Seduction Becomes Her

Book 2: Becomes Her

by Shirlee Busbee

Genres: Historical Fiction; Sagas; Regency Romance

Synopsis

Love Hides In The Most Surprising Places As guardian to her two young siblings after her parents' death, Daphne Beaumont struggles to keep the family together. But when Daphne's brother suddenly inherits a sizable estate from a distant relative, they are able to leave London behind for a prosperous new life in Cornwall. Devoted to her charges, Daphne doesn't believe marriage is in her future, despite her newfound wealth and striking beauty--until she meets the intriguing Charles Weston. . . A long-buried secret brings Charles to Cornwall, where he encounters the alluring Daphne while walking on the beach. When a sudden rockslide strands the two in a cave, their shared captivity is sure to invite scandal. Charles knows he must act honorably and propose to Daphne--an easy prospect for him considering he has fallen for her. The real challenge now lies in Charles winning Daphne's heart--and showing her how wonderful love's spell can be. . . Praise for Shirlee Busbee and Scandal Becomes Her. . . "A delightful romance--altogether a wonderful book."--Roberta Gellis "A scandalously delicious read that left me wanting more!"--Bertrice Small "One of the best romantic writers of our time."-- Affaire de Coeur "Busbee is back and better than ever!"--Julia Quinn

Release date: May 5, 2010

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 385

Sample

“Do you think that he’s alive?” Charles asked, staring down at the leaping flames on the hearth.

At Charles’s question, his cousin Julian, Lord Wyndham, looked up sharply from the snifters of brandy he had been pouring for them. He knew immediately the identity of the ‘he.’ Raoul Weston, Charles’s younger half brother. The Monster. Dead now for nearly two and a half years.

Handing Charles one of the snifters, Julian said, “We both fired our pistols at him, and our aim was true. He took two bullets in the chest. We both saw them strike, and we both saw the blood as it gushed from him. I do not believe that he could have lived, as grievously wounded as he was.”

Charles flashed him a twisted smile. “But we found no body, did we?”

Julian made a face. “That’s true, and I’ll grant you that he may have lived for a short while—long enough to crawl away and hide from us, but I’m convinced that he’s dead.” He seated himself in a chair covered in fine Spanish leather not far from the fire. Quietly, he said, “Since that night, Nell has had no more nightmares of him, and that more than anything else convinces me that he is dead.”

Charles nodded more to himself than to Julian, his thoughts on that terrible spring night over two years ago. Much had happened since then, and little of it had been pleasant. Not only had he discovered that night that his brother hated him and had planned to kill him in order to inherit Stonegate, but also that Raoul was a vicious killer of innocent women. My own brother! A monster! He took a breath. Half brother, he reminded himself painfully, remembering the way Raoul had flung those words at him. But Raoul’s had not been the only blood spilt that night, Charles thought wearily. No. Raoul’s mother, my stepmother, Sofia, had died, too. By my hand, Charles admitted, taking a long swallow of the brandy. I shot Sofia where she stood, and may God forgive me, in the same circumstances, I would do it again. For a moment, the ugly memories crowded close, and despite the warmth of the fire, he shivered.

Outside in the darkness of a November night, the wind whistled and shrieked around the stout walls of the house. The wind was brutal, knifing like a blade through any man or beast unlucky enough to be abroad at this hour, but inside the elegant library of Wyndham Manor, there was only warmth and welcome, and Charles was glad of it. Memories of that night would not let him rest, and they cut as fiercely through him as the wind outside sliced through any living creature. He tried to shrug the memories aside, gazing around the room, appreciative of the soft yellow light from dozens of candles that spilled through the handsome space, their bright glow driving away, for a brief moment, the darkness in his soul.

“Do you doubt that he is dead?” Julian asked with a lifted brow.

“I would have liked to find his body,” Charles replied, taking another swallow of brandy.

“I repeat, we both saw his wounds. He could not have lived.”

“Then why, when we looked in that cavern beneath the dungeon, did we not find his body?”

“Because he was bloody clever and found a crevice to hide in and die,” Julian snapped, not liking to be reminded of that horrifying night—a night that he had nearly lost his wife, Nell, and their unborn child. Tiredly, Julian ran his hand through his thick black hair. “I would have preferred to have found his corpse, I cannot deny it, but we did not, despite an extensive search by half the men in the area. There were any number of fissures and cracks where his body could have lodged. We did not find him, but that does not mean that he is not dead.”

Charles nodded. Logic told him that this was so, but like the pain of a wound, doubt ached within him. With an effort, he shook off his bleak mood. Flashing that particularly charming smile of his, he murmured, “We brushed through the whole affair rather well, didn’t we?”

Julian nodded. “Lord, yes. Nell was safe, the baby unharmed, and that story you concocted about a madman kidnapping her and Sofia was brilliant. I was, I’ll confess, left breathless by your idea of having our mythical villain kill both Raoul and his mother before slipping away down the sluice hole. Very clever of you. Raoul died a hero, supposedly helping us rescue Nell and Sofia, and it was a tragedy that Raoul and his mother died in the ensuing fight. The whole tale answered every question and allowed us to enlist the help of others to look for Raoul’s body and, ah, the madman.”

Charles took another swallow of his brandy. “And allowed me to inherit both my stepmother’s fortune and Raoul’s.” His voice was bitter and full of disgust.

Julian looked at him. “Does it bother you? To have gained through their deaths?”

Charles shrugged. “Sometimes. Often.” His jaw clenched, and he stared at the amber liquid in his snifter. “I loathed her…I dreamed often of the day that I would finally be free of her, and Stonegate would, not just in name, be well and truly mine and yet….”

“A case of ‘be careful what you wish for?’” Julian asked gently.

“Exactly! I got what I wanted, and more besides when you consider their fortunes, hers mainly, and yet I find that what I once longed for gives me little, if any, pleasure.”

“Not even Stonegate? It was yours, though she ruled it. Sofia may have lavished her money on it and imposed her will over the place, but after your brother’s death and that of his son, Stonegate was always your birthright.”

“So it was,” Charles muttered. “But by the manner of her death, Sofia has managed, even from the grave, to taint it for me. I can never quite forget that it was my bullet that killed her.”

“And thank God you did kill her—there’s no telling what she would have done if you had not fired. Never forget—she knew what her cursed son did down there, and if she could have killed all three of us, she would have. Never, ever forget that or that she knew of the innocents Raoul tortured and murdered down there for years, and yet she kept silent.” Julian’s voice hardened. “She helped him kidnap Nell, and do not doubt for a moment that she would have helped him kill her…and my unborn child. Only your bullet saved us all.”

Walking over to the mahogany sideboard, Charles helped himself to another snifter of brandy. Glancing over his shoulder, he quirked an eyebrow at Julian. Julian shook his head.

His snifter refilled, Charles came back to stand by the fire, one arm resting carelessly along the marble mantle as he stared once more down at the fire.

Julian studied him, this cousin to whom once he had been so close before a nearly impassable chasm had opened between them. But that, thank God, Julian thought gratefully, had been mended at last.

Like Julian, Charles was tall and muscular with the same unruly black hair and green eyes so prevalent amongst the Weston family. Both men had the same harsh features, though Charles might have been considered the more handsome of the two. The resemblance between the two cousins was even more striking than usual—their fathers had been twins, and while physically, they could almost have been twins themselves, their personalities were very different. Charles had always been the more reckless of the two, and there was a coldness, a hardness within him that Julian lacked.

Of course, Julian admitted to himself, if he had been raised by a witch of a stepmother like Sofia Weston, who knew how he would have turned out. Nor had it helped that Charles’s father had nearly bankrupted the family with his gambling and wild ways. Only his marriage to Sofia and her great fortune had prevented Harlan Weston from bringing his family to utter ruin. And after Harlan had died, Sofia had never let Charles forget for even a moment that it was her money that kept Stonegate running so impeccably. There was no denying that Charles’s life under Sofia’s thumb had been grim, Julian conceded, or that the last few years had not been difficult for him.

Even with the careful version that they had fed the neighborhood and the members of the ton, there had still been a few whispers and raised eyebrows. Charles’s feelings about his stepmother had not been a secret, although he seldom said anything, and as was murmured by the most spiteful, her death and Raoul’s was so very convenient for Charles.

Before the silence between the two men became uncomfortable, Julian said briskly, “Enough of this wallowing in the past. It is over and done with, and we both have much to be grateful for. Tell me, have you given up traipsing from one end of the British Isles to the other for the time being? Will you be spending the winter at Stonegate?”

“Perhaps. Not to dwell on unpleasant memories, but Stonegate is full of ghosts for me, and I do not think that I would enjoy being locked inside those walls with the wraiths of Sofia and Raoul for company.”

“What you need,” Julian said with a smile in his eyes, “is a wife. And children. They would drive out any spirits unwise enough to linger in your hallways—believe me, I speak from experience.”

To give credence to his words, the door to the library opened, and a toddler with a mop of black hair and the Weston family features scampered inside the room. The child, a boy of perhaps two, was garbed for bed, and from his furtive manner, it was clear he had escaped from the watchful eye of his nursemaid. Spying Julian, he shrieked with joy and his white nightshirt flapping behind him, flung himself across the room in his direction.

“Papa! Papa!” cried the child. “I looked and looked for you!”

Julian had barely enough time to deposit his snifter on a nearby table before his lap was full of squirming child. “And you, my boy, have completely forgotten your manners. Come now, Adam, will you not say hello to your cousin?”

There was no real censure in Julian’s voice, in fact just the opposite, the love and pride he felt in his son obvious. It was obvious, too, that Julian’s household was absurdly informal for someone of his rank and stature. Charles could not think of another member of society who would allow even the heir such freedom. He grinned, liking the picture of the fashionable Earl of Wyndham as an indulgent father.

At Julian’s words, Adam rested his head confidingly on his father’s chest and glanced over at Charles. “Hullo,” he said with a smile.

“Hello, brat,” Charles returned equitably, smiling. “You’ve grown since the last time I saw you.”

“Mama says I shall be taller than papa,” Adam replied with simple pride.

“If you live that long,” said a laughing female voice from the doorway. Tall and slender, her tawny hair caught up in a chignon at the back of her neck and her high-waisted gown of dark green bombazine flaring gently about her ankles as she moved forward, the Countess of Wyndham walked into the room. Smiling at Charles, she came up to him and kissed him on the cheek. “It is good to see you,” she said, her sea green eyes full of affection. “Will you remain for dinner?”

Charles shook his head. “No, I only wanted to call to let you know that I was at Stonegate…at least for a week or two.”

Nell’s smile faltered. She searched his face. “Stonegate is your home. Do not let the ghosts drive you away.”

“Ghosts!” squealed Adam with big eyes. “Can I see one?”

“And what do you know of ghosts?” asked his mother sternly. “Who has been telling you tales?”

Adam shot Julian a guilty glance and then dropped his head. “N-n-no one.”

Julian’s face wore the exact same guilty expression, and Nell burst out laughing. Shaking her head, she sent them both a look in which exasperation and love were mixed. “I see that I shall have to remind someone of proper stories for tender minds.”

Julian cleared his throat and asked hastily, “The twins? Are they waiting for me?” He glanced at Charles. “Wouldn’t you like to see my lovely daughters before they go to bed?”

Viewing six-month-old twin infants had never occurred to Charles as something that he would have liked to do, but the appeal in Julian’s look was plain. Rising to the occasion, he put down his snifter and murmured, “I knew there was some urgent reason that I came to call at just this hour. Lead on.”

Not the least fooled, Nell shook her head and said, “That won’t be necessary—they’re already asleep, and Nanny will scold if you wake them.” Holding out a commanding hand for Adam, she added, “Come. Bed for you. And Nanny is going to be very unhappy with you for slipping away like that.”

Taking Adam’s hand, she smiled at Charles and said, “We’ve missed you. Will you come to dine on Wednesday next?” Her eyes danced. “Since it is your ardent desire, you may view the twins then.”

Charles’s lips twitched, but he bowed and murmured, “It will be my pleasure.”

Once Nell and Adam had left, aware of the passing time…and the icy ride home, Charles said, “I must be going. I did not mean to linger so long.”

“Are you sure that you will not stay for dinner? It would please Nell.”

Charles shook his head. “No, I am invited for Wednesday next, remember? I shall see you then.”

The ride to Stonegate was every bit as cold and miserable as Charles had imagined, and when the flickering lights of the torches burning on either side of the massive double doors of the imposing mansion came into view, he breathed a sigh of relief. It might be full of ghosts, but at least it offered shelter.

Entering the house, the home of the first Earls of Wyndham before Wyndham Manor had been built several decades later, he was met by his butler, Garthwaite. Shrugging out of his dripping, many-caped greatcoat, Charles waved away the offer of a meal in the dining room—the same dining room, he thought sourly, where Julian had killed Lord Tynedale in a duel that still caused tongues to wag. What a night that had been! Asking only that some bread and cheese be sent up to his rooms, he crossed the grand hallway and mounted the stairs. Upstairs, in the suite of rooms that had once belonged to his father and his stepmother, Charles allowed his valet, Bledsoe, to remove his jacket and boots before dismissing him.

One of the first things Charles had done after Sofia’s death had been to obliterate all signs of her hand in these rooms. He had left untouched her décor in the rest of the house…well, except for that ridiculous silver epergne in the dining room, but he could not bear the idea of sleeping amidst the cold white and silver scheme she had favored for the rooms she had once shared with his father. As Master of Stonegate, it had been only right that Charles inhabit these rooms, and he’d sworn that he would not sleep a night in them until they had been completely renovated. Now, with walls of dark amber silk, velvet draperies and bed hangings in a bronze and gold stripe, and a carpet in shades of hunter green, russet, and gold, the rooms were rich and warm and distinctly male.

Slumped before the fire in his bedchamber, Charles stared at the leaping flames as if he could read his future in the dancing depths. Even Garthwaite’s tap on the door and his cautious entrance with a tray of bread, cheese, and some sliced roast beef and fruit that Cook had added to tempt Charles’s appetite elicited little interest. Having placed the tray on a low mahogany table near Charles’s elbow, only Garthwaite’s discreet cough made Charles turn his head and look at him.

“Will there be anything else, sir?”

Ignoring the food, Charles glanced across the room to a bombe chest that held a Baccarat decanter and some snifters. “Decanter full?” he asked.

His homely face pained, Garthwaite said, “Indeed, sir, I filled it myself only an hour ago.”

“Then that’s all. Good night.”

Garthwaite hesitated, and Charles sent him a wry look. “You may have known me since the cradle, Garthwaite, but I would suggest that you not try to bully me tonight into going to bed like a good little boy. I haven’t been a good anything for decades—and I’m not about to start changing.”

“It’s not for me,” Garthwaite said austerely, “to question your desire to drink yourself into the grave, but I would remind you that you would be doing precisely what Madame would have expected.”

Charles gave an ugly bark of laughter. “Point taken. Go to bed. I shall eat some of the damned food, and I promise I shall not drink myself into a stupor…tonight.”

Satisfied with his efforts, Garthwaite bowed and departed.

Putting a thick slice of pungent yellow cheese on a chunk of bread, Charles bit into it and forced himself to eat, even going so far as to take an apple and eat it once he finished the bread and cheese. His Spartan meal finished and feeling he had satisfied his butler’s expectations, he stood up and crossing to the bombe chest, poured himself a large snifter of brandy. Reseating himself before the fire, he once more simply stared at the fire, his thoughts roaming in no particular direction.

The house was quiet except for the sound of the lashing wind and rain outside and inside, the occasional crack and pop of the fire. Charles should have been relaxed, enjoying the comfort of his own home, but he was not. He had not lied to Julian when he had said that the place was full of ghosts. Not only did the ghosts of Raoul and his stepmother haunt its many passages and rooms, but others wandered there, too.

Staring into the fire, he could almost conjure up the face of his older brother, John, dead for well over a decade, glimpsing briefly in the flickering flames John’s easy smile, the steady gaze of the green eyes so like his own. John had been the conscience, the mainstay of the family. Everyone, even Harlan, their father, had looked to John for guidance. Charles lifted a toast to his brother’s ghost. You were the best of us, he thought sadly. And Raoul killed you. For a moment, black rage roiled up within him, but he ruthlessly tamped it down. John was dead, and so was Raoul. And thank God, he thought, that Father had not lived to learn that his youngest son had killed his eldest. John’s death had been hard enough on Harlan, and his grieving father’s only solace had been the knowledge that one day, John’s son, Daniel, would inherit Stonegate.

Charles closed his eyes, pain and disillusionment engulfing him. Daniel’s reign as Master of Stonegate had been brutally brief. What? A year? Two? Before his death by his own hand. Introduced to Lord Tynedale, a notorious rake and gambler, by Raoul, Daniel, young and inexperienced, had proved to be easy prey for Tynedale. In a matter of months, Daniel had gambled away the fortune he had inherited from his mother and committed suicide. Had Raoul known what would be the outcome of introducing Daniel to Tynedale? Or had it just been the devil’s own luck, Charles wondered. He took another swallow of his brandy. Something else they would never know the answer to, he decided wearily.

They were all gone now, Harlan, John, Daniel, Raoul and Sofia, and he was the sole survivor, the last one to carry on the line of this branch of the family. And here he sat, alone in a house full of ghosts and questions, full of recriminations and guilt. How could he have lived all those years with Raoul and never seen the evil that lurked behind the careless charm? Never guessed, even for a moment, that a vicious killer inhabited his younger brother’s body. Half brother, he reminded himself again, throwing his head back and finishing off the brandy. Whatever the relationship, Raoul had died over two years ago. Or had he?

Putting down the empty snifter, he got up from his position near the fire and wandered into the sitting room that adjoined his bedroom. He lit one of the candle sconces on the wall, and a small pool of light pierced the darkness. Crossing the room, he walked to a large desk, and opening the middle drawer, he reached in and pulled out a slip of paper. In the faint light from the wall sconce, he studied the words on the paper. He sighed. They had not changed. Taking the letter back with him into the bedroom, he laid the letter near the tray of food and after refilling his snifter, settled once more before the fire. He sat there for a while before he picked up the letter and began to read.

The letter was from Viscount Trevillyan. Not really a friend of mine, Charles thought, more of an acquaintance, but Trevillyan had been Raoul’s closest friend and Raoul had often visited Trevillyan in Cornwall, sometimes spending weeks on end there. After Raoul’s death, Charles had maintained a relationship with Trevillyan, as he had with several of Raoul’s other companions, hoping that by knowing them, he could learn more of his half brother—learn if others had glimpsed the demon that lurked behind Raoul’s smiling façade.

Trevillyan’s letter was a polite reply to one Charles had written him months ago before he had left for another of his aimless travels through the British countryside. With the war with Napoleon still dragging on, the Continent closed to him, Charles had contented himself with visiting Wales, Scotland, and even crossing the Irish sea to wander Ireland. It hadn’t mattered much to him where he went, the main point was to be on the move and not be at Stonegate.

Charles skimmed over the weeks-old news of London and Trevillyan’s return to his country seat, Lanyon Hall, in Cornwall, near Penzance, for the winter months before the Season began again in the spring. From the complaining tone of his letter, Charles gathered that Trevillyan was not one for the quiet of the Cornish countryside in winter—or at any time, if he read correctly between the lines. But it wasn’t Trevillyan’s complaints about the lack of society and his utter boredom with the running of his own estates that had caught Charles’s eye. It was a short paragraph near the end of the letter that had riveted Charles’s attention when he had first read it, and as his gaze skimmed over those words again, a faint sick anticipation stirred in his belly. With mounting dread, he read those words again.

At least, thank God, there was a break in the boring routine last week. The whole neighborhood is in an uproar. The body of a woman, horribly mutilated, was discovered by one of our local farmers. No one could talk of anything else. Gossip has it that the body of another woman killed, in a similar manner, was found several months ago, but I have not spoken with anyone who could confirm it, so I suspect it is nonsense. The identity of the young woman found last week is still not known, nor as I write this, have the authorities, a group of complacent old men, who do little more than shake their heads and wring their hands, discovered who murdered her. I doubt they ever will.

Charles read the words several times, wondering at their significance. Could it be mere coincidence? Or was it possible…? He considered where his thoughts were taking him. Did he really believe that Raoul was alive and continuing his horrific deeds in the wilds of Cornwall?

Was it conceivable that his half brother had miraculously survived his terrible wounds and had somehow made his way to Cornwall? But how would he live? Where would he live?

Charles frowned. Money. That was the answer. With no other heirs in the offing, he had inherited the bulk of Sofia’s fortune, and still stunned by the events of that night, he had not paid any attention to any other bequests made by her in her will. Was it possible that she had anticipated Raoul’s eventual exposure and had guessed that there might come a time when he would have to go into hiding and arranged for him to have funds to draw upon? She had been a coldly clever woman, not unintelligent, and she might very well have anticipated not only that the truth about Raoul’s activities would come out, but also for a time when she might not be there to protect him. She would have known that if Raoul was exposed as a vicious murderer and on the run or in hiding, he would not have been able to inherit her fortune, nor have access to his own, so it made sense that she would have made other plans….

Charles set the letter down and took another swallow of brandy. He would write his solicitor tomorrow asking for a full accounting of Sofia’s various bequests. His gaze slid to the letter.

Picking it up again, he stared at it for several minutes. A cold smile curved his mouth. I wonder, he mused, if Viscount Trevillyan would like a visitor to help break the boredom of winter in Cornwall?

He glanced around the room. There was nothing for him here except ghosts and memories. He might as well be in Cornwall.

For a moment, doubt assailed him. Was he really going to trek to Cornwall and impose himself upon a man he barely knew? And poke and pry around in God knew what dark crevices, hoping to flush out a murderer who wore the face of his half brother? His half brother everyone assured him was dead?

He picked up his snifter, swirling the last of the brandy around. Well, what the hell else was he going to do? Stay here and live with ghosts and questions and guilt?

No. He would go to Cornwall and inflict himself upon the unsuspecting Lord Trevillyan.

Charles tossed off the last of the brandy. I am, he decided, committed to a fool’s quest. And I’m sure that Julian would think me mad. He grinned. Perhaps my cousin is right—I am mad.

I must have been mad, thought Daphne Beaumont, as she stared in the waning light at the dark, forbidding castle towering before them. Not precisely a castle, Daphne amended silently, though to be sure it bore no resemblance to the picturesque cottage they’d been expecting. Imagination is a wonderful thing, Daphne admitted. The building showed clear signs of its roots as an ancient Norman keep, but it was obvious that there had been attempts to soften its original bleak design by additions and alterations. Perhaps in daylight, they might find it delightful, Daphne told herself optimistically.

As the minutes passed and they waited uncertainly, there was no sign of life anywhere, no flicker of light in the tall, narrow windows, no sign of smoke from any of the chimneys, no door flung wide to admit them, nothing. Just this towering mass of stone and timber in front of them that looked grimmer and more forbidding by the moment. So grim and forbidding did the place look that Daphne, not a young woman given to fanciful whims, almost expected a witch or a warlock to swoop down from one of the two towers and put a curse on them. She shuddered. What had she let them all in for?

Flanked on one side by her sixteen-year-old sister, April, and on the other, her seventeen-year-old brother, Adrian, she could feel their disappointment and growing apprehension. And it’s up to me, she admitted glumly, to turn this disaster into a victory…of some sort.

At twenty-eight, she was the eldest, older than her siblings by more than decade, and since their mother’s death eighteen months ago, their father, an impecunious Captain in a Line Regiment, having died five years previously, the head of the family. As guardian of both her siblings, it had been her decision that they shake the sooty air of London from their heels and move to the country. It would be an adventure, she told them. Though they’d traveled the world over following behind their father, they’d never been to Cornwall, and there was nothing to hold them in London.

The small annuity that had allowed them a few elegances of life had died with their mother, and these last months had been difficult. There had been times that Daphne wondered how they would be able to keep the small suite of rooms they rented in an unfashionable, if respectable, part of London. They had no family, at least none that they knew of, to call upon. They were but a short distance away from being penniless, and having been raised as members of the gentry, they had few skills to fall back on to make their way in the world.

Daphne had known that something had to be done, but what? The woman who had come twice a week to clean and cook had been let go within days of the death of their mother. Fortunately, Adrian had been able to finish his last year at Eton, but his horses had been sold almost immediately after their mother’s death, and his fencing lessons had quickly ceased as had April’s watercolor and dancing lessons. There would be no more trips to Hatchards Book Shop for the latest gothic novel from Minerva Press, and even Miss Kettle, who had been Adrian and April’s nursemaid and then later governess–companion, had been forced to find other employment. Losing Ketty had been a wrench, and the day she had left, there had been many tears shed. Nothing, however, seemed to help stem the tide of disappearing money. No matter how thriftily she shopped, no matter how many luxuries they all gave up, each month there was less money than before in the small trust her maternal grandmother had left Daphne. She had been on the point of seeking employment as a seamstress—a notion that would have given her mother strong hysterics if she’d been alive to hear of it and outraged her siblings—when the letter from the solicitor, Mr. Vinton, had arrived.

It had seemed a godsend, a miracle when they had received word that they, her brother actually, had inherited from some unknown distant cousin in Cornwall, not only a baronetcy and could now style himself Sir Adrian, but more importantly, an estate that provided an income. In tones of disbelief, Adrian had read the letter aloud to his openmouthed sisters. While no specific amount was stated, Mr. Vinton wrote that in addition to the monies from the farms that were part of the estate, there was a five-hundred-acre parkland and some orchards that surrounded the main dwelling, Beaumont Place, as well as several out-buildings.

A wry smile curved her lips. Oh, how the three of them had danced madly around in those bleak little London rooms, laughing and crying at the same time. Adrian would have his horses again and a valet, he declared loftily, a teasing gleam in his blue eyes. And April would have her painting and dancing lessons again, perhaps even a real governess. And Daphne? What would she have? Why she would have peace of mind and freedom from worry over how she would pay for the boots that Adrian kept outgrowing, she had said, laughing at Adrian’s chagrined expression. She and April had teased Adrian mightily on his new title, calling him Sir Adrian so often and with such emphasis that he had ordered them, as the master of the family, to stop immediately, which had sent them into whoops of laughter.

They had been happy. Drunk with joy. And that euphoria had carried them through the busy days of clearing out the rooms they had lived in for the past four years, selling off most of the furniture, keeping only those things they could not bear to part with. A letter to Miss Kettle had been sent, telling her of their good fortune and begging her to join them in Cornwall.

Mr. Vinton had arranged for a sum of money to be deposited in a London bank to cover the cost of their removal to Cornwall. It had seemed a fortune to them.

Adrian insisted that Daphne act as his banker. “I know it’s mine, but I’d lief as not be responsible for it, Daff,” he exclaimed, his young face earnest. “How often have you claimed that I’d lose my head if it weren’t attached to my neck? You hold it. You’re the eldest and wisest of us.” He’d grinned. “Even if you are female.”

With the money from Mr. Vinton, they’d been able to hire a private coach to deliver them and their few belongings to Beaumont Place, and they had left London full of enthusiasm and excitement. Ready for the adventure. Staring at the bleak structure before them, Daphne wondered if perhaps they weren’t in for a bit more adventure than they planned.

With darkness falling, the driver had been eager to be gone, and with all their worldly goods hastily piled around their feet, he’d remounted the seat of the coach, urged his horses forward, and disappeared into the gloom of twilight. Leaving us, Daphne thought, stranded.

“Didn’t Mr. Vinton write that there were some servants that would have the place prepared and waiting for us?” asked April timidly, stepping even closer to Daphne.

Daphne shook herself. “Yes. Yes. That’s exactly what he wrote. The house has sat empty for over two years, but he said that our cousin’s housekeeper, Mrs. Hutton, and the butler, Mr. Goodson, would have it made comfortable for us and would be willing to stay on until we settled in. He mentioned a few others and hinted that they all might like to stay on, if it suited us and wages and such could be agreed upon.”

To add to their misery, a misty rain began to fall, and as one, they gathered their belongings and. . .