Chapter 1

“What do you think of Thorny Walk House, Thomas?” I asked as we stood in the courtyard, gazing up at the three-story monstrosity with its turrets and battlements, huge and sprawling.

Thomas Fortescue-Smythe, my very best friend, leaned against me, as he was wont to do, and glanced at the house that had belonged to my family for almost two hundred and forty years.

“Truthfully?”

“Mmm.” I stared into his beautiful eyes and lost track of most of what he was saying.

“It’s so…er…majestic.”

I bumped his shoulder. “It might be majestic, but your house is a home.”

Synclaires had lived in Wales from the time of the Plantagenets. Of course, they hadn’t been known as Synclaire when an enterprising mercenary got himself knighted by Henry II. The property granted him was mostly marsh, and only produced peat, swamp grass, and hungry peasants. And very strange legends. No one would speak about that branch of the family in my presence because I was deemed too young.

All of that changed, however, in the time of the restored Charles. One of that knight’s descendants had profited by having a beautiful wife who pleaded prettily to be taken to court.

Because he could deny her nothing, Laurence, her husband—who was a younger brother—finally acceded to her wishes. And once at court, she managed to catch the lusty monarch’s wandering eye.

Even then, Synclaires had not been very clever in whom they chose to love.

Charles II only enjoyed the lady for a few nights before he returned her to her husband, but he was a generous monarch, and in recompense, granted my ancestor a baronetcy. It might not have seemed like much by way of payment, save for the property in Kent that went with it, which alone was worth more to my ancestor than a more exalted title.

Everyone concerned felt the bargain was well met. Except, perhaps, for the wife, who had hoped for a permanent position under the king.

The land given with the title had belonged at one time to Crispin Thorn, one of Cromwell’s favourites. It contained a huge, sprawling house that had been added to in all the wrong periods.

Being a rather unimaginative sort, old Laurence had made the name of the manor the same as that of the estate, and we became the Synclaires of Thorny Walk.

However, prior to Crispin Thorn taking possession of the estate, it had belonged to a family of Papists who had secreted a chapel behind the cellar’s cavernous walls. That wasn’t discovered until centuries later, when Thomas and I came upon it one rainy day while amusing ourselves by playing at being adventurers. There were priests’ cells and an altar and dusty paintings of martyred saints on every wall.

“This is wonderful,” Thomas breathed as he peeked into one of the cells.

No, it was disturbing. Were we likely to find skeletal remains down there? “I don’t like it. Let’s go up to the attics.”

“All right,” he said agreeably.

Fortunately, we had no trouble finding our way out through the many winding corridors.

* * * *

That was Thorny Walk House—my home. 1: Warrick

A few miles from Thorny Walk was Greenbriers, the estate of another baronet, Sir Henry Fortescue-Smythe. His youngest son, Thomas, was the most beautiful boy I had ever seen. He had white-blond hair and blue-green tourmaline eyes that I could have willingly drowned in. We were the same age, staunch, inseparable friends throughout our boyhood. We did everything together—rode, fished, swam, hunted.

I should have realised it would cause talk, but I didn’t. Thomas was my friend.

My brother Harry had come home on leave and brought with him a fellow officer. Because there was such a disparity between our ages, Harry rarely had anything to say to me, although neither of my brothers were deliberately unkind.

I’d gone to the library to find a book that evening and decided to remain there, avoiding my parents, who were being coldly polite to each other. I curled up in an armchair that must have been there since the flood, and I’d got deep into the book when Harry and his friend came in, having a low-toned conversation.

“We’ll be private enough here, Collyn. Now what was it you had to tell me?”

I was about to rise and let them know they weren’t alone, when I overheard what Collyn was saying.

“You’d best have an eye to that little brother of yours.”

“Half-brother,” Harry corrected. “Why ever for?” As usual, he sounded bored.

“D’you mean to say you haven’t seen the way he looks at your neighbour?”

“Who, Bertie?”

I bit my lip to keep from laughing. Bertie was Thomas’s brother, older than both Thomas and I, and was usually in Town escorting the young ladies to balls or visiting his friends’ hunting lodges, depending on the season.