Chapter 1
“Please let that be a cat quarrel and not a murder,” Ava groaned as she started out of bed.
She pushed her thick, wavy hair away from her face and looked out of the window. The loud bang came from the back fence. Culver, her loyal, shaggy companion, was already standing guard.
“Easy, boy, I don’t think you’re going to be needed,” she said, ruffing his hair.
Culver tilted his head and let his pink tongue loll out.
Ava blinked and yawned, having not been quite ready to rise yet.
The days in Cumbria were usually quiet and drowsy.
She hadn’t heard a loud noise like this before.
“Whatever was that racket?” she uttered upon joining her godmother, Lucinda, in the drawing room. Cats mewed as Ava and Culver entered. They looked at her through gleaming eyes. Two of them jumped down and came toward Culver, as though warning him that this was their territory.
After arriving in Cumbria, Culver had quickly learned that the cats ran the house.
It had taken a few swipes to his nose for him to take the lessons to heart, but now he was content to remain close to Ava, and he gave the cats a wide berth.
There were seven of them, although sometimes it felt closer to a hundred.
Ava still hadn’t learned how to tell them apart. One of them was purring on Lucinda’s lap.
“I assume it came from the neighboring Duke’s estate.”
The mention of a Duke brought to mind Ava’s sisters, Catriona and Maisie.
Both of them were Duchesses now after their marriages.
Ava was the odd one out, eschewing thoughts of romance.
Her uncle was an Earl, while her parents had been deceased for a long time.
But she did not wish to be a part of the glittering world of the ton where titles were the only thing that mattered.
She liked being out here in the small village where she could feel a part of the community and help with charity work.
“I thought it might have been the cats quarreling.”
“Oh no, that couldn’t be. My kitties are as good as gold. They don’t even know how to quarrel,” Lucinda said, bending down to kiss the cat on her lap.
Ava glanced at Culver, raising her eyebrows. She’d seen the cats hiss and lunge at each other when they were fighting over fish. They could be vicious, although Ava didn’t point this out because Lucinda tended to have a blind spot when it came to her cats.
Ava hoped she wasn’t the same with Culver.
“I thought the estate was empty. I know there have been people working on it, but I didn’t realize anyone had moved in.”
“Someone has to live there. Better to make use of it than let it rot; otherwise, what are homes for? It’s like… It’s like a plate of food that never gets eaten, or a dress that’s never worn. Everything has to serve its purpose. I’m sure there’s a poem in that. I shall have to write that down.”
Lucinda scrambled for a piece of paper and a pencil, which she always kept close at hand, ready to capture any flash of inspiration that crackled through her mind. Her cat, however, seemed to think the pencil was a toy and tried to bat it with its paw.
“No, you can’t write poetry, darling. You’re just a cat,” she said and held the pencil at arm’s length, leaning as far away from the cat as humanly possible. The cat, which Ava thought was called either Homer or Virgil, or possibly Shakespeare, took umbrage with this and jumped off Lucinda’s lap.
“They are such emotional creatures,” Lucinda sighed.
Ava tried to hide her frustration because the last thing she wanted to do was talk about cats. She moved to the window and peered out, although she could see nothing beyond the hedge.
“Should we go and investigate? Someone might be hurt. What if one of the laborers injured himself?” Ava asked without turning around.
There was a horrified tone to Lucinda’s voice.
“Go and investigate? I’m sure they’ll be fine. Meddling in things only gets you into trouble. I told your mother the same thing, and I’m telling you now: the best thing you can do is keep to yourself.”
“Did my mother listen?” Ava asked, always keen to learn any detail about the woman she knew so little about. She did take her eyes off the window at this point and turned to see a faint, nostalgic smile on Lucinda’s face.
“No, she never listened to me. Always thought she knew best, although I have to say that more often than not, she did.”
“Well, I ought to think we should check, just in case. It was a rather loud noise.”
“I suppose that wouldn’t hurt. Just make sure to be careful,” Lucinda sighed, bowing her head and returning to her pages.
Ava pressed her lips together and fought with her own instincts. All her life, she had been ready to throw herself into adventure, but two years ago, that had ended in tragedy. Since then, she had tried to be more controlled and more responsible, albeit with mixed results.
However, when something like this happened, she couldn’t simply stand by without doing anything.
She grabbed her shawl and called Culver to heel.
The dog happily bounded after her. The cats followed her as well, but only to the threshold of the door.
There they stopped, as though they were about to watch her fall into danger.
“I’d take one of you over seven of them in an emergency every time,” Ava said.
Culver yapped happily in response.
Ava followed the path around. Lucinda had a groundskeeper who tended the gardens now and again, though, in her opinion, he did a poor job, and the plants were becoming overgrown.
She made her way to the far end of the garden, where the border consisted of a low stone wall that, for the most part, had crumbled away.
Ava stopped suddenly, startled by the sight that greeted her. A small boy was standing atop the wall, waving a wooden sword in the air. Culver raced ahead of her and stopped short of the boy, barking loudly.
“Stay there, foul beast, or I’ll have your heart!” the boy cried out in a high-pitched tone, and pointed the sword at Culver. Culver curled his lip and snarled. Ava sensed trouble brewing.
“You’ll do no such thing. Who are you and what are you doing here?”
“I’m King Jamie, and I’m defending my castle. Are you a princess in need of saving from this dragon?”
“Most certainly not,” Ava said, folding her arms across her chest. “And that’s not a dragon, his name is Culver.”
As she mentioned his name, Culver barked. Ava then spotted a broken flowerpot on the ground. She pointed to it.
“Did you break that?”
“It attacked me. It was ramming the walls of the castle. I had to defend myself. The Kingdom of Jamieland shall never fall!”
Ava sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. She made an effort to sound firm without being strict, but the early morning hour and the shock of this vigorous behavior, as well as the sight of the shattered plant pot, might have made her tone sterner than she intended.
“Look, I know you’re having your fun, but you’ve already broken a flowerpot, and if you carry on like this, you’ll likely break something else. Why don’t you get down and go about your business? It’s too early for these games.”
“This isn’t a game! And I am King Jamie.
I can’t be moved. Bring your swords. Bring your lances.
I shall defend this castle!” he yelled. Ava tilted her head and winced, the shrill voice running right through her.
He thrust his sword toward Culver, far enough away that it didn’t stand any chance of making any impact, but Culver didn’t take kindly to it and barked loudly.
The boy danced back, attempting to be nimble, but he ended up losing his footing and fell on his backside. Suddenly, all his enthusiasm drained away, and his lower lip started to wobble. Ava rushed to the wall and peered over.
“Oh, dear. Are you all right? Didn’t I tell you that you were going to break something? Come on, get up,” Ava said, holding out a hand.
But King Jamie wasn’t interested in getting up.
He was only interested in crying. He opened his mouth and wailed loudly, his face growing red and his eyes clamping shut.
Ava had been around her nieces and nephews enough to understand he wasn’t in any serious pain, so she didn’t coo or fuss over him.
“I don’t think this is the way a king acts,” she said, looking away. “A king gets up and acts strong. He picks up his sword and keeps fighting.”
The cries became muffled as the boy wiped his nose. He looked at the sword and considered Ava’s words, then pushed himself to his feet. He padded over to the sword, and just like that, the tears had magically stopped. King Jamie squinted at Ava.
“What’s your name?”
But before she could answer, they were interrupted by a tall, broad-shouldered man striding toward them. His arms were straight by his side, and there was a stern expression on his face.
“Jamie, what’s going on here? Why are you crying?” he asked, and then turned to Ava. “Who are you?”
There was a scowl etched on his face, which would have been handsome if not marred by his moody expression. His hair was thick and black, while his eyes were a deep emerald shade. As it was, she felt an instant tension from his attitude.
“My name is Ava, and I’m currently living there,” she gestured to the house behind her.
“I was rudely awoken by a loud noise, so I came to investigate to find that this child had broken a flowerpot and had been dancing upon our wall. Of course, I don’t hold him responsible, but he should be supervised. ”
“He wandered off. I was coming to collect him anyway. But why did he cry out?” the man asked.
“I fell off,” Jamie pouted, looking at the ground. The man’s eyes leveled at Culver and then at Ava.
“I hope that nothing made you fall off,” he said through gritted teeth. Ava gasped in disbelief.
“I was just about to help him up, actually. And if you were supervising him as you should have been, then you would have been here to catch him, and to stop him from breaking the flowerpot or hurting himself.”
He looked over the wall and sneered at the broken flowerpot.
“I’m sure it won’t take much to replace that.”
“That’s not the point,” Ava fired back. “The point is that there are dangerous things lying around, and he could have hurt himself. There are no children here, and so the garden is not kept with them in mind. There are any number of hazards, and so he should stay within the boundaries of your property.”
“Boys don’t care too much about boundaries or private properties,” the man said with a wry smile, although Ava didn’t think there was too much to laugh about. This cavalier attitude would only put the boy in more danger.
“And what happens when he wanders somewhere he’s not supposed to? He could get lost, or he could be hurt. Perhaps there’s someone else I can speak to about this,” she looked beyond him, but there was nothing but open air.
“You’re speaking to me,” he narrowed his eyes. “I assure you that this won’t happen again. Jamie didn’t mean anything by it. He saw a wall, and he thought he would play on it. I will recompense you for the flowerpot. Jamie, let us return to the house.”
“Oh, but I wasn’t done playing yet.”
“Yes, well, ask Miss…?” The man gave an enquiring look.
“Wallace. Ava Wallace. And you are?”
“Gabriel Sutton, Duke of Northmere,” he replied.
“I hope that you shall be able to impart the relevant lessons to your son, or at least hire a governess to teach him, if you’re incapable, Your Grace,” she added his formal title, but spoke it as though it were an insult.
This didn’t escape his attention, and she felt the fury that was channeled into his gaze.
“I don’t need advice on how to raise my son.
We won’t trouble you any longer. Jamie, you’d better find another castle to defend.
This one seems to be cursed,” Gabriel said, putting his hand around Jamie’s shoulder and guiding him away.
Ava stared daggers at the man’s back, thinking him the rudest and most arrogant, domineering prig she had ever encountered.
It only served to reinforce her standing opinion of men: that most of them weren’t worth the time they demanded.
Boys were different, though, for they had yet to have their hearts blackened by age.
As evidence of this, Jamie turned around and waved at Ava cheerfully.
While it appeared she had been annoyed with him, there was no malice behind his behavior.
He was just being a boy, and his father was far more infuriating than Jamie.
The friendly wave and his mischievous grin started to charm her, which was more than she could say for Gabriel.
Jamie must have favored his mother’s side.
“Well, Culver, that wasn’t the most pleasant way to begin a day, was it?” she said, and promptly began picking up the broken pieces of the flowerpot. Culver tilted his head to the side and whimpered.
“And don’t worry, that boy didn’t really think you were a foul beast. He was just playing a game.”
“Oh, here you are,” Lucinda said. She was still wearing her slippers, but was carrying a cup of tea. “This was getting cold, so I thought you might want it. What happened here?”
“I found the source of our noise. It appears that there are people staying there,” she gestured to the neighboring estate. “A boy and a man, a most rude man.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize the Duke was coming for a visit.”
“Have you met him before?”
Lucinda smiled.
“Oh yes, this estate has been in his family for a long time. The visits are usually short. I believe he’s been living in London for some years now.”
“Then I hope he returns soon. I think he’s better off in London. We’ll certainly be better off without him,” Ava muttered. She carried the broken pieces of the flowerpot back into the house. Culver followed. Lucinda shrugged, sighed, and then shuffled after them.