mutilated in the recent war drowned their sorrows in gin, and for the sake of a few coins footpads beat their victims senseless up dark alleyways. But here in this civilized London square all was calm and comfort and respectability. Who could have guessed that behind these fine facades could be heard the first rumblings of a cataclysmic storm that threatened to destroy all before it? Dusk was approaching, and the trees in the square were thick with songbirds, which trilled and warbled in the rapidly fading light. A blackbird perched sentrylike on a tall wroughtiron gate that graced the frontage of an imposing house to the west of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The sweet birdsong drifted into Sir Richard Picard’s first-floor drawing room, carried in on wafts of air made fragrant by the honeysuckle that scrambled beneath the open window. Inside the room were to be found Parson Ledbury and two children from the twenty-first century, although their appearance gave no clue as to the century they called their own—except that under closer scrutiny their shoes seemed better suited to a modern-day sports field than the elegance of an eighteenth-century drawing room. Kate Dyer lay stretched out on her belly on a couch beneath the window, her red hair vivid against her sprigged green dress. She supported her chin in one cupped hand, while with the other she tugged absentmindedly at the sleeve of a discarded jacket draped over the back of a chair. The boy it belonged to, Peter Schock, was sitting at a circular table in front of a chessboard. Opposite him, white wig awry, sat a portly man of the cloth, who emptied a glass of claret in one gulp and set it back on the table with a bang that jolted Kate temporarily out of her reverie. In the middle of setting out the chess pieces for a return match with the redoubtable Parson Ledbury, a white knight suspended in midair between finger and thumb, the young Peter Schock glanced over at his friend. Kate’s eyelids kept sliding shut, but as soon as they closed she would jerk them open again through sheer effort of will. Another day spent searching for the Tar Man—and hopefully the duplicate antigravity machine that Kate’s father and the scientist Dr. Pirretti had built—had left Peter frustrated and anxious. But Kate was utterly wrung out and exhausted—as, it seemed to Peter, she so often was. Gideon and Sir Richard had been keen to continue the search, but when they noticed Kate’s white face, they insisted that the Parson take the children home to rest. “Go to bed, Kate, before we have to carry you up,” Peter said. Kate shook herself and pushed herself up. “No. I want to see Parson Ledbury thrash you first.” Peter stuck out his tongue at her. “Now, if you...
