One

For some inexplicable reason, the first thing that occurred to Greer Fairchild when three men—robbers, for all she knew—stopped the coach in which she and Mr. Percy were traveling was that the death of Mrs. Smithington, to whom Greer was a traveling companion, was not only tragic, but extremely inconvenient.

They had almost reached the foreboding Llanmair, having lumbered up a rutted road for the better part of an afternoon, yet the day's gloomy light had not faded so much that Greer couldn't distinguish the ancient gray castle from the crag on which it sat, rising high above the woods and mountains that surrounded it.

It was an imposing structure, four stories high, built with gray stone, and anchored by four turrets in each corner. They were so close to the castle! They were so close to ending Greer's ordeal, and now this!

"Stay here," Mr. Percy said, looking quite grim when the coach rattled and groaned to a halt at the approach of the three riders. "I shall speak with them." He climbed out of the carriage, shut the door soundly, and strode forward to the three men who now stood between Greer and the man in the castle who held her inheritance.

"This is not to be borne," she muttered under her breath. Not after all she'd endured in the last year. Not after her guardian aunt's death and the endless hours she'd spent with Mrs. Smithington in public coaches with people who thought nothing of bringing their chickens and dogs along with them. Not after all the bouncing she'd endured along every pit and rut as they'd traversed empty moors, or losing sight of the sun in forests so thick with trees that no light could filter through. She'd come within a quarter of a mile of the gates to what she hoped was her final destination, only to be stopped.

It was extremely vexing.

Greer peered out the window to where Mr. Percy had confronted the three men with his legs braced wide and his arms akimbo. She groaned with exasperation and laid her head against a torn squab. She supposed she ought to feel frightened of the men, being as far from civilization as she was, but she felt nothing but exhaustion and the grime of hard travel on her body. Not to mention the disgust of having traveled three days in the same gown, for it was bloody cold in Wales and the poor gown was the warmest garment she possessed.

"Astoundingly inconvenient," she said aloud.

Really, if Mrs. Smithington hadn't died when and where she did, poor thing, Greer might have made this trip to Wales in the summer, when the sun was bright and warm. Not now, in late autumn, when the weather was dreadfully cold and damp. She might have reached Llanmair, where the Prince of Thieves—as she'd come to think of him—supposedly lived in half the time it had taken them over these ridiculously muddy and pitted roads.

But then poor Mrs. Smithington had lain down for a nap on the very day Greer reached her uncle's dilapidated and long-sought estate. The elderly woman had just lain down and never awoke. It was a horrible way to die—alone, with no relatives save one distant nephew, her heir, in London. While it was true Mrs. Smithington could be entirely too vexing, Greer had developed a certain exasperated fondness for her, and would not have wished such a lonely death on her.

Mrs. Smithington's tragic death, on top of everything else, made Greer wish she'd never come back to Wales. If it weren't for good Mr. Percy, she surely would have turned back for London along with Mrs. Smithington's effects. But Mr. Percy had encouraged her to continue on her journey.

The journey had begun a year ago, when Greer's legal guardian, Aunt Cassandra, Lady Downey, had died unexpectedly. Aunt Cassandra's second husband, Lord Downey, had no desire to support Greer or her cousins, Ava and Phoebe, and had firmly and eagerly stated he was prepared to give them to whoever asked for their hand, regardless of social standing or fortune, or their wishes in the matter.

That was intolerable enough, but as Greer was merely the ward of Lady Downey, she was at the greatest disadvantage. She had no family or fortune left with which to entice a proper suitor, even if Lord Downey were inclined to see her married well. All she had of her past was an old letter, a few minor possessions that had belonged to her mother, whom she could scarcely remember, and fragments of memories that included an elderly uncle, a distant father, and no siblings.

Desperate to keep herself and her cousins from the fate Lord Downey would condemn them to, and knowing that her father had died several years ago without siring an heir, Greer had embarked on this wretched journey to find her uncle and ask after an inheritance she wasn't even certain existed. She had no knowledge of her father's fortune, or if he even had one, but she thought certainly there must have been something left of the man's life. And if there was something left, it surely would have been left to her father's brother.

It was a fragile hope, but a hope nonetheless.

Unfortunately, the only way she could possibly afford to travel to Wales was as the companion of the ancient and constantly complaining Mrs. Smithington, who wanted to see the "wild bits of England."

After traveling for months in the company of Mrs. Smithington, Greer had finally reached Bredwardine, an English village on the border of Wales, where she found her uncle's estate shockingly dilapidated. The vague memory she held of a grand home with lush lawns and fountains was a fantasy. The house was little more than a manor, not a mansion, and there was no lawn surrounding it, just a small yard with an old pig wandering aimlessly about.

The only inhabitants of the house were an aging caretaker and his wife. Moreover, most of the rooms had been emptied of furniture long ago—there was no place to sit, no place to rest, save two rooms at the very top of the stairs, which, for reasons Greer did not want to contemplate, still boasted two old and lumpy featherbeds. And as Greer had wandered about that afternoon pondering what on earth she would do now, Mrs. Smithington had begun to complain of feeling poorly.

Greer thought nothing of it at the time. Mrs. Smithington had complained endlessly since they'd left London. They'd no sooner left the outer limits of the city when she'd begun to carp about the weather (too rainy), the condition of the roads (too rutted), and the fact that there really wasn't very much to see once one traveled through so many miles of rolling countryside (too many trees and too far from London).

At first, Greer had found the woman's complaining amusing in an odd sort of way, but it quickly grew tiresome, especially when Greer was the one forced to hold hatboxes or small trunks in her lap while they traveled in tight public coaches.

But then Mr. Percy had boarded their coach in Ledbury and had proceeded to compliment Mrs. Smithington's youthful smile and claimed to be shocked by her advanced age. Dear Mr. Percy, tall and handsome with brown locks and shining hazel eyes, could have charmed the gray right from Mrs. Smithington's head if he'd so desired.

By the time they reached Herefordshire, Mrs. Smithington had persuaded Mr. Percy to accompany them to Wales with the excuse that "in the company of a gentleman, no one will prey on two poor unmarried females."

Greer imagined that even the most depraved of villains would be deterred by Mrs. Smithington's constant complaining, but Mr. Percy's attention to Mrs. Smithington had been a welcome relief for her. Not only was he exceedingly charming, he was also a very good escort. He was very solicitous of their needs.

Copyright © 2007 by Dinah Dinwiddie.