Perfect In Every Way (Manors and Mysteries #2)

Chapter 1

THE DOWNS

I idled outside the ornate, twenty-foot-high gates, not thinking about the grand adventure that, for months, I’d been so excited to embark on, I could barely stand myself.

Instead, I was concentrating on the sudden bizarre feeling I had, which I’d never felt before.

A feeling that assaulted me (and that violent of a word was an apropos descriptor) the second I saw those gates.

It was a feeling so strong, I was idling in the road in front of the gates of a drive I was supposed to be turning into, a drive on a fortunately not very busy road, and yet for some reason, I was unable to turn in.

I didn’t understand what I was feeling. It was, in my cadre of as yet experienced emotions, undefined.

I was exhilarated, yet alarmed.

Excited, yet terrified.

It was kind of like the sensation you get before you go into a haunted house.

You know it’s going to be fun, but even so, you’re facing the unexpected.

What you further know is, what’s about to happen will be completely out of your control.

But in order to face that unexpected—though what you could expect was that you were going to have the pants frightened off you—you had to let go, put one foot in front of the other, trust, and know things are going to scare you, but in the end, you’ll be laughing.

It took some effort to pocket this strange emotion so I could peer down the lane beyond the gates.

The lane was shaded with beautiful old trees and carpeted with vibrant green lawns.

It was then, out of nowhere, although this time predictably, I felt a strong pang of melancholy.

I did this even though I’d never met him. He was gone before I was alive.

Even so, I knew my great-grandfather had seen these gates. He’d been driven through them. He’d stayed in the massive house that lay beyond the intricate wrought iron and parkland.

In that house, he’d convalesced.

In that house, he’d fallen in love.

In the end, he’d left this extraordinary estate with a broken heart.

And I was there to tell his story.

On that thought, taking a bracing breath, I turned into the lane, stopped beside the security speaker and noted it had a camera.

I hit the button to roll down my window and was about to reach out and hit the one that would call to the house, but the speaker squawked at me before I could even raise my hand.

“Ms. Dupree?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“Can you please hold your passport or some other official photo identification to the camera?” the speaker requested.

Unsurprised by this request, for I knew what lay beyond those gates, and thus I knew they wouldn’t let anyone through them who shouldn’t be going through them, I turned to my bag, pulled out my passport, opened it to the picture page and held it to the camera.

“One moment please,” the speaker said.

Although I wasn’t surprised they had security, and it was not just a couple of Ring cameras, I wondered what they could do with my passport information that would take a moment.

Could they check it?

And if they could, how did they get access to that kind of data?

As far as I knew, only government and law enforcement agencies could do something like that.

I mean, if they could, that would take this security to a new level.

I pocketed that emotion too as I slid my passport back into my tote and waited.

I waited some more.

And longer.

I was just about to say something when I heard a mechanism start churning, the gates started opening and the speaker squawked again.

“Thank you for waiting, Ms. Dupree. Please drive through.”

“You’re welcome. And thank you,” I replied.

As the gates slowly opened, I took my foot off the brake.

I was a writer, but I’d been a researcher first.

Therefore, I didn’t come here blind. I knew all about The Downs and the family that had lived there for more generations than my country had even been a country.

But as I drove through the opened gates, taking in the vast manicured lawns under the sprawling canopies of mature trees, I was blown away.

Everything was better in real life than in pictures.

However, this was something else, and “better” didn’t cover it.

And when the trees gave way and I started to see the house…

“Holy crap,” I whispered as more, and more, and more of it was unveiled.

I’d seen pictures of this too.

But…

Good God.

It was built of sandy-gold Bath stone. At the front middle, there was a dual staircase, each side leading up to a vast landing that was home to the fifteen-foot double doors of the main entrance.

The house was three stories, one below stairs with half of the level rising above ground.

It had a wide central section with two wings angling back at each end.

I drove my long-term rental to one side of the front steps, and I did it on autopilot, I was so entranced by the house.

No, not a house.

The Downs.

Home for twelve generations to the Duke of Burleigh.

Current home of said duke and his three sisters.

In order: Battle, Temperance, Prudence and Chastity.

Oh yes, those were their names.

And oh yes, considering Talyn Family lore, those names were far from surprising.

It was Prudence who I’d corresponded with for the last year after I’d come across my great-grandfather’s letters in a box of stuff my sister and I found in our mom’s house when we were going through it after she passed.

It was Prudence who’d been excited about my idea for my next book.

And it was Prudence who’d invited me to stay.

And stay I would, for two weeks, being offered unfettered (maybe) access to the pictures, papers, journals, photos, daguerreotypes, ledgers, and anything else they could dig out for me about the life and times of the Talyn Family: keepers of the Duchy of Burleigh and the jewel of The Downs.

Or, hopefully this would happen.

One not-so-minor blip in my excitement about my six-month sojourn to England that had put a pall over embarking on this journey…

A journey that included me moving on to a cottage by the sea after the two weeks I’d spend here.

I’d stay at that cottage for six months, close to The Downs and anything I might need, and in the area where it all happened, so I could immerse myself, hit museums, libraries and church registries, and anything else I might need…

And that pall was about commencing this without Battle Talyn, the Duke of Burleigh, approving the contract my agent and her attorneys had been negotiating with his attorneys so that I could have access to Burleigh documents.

However, Prudence assured me, although this had not been sorted, I should feel free to come regardless, because in the end, again she assured me, vehemently, this would not be a problem.

Battie is just really careful about protecting our family, Prudence had written in one of our plethora of email exchanges.

He’s being nitpicky. He knows how excited I am about this!

And he’s my big brother; he likes to give me what I so wish to have.

But in the end, it’s his job to protect The Downs.

Though it’s my opinion he takes it too seriously!

Then again, in my opinion, Battie takes everything too seriously.

This, I’d discovered, was true.

“Battie” took things very seriously.

Especially privacy.

Honest to God, regardless of this family’s aristocratic lineage, their famous holdings, and their immeasurable wealth, it was hard to find a picture of any of them.

And trust me, I tried.

The one who the paparazzi attempted the hardest to capture was the duke, but he’d perfected the art of angling his head, or his umbrella, or the upturn of a lapel so all you saw was maybe his ear, his temple or a hint of his (chiseled, as far as I could tell) jaw.

Images or even presence of Temperance, Prudence and Chastity were nearly nonexistent on the internet, including social media. The only one of all the siblings who had an account was Chastity, on Instagram, and all she posted were pictures of flowers.

Okay, so maybe the sensation I had before turning into the lane to The Downs wasn’t strange.

Any good researcher loved a good mystery, and there were four in this house I was about to meet.

I grabbed my tote and exited my white Peugeot 3008, continuing to stare up at the house, and therefore I saw a gentleman walk out of it.

Not Battle.

Too old, too short, too stocky, and this man was wearing a black suit, gray waistcoat and red tie that looked less of a suit and more of a uniform.

The butler?

I walked up the steps, pulling my coat closer around me as I did. It was April in the West Country of England, therefore damp, cold, dreary, gray and windy.

When I made it to the top, I noted there was a complicated crest embroidered on the man’s red tie.

It was a study of flamboyant red and cerulean swirls surrounding a shield in the same stripes.

This was topped with the helmet of a knight, adorned with gold, pearls and rubies, out of the top of which was a surfeit of fluffy, vibrant plume feathers (yes, they somehow got all of that embroidered on a tie).

This was the Duchy’s crest, which was also on the flag, emblazoned on two stripes, one red, one cerulean, and the right edge of the flag cut out into the sharp points of a sideways V.

A flag I’d noted was flying under the Union Jack above The Downs right then.

“Miss Dupree. Welcome to The Downs,” he said on a very slight bow.

He intended to say more, he just didn’t get the chance.

Out from the front doors flew a petite woman with stick-straight auburn hair, which was cut in a severe style with a radically level edge across very high bangs at her forehead and the same at a length that hit her chin.

And she was wearing…

I didn’t know what she was wearing.

I just knew Moira Rose would like it very much.