Chapter 19: Her Lovers' Touch, Part 1, Elizabeth's Birthday Gift

RICHARD

I sit in the conference room, wading through brochures, catalogues and websites, trying to find something....

.... suitable....

.... and just the tiniest bit original....

And something she doesn't already have....

*sigh*

There's movement in my office beyond.

Elizabeth?

She's early....

Quickly, I whisk a plan of the City Project site over my work area, but when I look up, it's not Elizabeth but Michael standing in the doorway.

"Hi, Richard... Hope you don't mind. Francis let me in. Thought I'd spend half an hour on some more of that lot while I was twiddling my thumbs." He gestures towards the stack of tattered and dusty boxes housing forty years of junk paperwork from Elizabeth's recently deceased Uncle Albert.

"Not at all. It's very good of you to keep at this on Elizabeth's behalf."