Chapter One
Northumberland, England
Late August 1805
“Thatis the future Duke of Kielder?” Adam Boyce, the current Duke of Kielder, watched the retreating conveyance of a cousin not nearly distant enough for his tastes.
“The heirpresumptive,” his man of business, Mr. Josiah Jones, replied.
“The man’s an idiot,” Adam said.
“Yes, Your Grace.” Jones’s agreement came immediately, the way everyone’s did.
“I assume there is no way for me to have him disinherited.”
“None, Your Grace,” Jones said. Though a man of few words much of the time, Jones grew unbearably talkative when matters of law arose. “The succession is quite specific. The letters patent allow the title to pass to a male heir through a female line when no further heirs exist on a male line, as is the case now.”
“Well, then, before I die I intend to burn Falstone Castle to the ground,” Adam declared. “And, with any luck, Falstone Forest will go up in flames along with it, and Mr. Gordon Hewitt, he of the blasted female line, will inherit precisely what he is capable of managing: a pile of ashes.”
Adam noticed Jones pale. The man didn’t doubt he would make good on his threat. He would, too. Adam had no intention of handing over the castle and lands that had been in the Boyce family for well over six hundred years to a sniveling slug like Gordon Hewitt, no matter what his feeble claim on some distant line of Boyces. It seemed, however, that he had no choice.
“And I plan to travel to Town and wager half a million pounds on the turn of a card,” Adam further added. “Several times. Hewitt will be bankrupted.”
“Best not do so until you are closer to the end of your own existence,” Jones suggested.
Adam narrowed his eyes in disapproval.
“Not that I mean to advise you, Your Grace,” Jones hastily amended.
Adam turned his gaze from the quickly disappearing carriage to the incomparable view from the first-floor windows of Falstone Castle. A forest, unsurpassed in its breathtaking beauty, stretched out before him. Adam’s ancestors had planted the woods, forever changing what had once been a vast track of moorland, and he, their progeny, perpetuated the effort. Just over the western rise sat a crystal-clear lake. The lane leading away from Falstone Castle disappeared quickly among the trees, leaving behind the feeling of peaceful isolation. His family had lived in this precise location for more than twenty generations.
He, himself, was the fifteenth Duke of Kielder, seventeenth Earl of Falstone. Henry, the third Earl of Falstone, had found favor with King Edward III after fighting rather valiantly in the Hundred Years’ War and was elevated to Marquess of Kielder as a result. Less than a decade later, he was made Duke of Kielder. The Boyce line had gone unbroken since that time some 450 years earlier.
“Boil and blast!” Adam slammed his fist on the stone wall beside the window, rattling the ancient stained glass and making Jones jump beside him. “I would sooner run Hewitt through than leave a single inch of Falstone land to him.”
“I am not sure murder is the best solution to your difficulties, Your Grace.”
“I could make it look like an accident.” Adam moved away from the window and walked in long, quick strides down the corridor, past tapestries and suits of armor he’d seen his entire life. He’d have known if anything in Falstone Castle were moved as little as an inch—so familiar was it to him.
“Next in line would be George Hewitt.” Jones had obviously followed him. “Mr. Hewitt’s younger brother.”
“Probably not much of an improvement,” Adam grumbled as he strode to his book room, a sanctuary even Jones was not always permitted to breach. Adam threw the door open and made his way directly to his desk. Jones remained at the door. “Quit hovering and come inside,” Adam snapped impatiently.
Jones tiptoed inside and sat gingerly on the edge of the chair on the opposite side of Adam’s large-scaled desk.
“How many backup heirs have the Hewitts provided?” Adam asked.
“Four sons, Your Grace.” Jones looked understandably miserable, quite accurately anticipating Adam’s displeasure with the news. “Gordon, who just left. George, who is next.”
“And also an idiot, no doubt,” Adam added under his breath.
“Gary is the third. Lastly is Gerald.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Hewitt, apparently, were not aware of the existence of any letter other than G,” Adam observed dryly. “Grasp of the alphabet ought to be a prerequisite to becoming a duke.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“Mr. Hewitt made little pretense of calculating the value of everything in sight.” Adam clenched his fist at the memory. “I wonder how valuable he determined my dueling pistols to be.”
