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Chapter 1

Early May

Avening village, Gloucestershire

Apple blossotime

Julius—Jack—Warnefleet, Baron Warnefleet of Minchinbury, reined in on the rise above Avening valley and looked down on the pink-and-white clouds surrounding Avening Manor His first sight of his home in seven years could, he felt, have been more apt

Apple blossom always reminded him of brides

Regarding the blossoray gelding, Challenger, a, it see to remind him of his failure, of the fact he hadn’t found a bride

Avening Manor had been without a lady for most of his life His mother had died when he was six years old; his father had never remarried

Jack had spent the last thirteen years fighting for king and country, almost entirely behind enemy lines in France His father’s death seven years before had brought hih for the funeral and to fors, his father’s steward, before he’d had to slip back over the Channel, back to the varied roles he’d played in disrupting French shipping and co the lifeblood fro it

Not the sort of battles ed in

Along with an elite group of fellow officers, he’d been seconded to work under a secretive individual known as Dalziel, who’d been responsible for all covert English operations on foreign soil Neither Jack nor any of the six colleagues he’d met kne many operatives Dalziel had commanded, or hoide the arena of their activities had been They did know those activities had directly contributed, indeed been crucial, to the final ultimate defeat of Napoleon