Dedication

To Susie, it’s always your fault.

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments

As I write this acknowledgment in the fall of 2020 it seems so odd to prepare to launch a travel romance into the world at a time when the world cannot travel. We are in the midst of a great global pandemic where people all around fight for their livelihoods, their health, and even their lives. I pray that by the time this book is read, we are on our way out of the darkest days, but in the meantime, I hope that instead of surrendering to the darkness, the fear, or even the fatigue, we will all find ways to look around at what we have lost and choose to appreciate what we still have. Even amid the horrors we have witnessed in 2020, I still believe the world is a great big marvelous place, and I know that no force anywhere in it is more powerful, healing, or transformational than love. Those core beliefs shape who I am and what I write, so while I cannot solve all the world’s problems, I pray that in the pages ahead you will find a short respite from the fear along with replenishing doses of hope, faith, wonder, and most of all love.

I would like to start by thanking the readers for all the love they have shown me over the years, but especially after the release of Full English in 2019. I immediately began to hear from readers who wanted a story centered on Lady Victoria, and I made a promise that if more than half the reviews mentioned her, I would do my best to tell her story. When all was said and done, more than 90% of the reviews wanted more Lady Vic, so I got to work. Thank you to each and every person who took the time to email, reach out on social media, or write a public review. This book was a blessing to me at a time when I really needed it, and I’m not sure I would have written it without your encouragement. Please don’t ever underestimate the effect a caring reader can have on the career path of a writer.

Next, I would like to thank the people who made my own months in England so fun to revisit. Kelly Smith, of course, made the whole thing possible. She also helped me work out some of the earliest ideas for this book as well, since she and Ann Shaw walked me through my first lessons in succession of peerage, along with some complex details around land and titles. Joanne, Barry, and Ethan helped us explore a beautiful castle and kept my family entertained (and fed) during my initial research visit for this spin-off. Jane, Hilary, Kristen, Max, and the entire Red Lion Friday Club welcomed us back and continued to serve as inspiration for the wonderful people Vic takes Sophia to meet at the pub. Our good friend Dr. Karen Randell served as my British proofreader, who caught all my embarrassing Americanisms. I also want to thank the tour staff at Alnwick, Warwick, and Warkworth castles, who took the time to explain so many details about castle walls, budgets, and land conservation, as well as who does what and when, and how much everything costs. I suspect they found me a rather suspicious character by the time I left, but they remained polite and engaging without ever once calling security, even when I took the same tour twice in a row.

Again, as was the case with Full English, while this book very much takes place in England, it is also half American, and the same goes for my creative team. Thank you to the entire Bywater crew, who continues to be top notch in every aspect of the business. Salem, Marianne, Elizabeth, Nancy, Kelly, and Ann McMan regularly put together the best books in the business, and they were incredibly kind and patient with me on this one. I especially want to thank Ann McMan for designing a cover that reflects the unique story I tried to tell, the region that inspired it, and its strong ties to Full English. Oh, and she made it a truly beautiful work of art as well. Thank you to Lynda Sandoval, who loved these characters as much as I did and treated both them and me with care. Thank you to Barb and Toni, my most trusted first readers, who always let me know when I’m on the right track. And of course, thank you to my awesome page proofers (Diane, Ann, Marci, and Melissa), because no matter how many professionals approve a book before typeset, they always manage to catch a few more mistakes before we send it off to the printer.

And now, if you will indulge an extra dose of sentimentality, this is where I admit this book is my first written fully since the passing of my dear friend Diane Gaidry. The pain of her loss knocked me flat and changed me in ways I found overwhelming and at times frightening. The grief had a profound effect on every part of my life, but perhaps most dramatically on my creative abilities. I didn’t write at all for months, and when I did it was a challenge unlike any other I have faced in my career. I’m not at all sure I would have had the strength or the will to keep trying if not for the people around me who refused to let me fade into obscurity. Thank you first to Anna Burke, who reached out to me almost every day, to check in or sometimes just sit with me in the awfulness. Thank you to Nikki Smalls, who continued to poke me until I would answer, and then kept throwing ideas at me until some of them stuck. Thank you to Georgia Beers and Melissa Brayden, who insisted I belonged in their writerly conversations even when I didn’t believe I had anything left to offer. Thank you to Alex and Jess for eating nachos and watching Gentleman Jack with me when it’s all I had the mental space to do. And thank you to the Shibden After Dark crew for indulging the first wild ideas I’d had in ages. I still miss Diane every single day, and some days that still feels like more than I can handle, but thanks to the people listed above, I know I don’t have to face it alone.

I also want to thank my therapist, Leah Eagan, who helped me finally begin to build the skills I needed to start pulling myself out of the pit. There is such a stigma around mental health in America, but if I can do my tiny part to combat that here, please let me. Your mental health matters. You matter. If you are struggling with grief, depression, anxiety, or any of the other number of complex issues that make you feel like you’re in too deep or unable to cope on your own, please reach out. I know it’s hard, I know it’s scary, but trust me, it’s worth it.

And finally, thank you to my amazing family. To Will, who got us to England together the first time and keeps calling us back each summer. I can’t wait for us all to gather around a table at Latimer’s. To Jackson, who is the best young traveler I have ever met, you inspire me to adventure. Your zest for new experiences, willingness to step outside your comfort zone, and ability to connect with people anywhere we go is a model for what we could all be if we stopped clinging to what we know and leaned into the extra-ordinary. And to Susie, how can I possibly find the words to thank the person who gives me everything all at once? You are both my roots and my wings, my freedom to roam and my safe place to call home. I know I have not made life easy for you, especially over the last year and a half. I have no romantic platitudes that can sufficiently convey my gratitude for the ways you have fought for me and for us. I only hope that you know how much I mean it when I say, I thank you, and I love you, come what may.

As always, none of these very long acknowledgements would be possible without the gift of grace from a loving creator, redeemer, and sanctifier.

Soli deo gloria.

Author’s Note

Author’s Note

Much like its predecessor Full English, this book is told from the point of view of two characters, one American and one British. And while I kept their vocabulary consistent with their nationalities, we ran into the same complications we faced last time, around spelling. While it’s all fine and good to have an American say “truck” and a Brit say “lorry,” it gets very disorienting to editors and readers alike to see the same words spelled differently, sometimes even on the same page. So, as I promised in the author’s notes to Full English, this time those spellings are consistently British. That said, there were still a few instances where British formal spellings and British common spellings conflicted, and when that happened, we asked actual Brits what would feel most natural given the character’s social class and geographical region. Obviously, language and dialect always carry a bit of subjectivity, so I hope you’ll give the Northumbrians I leaned on the benefit of the doubt in this area.

Also, while the settings of this book are very much inspired by the places my family and I lived in and explored around Northern England, I had to take a few liberties with the towns and other locations that required I create a fictional village, dukedom, and castle. I hope those who know the area will still see the places and landmarks they love reflected in the story that follows, while understanding why the legalities of writing around them required me to change a few names of places. All similarities to people real or imagined are purely coincidental.

Chapter One

Chapter One

Vic changed gears on the Land Rover as she pulled off the motorway and started up the steep incline that marked her turn away from the sea. The road narrowed, and her chest tightened in anticipation. Winding first past a small orchard, and then along a brook that raced over stones, she sat a little taller as she neared the top of the familiar rise. A glint of sinking sun sparked the first flash of gold against white in the distance. A flag snapped back, then waved straight out as if the lion emblazoned on it had seen her coming. It was silly and sentimental to think her family standard might be eager to see her return, but she was the only person in the car, so what did a little sentiment hurt?

Atop the rise, her breath caught at the picturesque panorama before her. She slowed nearly to a stop. The valley spread out as far as the eye could see. Trees gave way to an expansive meadow rushing over hill and dale until it rose into a slope of green, moved not by nature but man. Steep earthworks rose sharply into the classically notched sandstone fortress of Penchant Castle.

From here she couldn’t make out the cannons atop the battlements that looked low compared to the mammoth central keep they’d once protected from the threats of England’s borderlands. Those dangers had faded from the landscape over the centuries, but little about the inward bailey had changed to reflect the reduced threat. Then again, maybe the threats hadn’t vanished so much as morphed.

Vic shook her head and urged the car forward, picking up speed to match the rush of relief surging through her. As she drew closer, zipping over smaller hills and across a bridge barely big enough to accommodate her vehicle, the castle loomed steadily larger in her view. Strong, proud, imposing, comforting, and so many other things all rolled into one impressive package; she no longer tried to sort the myriad of emotions the expansive compound inspired in her. The complexities couldn’t be separated from each other any more than they could be separated from her, and today she cared less about those conflicts than ones she’d left behind her to the north.

Vic slowed as she rolled through a bondgate marking the town that had sprung up under the historic protection of the Duke of Northland. Cobblestone streets rumbled under her tires, and the long, grey rowhouses threatened to obscure her destination, but Penchant Castle refused to be concealed. Down every side street and over every roof, its impenetrable walls and octagonal tower demanded their due. When she made the last slow turn onto a wide old military boulevard, she had her final unobstructed view of the grey stone, bathed in orange glow and showered in her own sentiment.

She was home.

Pushing a little button on her dashboard, she waited for the heavy iron gate to rise before her. Thankfully, it was too late in the day for tourists or summer staff to mill about the grounds or gawk at her with their discreet whispers and not nearly as discreet cameras. Still, she made a point to smile and nod her acknowledgment to the lone security officer stationed at the gate house. He returned the gesture with a slight bow of his head, and with that minor formality observed, she blew out the last of the tension she’d been holding.

Then, turning toward the inner bailey, she sucked the stale air right back into her lungs.

“What the . . .” Hitting the brake hard enough to vent her surprise, she also managed to stall the engine. A large white lorry blocked the entire archway into the tightly enclosed courtyard, accompanied by the muffled voices of people doing God-only-knew-what inside.

Staring at the offending vehicle for several minutes, her sense of dread grew as each unreasonable possibility whirred through her mind. Surely no one would pull into a gated and guarded castle to rob them blind, but it was also prime tourist season, so no one would’ve scheduled anything major in the way of renovations or restorations either. If there had been a significant disaster via flood or fire, surely someone would’ve called her or her father before contracting for repairs. Her serenity evaporated at the realisation that no easy explanation met well with any logical one.

Climbing out and slamming the door to the Rover, she squeezed between the cargo compartment of the lorry and the stone walls into the courtyard. The smaller space was abuzz with activity. Men in Pickford polos hurried back and forth like ants carrying food toward their mound, only instead of leaves and berries, these little foot soldiers carried rugs, lamps, and her family’s antique fainting couch.

“Pardon me,” she called out. “What are you doing with that?”

“Loading.” A man with a rough growth of dark facial hair stated the obvious.

“For what purpose?”

He shrugged and hoisted the low legs of the couch onto the bed of the enclosed compartment. “I don’t ask questions. I lift, I move, I get paid.”

Oh, to live with such a clear purpose. “Can you at least tell me on whose authority you do those things?”

He wrinkled his nose and furrowed his brow.

“There’s a lady inside, Miss,” the younger man holding the other end of the couch offered.

“Inside?” Her pulse accelerated a few more beats per minute. Of course, she’d known the furniture came from inside the residence, but the mental image of some strange woman giving orders to hired men in her own living room sent her stomach plummeting.

Vic jogged up the front steps and through the ceremonial entryway, taking fleeting note that nothing there had been displaced before she turned toward the grand staircase. Another pair of men came toward her carrying an ornately carved end table she’d never been overly fond of, but she didn’t have to like her mother’s furniture to care that someone was making off with it. She practically sprang up the large marble stairs. As she approached the first-story landing, she passed another man who carried only a small statue of Athena.

“Where’s your supervisor?” she barked, and he nodded over his shoulder.

She bounded up two more stairs and into a formal sitting room. Looking left, then right, she didn’t see any more removal employees. She didn’t see anyone at all. Childhood games of hide and seek had taught her one of the downsides to living in such a large estate was that one could end up running in circles all day without encountering the person they sought. The best course of action often involved staying put and, given that her family’s belongings all seemed to be flowing down the stairs, this seemed as good a place as any to make a stand.

At least all the remaining furniture seemed in its place. Not that she would know for sure, as she didn’t spend much time here. Mostly the room was set up for official tours. She certainly wouldn’t want to sit on any of those fancy chairs, or . . . her gaze fell on an old umbrella rack in the corner. She didn’t have to know the space well to know the walking stick standing upright in the bin didn’t belong there. She picked up the staff and suffered an untimely bit of nostalgia. Her grandfather had carved the wood with a silver knife while she sat beside him and listened to her grandmother read.

Her grandmother.

Her eyes darted around the room until they fell on the bare patch of wall where her rapier should have hung. Her blood boiled. None of the furniture had been personal, and even the prospect of a stranger running roughshod over her home didn’t compare with the rage she felt at the thought of anyone touching that sword.

Hide-and-seek strategy be damned, she was ready to release the proverbial hounds when she spun around and saw the tip of a metal hilt sticking out of a brown cardboard cylinder. It took her two steps to reach it, and in one grand flourish she unsheathed the blade.

God help whoever’d tried to make off with this. She gave a quick flick of her wrist and relished the whoosh the metal made as it slashed the air.

“Unhand the sword,” a firm voice ordered from behind her.

Quite the opposite of the command, she whirled, arm at the ready until her eyes landed on the woman who’d issued the order.

Vic blinked a few times, as if trying to make sense of the strikingly beautiful body clad in traditional tan riding breaches that smoothly stretched from the top of tall leather equestrian boots, over smouldering curves of thighs and hips, and all the way up to a high, slender waist. From there, a gauzy white blouse flowed loosely everywhere but the bust. The woman’s ample assets stressed the last button before the barest hint of exposed cleavage and collarbone. Vic stared at that meeting point only a second too long before the odd word choice finally seeped through her haze, and she snapped her attention to the woman’s dark, defiant eyes.

Struck nearly speechless once more, she managed only to squeak out, “Unhand?”

The woman lifted her chin and stared down her nose at Vic. “Release it.”

Instead of obeying, she stepped forward, tightening her grip on the hilt. Her anger flared at being spoken to with such disdain when it was she who had the right to make demands here.

To her credit the woman didn’t back away even as Vic swung the blade more pointedly in her direction.

The intruder cut an imposing figure. Her boots made her only a smidge taller than Vic, but her bearing amplified her stature. Strong bone structure and dark hair pulled severely back from her smooth sienna face paired flawlessly with the haughty line of her lips. More impressively, her poise was so unfaltering that if the woman had commanded anything other than a symbolic severing of Vic’s birthright, she might have complied.

“Look, I don’t know who you think you are.”

“Lady Regina Bronwyn Alistair.”

Vic narrowed her eyes, unable to quite place the woman’s posh accent. The name managed to sound both vaguely familiar and utterly contrived all at once. The resulting disconnect caused her guard to falter, and she lowered the tip of the rapier as she tried to place the name. The move proved poorly timed, because Lady Regina made use of the lapse to quickly sidestep the false edge of the sword and push well into Vic’s personal space. Then in the same fluid motion, the woman placed a hand firmly around Vic’s on the hilt, and pressed down, pinning the rapier between them.

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