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CHAPTER 1

Restormel Abbey

Lostwithiel, Cornwall

April 1816

CRACK!

A log shattered in the grate; sparks sizzled and flew Fla over the leather spines lining the library walls

Charles St Austell, Earl of Lostwithiel, lifted his head from the padded depths of his ary pelts of his wolfhounds, Cassius and Brutus Slumped in hairy mounds at his booted feet, neither hound twitched; neither was s, Charles let his head loll back on the orn leather; raising the glass in his hand, he sipped, and returned to his cogitations

On life and its vicissitudes, and its sometimes unexpected evolution

Outside the histled, faint and shrill about the high stone walls; the night tonight was relatively cal Cornwall’s southern coast Within the Abbey, all was sluht—other than he, no human remained awake

It was a good time to take stock

He was there on awhether there was any truth in tales of Foreign Office secrets being run through the local s channels wasn’t likely to tax him, certainly not on a personal level His principal objective in seizing the excuse his erstwhile co to the Abbey, his ancestral hoain sufficient perspective to exaht clash between his desperate need for a wife and his deepening pessi a lady suitable to fill the position

In London, he’d found hi like the lady he needed Beingmisses with more hair than ho viewed him only as a handso a atory He wasn’t going back into society until he had a firm and definite vision of the lady he wanted for his own

Truth to tell, the depth of his need of a wife—the right wife—unnerved him When he’d first returned after Waterloo, he’d been able to assure himself that that need was only natural; his association with six others so very like himself, all equally in need of wives, and the cah their forainst themamas of the ton—had reassured and soothed his impatience and blunted the spur for some months

But now Tristan Wemyss and Tony Blake had both found and secured their wives, while he, with hisfor his lady to appear

It had taken the last feeeks in London, being sucked into the whirl as society prepared for the intense months of the Season, to coy need For thirteen years, he’d been dislocated, cut off from the society to which he’d been born and to which he’d now returned He’d spent thirteen tense years buried in ene, never less than alert and aware Now, even though he kneas home and the as over, he still found hi, , observing, never able to let down his guard and freely e

He needed a wife to connect hie between him and all around him, especially in the social sense He was an earl with nuations; he couldn’t hide himself away He didn’t want to hide hi a recluse He liked parties, balls, dancing—liked people and jokes and having fun—yet at present, even though hein thehordes, he still felt he was outside, looking in Not a part of it

Connection That was the one vital ability he needed in a wife, that she should be able to connect hiain But to do so, she needed to connect with his failed

They couldn’t even see him clearly, let alone understand him—and he wasn’t at all sure they had any real interest in that latter Their notion ofthat state, seemed determinedly and unalterably fixed in the superficial Which, to his mind, came perilously close to deception, to pretense After thirteen years of lying, both living a lie and constantly dealing in fabrication, the last thing he would permit to touch his life—his real life, the one he was determined to reclaim—was any element of deceit

Fixing his gaze on the fla in the hearth, he focused his ht lady He’d had no difficulty rejecting all those he’dcharacter swiftly, it usually took hi what characteristics his right lady possessed, let alone her whereabouts, had thus far defeated him If she wasn’t in London, where else should he look?

The sound of footsteps, faint but definite, reached him

He blinked, listened He’d dis ago

Boots, not shoes; the boot steps marched nearer, and nearer, from the rear of the house By the time the steps reached the back of the hall, not far froh his house after ht wasn’t any servant; no servant walked with that relaxed, assured tread

He glanced at the hounds As aware as he, they remained slumped, stationary but alert, their amber eyes fixed on the door He knew that stance If the person careet them, but otherere content to let that person pass

Cassius and Brutus knew more than he; they kneho the person was

Straightening in his chair, he set his glass aside, ally listened as the intruder rounded the end of the stairs and calmly, steadily, climbed them