Alex had returned, albeit reluctantly to find that whilst King Josef didn’t want his son disgracing the monarchy all over Europe, he didn’t particularly care what he did at home as long as it wasn’t too disgraceful.
And so, Alex had been back in Aldonia for months, losing interest in all of his old vices, and chomping at the bit to get away.
So it was that he’d decided to leave again. Choosing to remove to England first, where his father’s reach wasn’t quite as formidable.
The king had flatly refused to allow Alex to leave again, especially when he heard that Alex wanted to travel as any other gentleman; without a royal entourage.
It had taken a lot of arguments and a healthy dose of Alex’s stubbornness to finally get the king to give his grudging blessing to the trip.
Alex’s smug sense of victory had been short-lived, however. For he was to take his sister along on the tour.
Harriet had been beside herself. Thrilled beyond words that she would get to visit the land of the gothic novels she devoured, meet the lords and ladies of whom she read so much.
Alex had been less impressed with the development, but he found himself unable to refuse Harriet’s request to join him when it obviously meant so much to her.
Now, the day before they were due to leave, his father had summoned him to deliver yet another sermon on expected behaviour, another list of rules the length of the Aldonian coast.
“As I have told you repeatedly, father,” Alex spoke when the king paused for breath. “I do not wish to conduct a royal visit. I just want to get away. And I have no intention of letting anything happen to Harriet. I am well capable of taking care of her, without the need for Aldonian soldiers or anyone else you think I should take along.”
The king glowered at his youngest son, and Alex glowered right back.
As the silence grew, Alex’s patience shrank.
Sighing, he stood from his chair.
“If that is all?”
“No,” King Josef answered. “That is not all.”
Something in his father’s tone gave Alex pause and he slowly sat back down.
“Before you go to England, there’s something you should know, Alexander,” the king spoke wearily now. “Something that I should have told you years ago.”
Chapter One
The problem with holly and ivy, Lydia Charring realised, was that it had an unnatural desire to attach itself to parts of a person to which it had no business being attached.
She had pulled and pushed and battled fiercely against this particular bush for hours, and she was freezing.
Her nose, she was sure, would be beet red, and she was fast losing feeling in her fingers, even as they were ensconced in her buttery leather gloves.
Finally, she managed to force the bush to part with some of its holly, and with a satisfied sigh, she dropped it into the basket at her elbow.
Well pleased with her morning’s work, Lydia stomped back across the vast meadow toward her uncle’s pile of bricks. Although uncle wasn’t entirely accurate, since Horatio Huntsforth (and wasn’t that a mouthful) was her mother’s godfather, and not actually a relation at all.
The site of Chillington Abbey was always a little intimidating. Never more so than on a day like this, when the clouds hung low and ominous in the sky, and even the weak winter sun didn’t seem able to penetrate the thick cloud sitting over the manse.
Chillington by name, chilly by nature, Lydia thought wryly. The place was freezing. And though it had fireplaces big enough to stand five of Lydia side by side, her uncle was a miserly old so-and-so who wouldn’t light more than one fire to save his life.
Thankfully, he kept to his suite or study for the most part, and so the library and Lydia’s bedchamber, as well as her mother’s, were kept toasty and warm, with Lydia promising to bear the brunt of her uncle’s displeasure should the maids get caught lighting the fires.
It wasn’t that her uncle was unkind, for truly he wasn’t. He was her mother’s dearest friend, after all. And for years they had trudged here every Christmastide so the old codger wouldn’t be alone.
He was just careful with money, her mother would say. Very careful. Lydia, on the other hand, would say he was stingy and then receive a sermon for her troubles.
Unfortunately, as Huntsforth grew older, his health declined and this year he’d kept abed sleeping for hours at a time and seeming barely aware of his surroundings. It was a worry but the doctor assured both Lydia and her mother that the old man would rally soon.
Lydia kept her eyes trained on the house as she tramped through the snow. The place was beautiful in an austere kind of way.
She wondered, not for the first time, who the mysterious nephew was that would inherit the place on Huntsforth’s death.
He had married years ago, long before Lydia’s birth, but the marriage didn’t produce any heirs, and sadly his wife had died young.
He’d never married again, not even to secure his line.
“He was heartbroken.” Lydia’s mother had sniffed delicately. Which was terribly sad.
So it was that a nephew from foreign lands was to inherit, though he would appear to be less than interested, since he’d never come to visit, nor written, to Lydia’s knowledge.
Imagine, a man not caring at all that he was to become lord and master of such a place.
And not just this! Huntsforth also owned a townhouse in London and, bizarrely, a mansion of some sort in some small European country or other.
All very strange.
Well, Lydia continued her rambling thoughts as she hurried across the expansive grounds; she thought it most unkind that his own flesh and blood should treat Huntsforth so ill, not caring about the old man.
She’d wager the nephew was a slimy little weasel just waiting for his uncle to meet his maker
