CHAPTER ONE
Mont Claire Estate, Hampshire, 1872
Pippa Hargrave was about to have her heart broken.
When she heard the Cavendish twins were turned out of the schoolroom so early on this particular afternoon, she tore through the Mont Claire estate knowing they’d spill out onto the lawn and head for their hedge maze.
Her father, Charles Hargrave, looked up from the counter where he stood and snacked on a repast of cold chicken and greens as she burst through the door to the kitchens.
“What ho, little’un?” His eyes wrinkled kindly at the edges, and he hinged at the hip to tweak her fondly on her nose with a gloved finger. “Where are you off to in such a hurry?”
An elegant Romani woman stood by her mother, Hattie, and added a few more herbs to the pot. “You were in a rush to come into this world, Pip.” Serana warmly used the household’s nickname for her, and it sounded strange in what Hattie said was her Carpathian accent. “It is no surprise you want to hasten your way through it.”
Pippa had been told that she owed her very existence to Serana, as her mama and papa had endeavored to conceive a child for decades to no avail. Serana had given Hattie a tonic, and she’d become pregnant with Pippa right away.
Pippa’s father, the butler of the Mont Claire estate and already eleven years Hattie’s senior, was the age of most children’s grandfathers. He treated his daughter with a kind of mystified but devoted indulgence.
“I’m going to find Declan Chandler.” Pippa squirmed to get outside.
“I think I saw him cleaning out the fountain as I came in,” Serana supplied helpfully with a little wink.
“Oh no, I must go help him,” Pip lamented dramatically. “He hates cleaning the fountain, it terrifies him. Though he’s too brave to say so.” She sighed for his courage, closing her eyes to properly give it the knightly due it deserved.
“My daughter’s besotted.” Hattie palmed Pippa’s cheek with a warm hand before passing an implement to Serana.
Pippa wrinkled her nose. Be-what?
“That Declan Chandler has the soul of a tiger,” Serana said. “And you, Pip, have that of a dragon.”
“Dragons aren’t real,” Pippa informed her with a giggle.
“Aren’t they?” Serana asked, winking cheerfully. “I’ve been many places where they would disagree with you.”
“Do you have any peppermints in your pockets?” Pippa turned to her father, already searching his coat. Peppermints were Declan’s favorite. She always found him pale after dredging the fountain, and a bit irate. Peppermints cheered him up and made him smile the smile that produced scores of rampant butterflies in her belly.
“Gads, I must do somewhere.” Charles slapped every pocket he could find more than once before producing a handful of treats for the children.
Pippa seized them, divvying them up. One each for Ferdinand, Francesca, and herself. She saved the remaining two for Declan. He deserved extra.
She kissed her father’s smooth cheek and leapt toward the door. Sprinting down the stretch of lawn lined with resplendent arborvitae, she ate up the distance between her and the boy who owned her heart.
Declan Chandler had once been short, like her, and devastatingly underweight when he’d landed on the steps of Mont Claire some years ago. He’d been grimy and freezing, starving half to death.
But his frame had stretched out over a long, thickening skeleton, and even though he ate enough to feed a horse, he remained curiously lean.
Lately, instead of focusing on the primers Francesca allowed her to study on her own, Pippa would make up ridiculous fancies about Declan Chandler. Today, for example, she spent a good deal of the early afternoon chomping on her pencil, leaving crunchy indentations as she pondered the perfection of the word thunderstruck.
After all this time wondering how to properly encompass the effect the houseboy had on her, Pippa could finally claim a description.
Once she’d scampered past the stately gardens dripping with an embarrassment of blossoms, she ran through the hedge maze she’d memorized with the loping speed of a fleet-footed bunny.
She broke into the clearing bedecked by the fountain just in time for her heart to break.
Declan stood to his knees in the fountain while droplets from the spray gathered on his skin and sluiced down the indentations of lean muscle that had never been there until recently.
He was like the progeny of the powerful-bodied ancient gods cast from marble behind him.
And Francesca Cavendish was slipping a peppermint past his lips.
The smile he bestowed upon her—the smile that should have been Pippa’s—nearly outshone the noonday sun. He said something Pippa could not hear and tucked a shining wisp of scarlet hair behind the lovely Francesca’s ear before placing a kiss on her knuckles with a deference that went beyond her station as the young mistress of the house. A reverence that was no longer innocent …
But interested.
The fountain still spewed water out of the horns of satyrs and the mouths and baskets of various gods and goddesses. The spray refracted the sun into delicate rainbows and glittering gems in the air around them.
Pippa’s heart squeezed so hard she didn’t think it beat for a full minute. Her hands were cold and wet. Her throat dry and her stomach full of lead. At thirteen, Declan was the epitome of beauty to Pippa. Now she looked at Francesca to see in her friend what Declan might. A slight and perfect nose and heart-shaped features. Slim, even for a girl on the cusp of womanhood, and more elegant than a child ought to be. Vibrant red hair and shy eyes the color of the sea on an overcast day. Perhaps blue or green, but mostly grey.
Pippa had dull fairish locks and retained a face round with youth and a penchant for seconds at dinner. Her beauty, her mother said, was in her rare green eyes. Eyes that now stung and a throat that ached with such fervent pain she couldn’t swallow, let alone breathe.
Did Declan—her Declan—fancy Francesca Cavendish, her best friend in the world?
Could the fates be so entirely cruel? Was there anything worse than this searing pain?
No, she realized. No, there was no agony more excruciating than this.
How could he not know she was his perfect match?
Francesca wouldn’t dip her dainty shoes into the fountain, but Pippa had often waded in beside him, plunging her elbows deep in the muck if only to make his work go faster so they could play. When the water seemed to churn with his melancholy, they’d toss soggy clumps of moss at each other, giggling and squealing with a side-splitting mirth until her jaw ached from constant smiles and so much brilliant love.
Francesca wouldn’t deign to dirty her frocks. She couldn’t; she was going to be a lady someday.
Pippa had no need to be a lady. She would be a woman. Declan’s woman. She’d decided that long ago. Regardless of what her parents said, no one could love someone this deeply unrequited.
The gods of the fountain wouldn’t allow it.
And yet, there they were … Declan and Francesca, with eyes for no one but each other.
“There are men on horseback coming up the way,” Ferdinand, Francesca’s twin, called down from his perch in the ancient ash tree on the other side of the maze.
Mama had told her once, Ferdinand had been born without enough breath, and he struggled with something called asthma. It was why the veins beneath his skin were so iridescent, and his lips often tinged with blue.
Despite that, he was a striking boy, and since she’d never had a brother, Ferdinand was one of her very favorite people with whom to have an adventure. He’d told her once he’d make her a countess when he was old enough.
She hoped that didn’t mean marriage.
She would marry Declan Chandler, of course, she knew this with her entire heart. She’d be Mrs. Chandler. Indeed, she’d already perfected her signature.
“Are we expecting callers?” Francesca asked.
“There are entirely too many men for callers.” Ferdinand curled his fingers to resemble a spyglass, and put it to his eye. “Maybe twenty.”
“It’s unseemly to show up with twenty people and not send a note.” Francesca’s mouth drooped into a pretty pout. “Mrs. Hargrave won’t know to make that many sandwiches at this hour.”
Pippa looked from Francesca to Declan, noting the troubled thoughts wrinkling his smooth, angular good looks. “Perhaps you and Pip should go inform Mr. and Mrs. Hargrave,” he said, helping Francesca from the ledge. “They’ll know what to do.”
“I’ll go and meet the riders,” Ferdinand declared, having climbed down from his spot and set off out the opposite side of the maze.
“My lord, you really shouldn’t.” Declan released Francesca and winked at Pippa before trotting after the future Earl of Mont Claire. “Not until we know who they are.”
Despite her pain, Pippa locked hands with her friend and skipped toward the estate. Francesca really was such a dear. So sweet and agreeable. Proper and ladylike. All the things Pippa was not.
All the things she’d try to be for Declan if that’s what he wanted.
They jogged for several minutes of silence before Pippa couldn’t keep herself from asking, “Do you fancy Mr. Chandler?”
“What?” Francesca laughed, a merry sound that bubbled into the spring air.
“He loves you, I think,” Pippa grumped.
“I fancy him a little. He’s rather handsome, isn’t he?” Francesca squeezed her hand. “But never you worry, I’d not bother with him in a hundred years.”
Copyright © 2021 by Kerrigan Byrne.
