About this story
As Miss Bygrave of North Shingles you charm the ailing heir past his housekeeper Mrs Lecount and marry him under a false name. His father's fortune waits on a sealed memorandum in an iron box at St Crux, and the bride who arrives is your sister. Forty-eight chapters carry you from a Somersetshire breakfast table to the reckoning at Pendril's and your own name.
How it opens
March rain struck the long windows while the hall clock recovered from a night of unusual lateness.
Combe-Raven smelled of wet dogs, toast, and the coal fire struggling against the morning wind.
Andrew VanstoneTen o'clock breakfast after a Clifton concert is mercy, not indiscipline.
Miss GarthMercy would have brought us home before the footman forgot the use of his eyes.
Choose
The music has improved Thomas by making silence attractive.
One late morning cannot overturn a properly governed house.