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The Hour Before Midnight — Velda Johnston
Here is a spellbinding story of violence, death and love. Set in the present day, its strange happenings are related to a violent and tragic event at Hampton Court Palace, one that took place four and a half centuries ago.
It is a breathtaking romance and a centuries-old mystery that endanger a young American artist on a mist-shrouded English estate.
ANNE AND CEE-CEE AND MISS JUDITH DUNNE THINK THEY ARE THREE BUT TO ME ARE ALL ONE. I KEEP A COUNT AS DEATH SCYTHES DOWN THE ROW: TWO OF THEM DOWN AND ONE LEFT TO GO.
Judith could feel the electric tensions in the air all around her as she read the sinister prophecy left under her door. She had come to this terror-haunted, desolate house a trusting, inexperienced young woman, only to learn too quickly the power of passionate love and seething hate. And as she moved through a labyrinth of violence and violation, desperately fleeing a furious and mysterious force of evil pursuing her, Judith knew that her most dangerous foe was the terror clouding her mind…
Judith Dunne, a young American artist, reluctantly returned to spend a second summer in the carriage house apartment behind The Columns, and 1890's mansion near London. Less than a year earlier, Judith's beautiful promiscuous cousin Cecily Grenville had met her mysterious death there. Now The Columns was vacant, waiting for a buyer. But Judith, low on funds, had good reason to return to the carriage house, the free use of which had been left to her in her cousin's will. She had a commission to illustrate a book about historic Hampton Court Palace, conveniently nearby.
On her first night in the apartment, Judith had evidence that the main house was not empty, at least not at the moment. Candlelight had flickered briefly between the drawn draperies of the corner room where Cecily had died. Was it the killer? And who was he? Steven Grenville, who had become embittered, sometimes to the point of violence, after two years of marriage to the flagrantly unfaithful Cecily? Or was the killer one of Cecily's many lovers, perhaps a straying husband who was afraid she would destroy his marriage of career?
Whoever he was, Judith soon had reason to fear that the unknown murderer threatened her too. But she could not be sure of his identity -- not until one night in the depths of a woodland near Hampton Court when she found herself trapped by a merciless, smiling killer.
It is a breathtaking romance and a centuries-old mystery that endanger a young American artist on a mist-shrouded English estate.
ANNE AND CEE-CEE AND MISS JUDITH DUNNE THINK THEY ARE THREE BUT TO ME ARE ALL ONE. I KEEP A COUNT AS DEATH SCYTHES DOWN THE ROW: TWO OF THEM DOWN AND ONE LEFT TO GO.
Judith could feel the electric tensions in the air all around her as she read the sinister prophecy left under her door. She had come to this terror-haunted, desolate house a trusting, inexperienced young woman, only to learn too quickly the power of passionate love and seething hate. And as she moved through a labyrinth of violence and violation, desperately fleeing a furious and mysterious force of evil pursuing her, Judith knew that her most dangerous foe was the terror clouding her mind…
Judith Dunne, a young American artist, reluctantly returned to spend a second summer in the carriage house apartment behind The Columns, and 1890's mansion near London. Less than a year earlier, Judith's beautiful promiscuous cousin Cecily Grenville had met her mysterious death there. Now The Columns was vacant, waiting for a buyer. But Judith, low on funds, had good reason to return to the carriage house, the free use of which had been left to her in her cousin's will. She had a commission to illustrate a book about historic Hampton Court Palace, conveniently nearby.
On her first night in the apartment, Judith had evidence that the main house was not empty, at least not at the moment. Candlelight had flickered briefly between the drawn draperies of the corner room where Cecily had died. Was it the killer? And who was he? Steven Grenville, who had become embittered, sometimes to the point of violence, after two years of marriage to the flagrantly unfaithful Cecily? Or was the killer one of Cecily's many lovers, perhaps a straying husband who was afraid she would destroy his marriage of career?
Whoever he was, Judith soon had reason to fear that the unknown murderer threatened her too. But she could not be sure of his identity -- not until one night in the depths of a woodland near Hampton Court when she found herself trapped by a merciless, smiling killer.
