Excerpt:

“Right then,” Sofie settled herself and her tea on the naked mattress, “why don’t we start by you telling me a bit about yourself? It will give me a better idea of where to start with that whole big kerfuffle.”

“Alright,” taking a sip of his tea and a deep breath, Jonathan began at the most logical point he could think of. “My name is Jonathan Alexander Byron Ofellen. I’m twenty one and the oldest child of Lady Ellen Teaque. I have three younger brothers and a younger sister and, until recently, lived on my father’s estate in New Bronxshire. My father passed away some months back, apparently. The news of his death reached us a little over three weeks ago, along with notice that, despite the fact he had promised to leave the lands to us should anything happen to him, they were instead being granted to my city siblings.” He tried to keep the bitterness from his voice, but it was difficult.

“How many city siblings?”

“Three. Two half-brothers and a half-sister only six months older than the other.” He smiled weakly at the memory of his father telling him about his other family. “My sisters used to write each other, father would convey the letters. I’d have hoped that my siblings at least would have fought to give us what we’d been promised.”

“Oh, I would not be surprised to find it was the exact opposite.” The tone of Sofie’s voice was so derisive that Jonathan couldn’t help but frown in surprise.

“What do you mean?”

She snorted. “Oh, it’s a new trend you see in the cities – utterly appalling! The father will leave his country estate to his country mistress and her children, but the city family will decide they want it instead and hire lawyers to challenge their father’s will with absolutely no regard to his paternal wishes and weasel their country family out of house and home. Living out there, I’m surprised you’ve not seen more of it, although I suppose there is an awful lot of country to go around.” She looked at him and her expression softened. “You must have thought your father didn’t care a thing for you, but don’t curse his memory too loudly. I would be shocked indeed to find out that he’d gone back on his word. No, far more likely your brothers – probably not your sister, from the sounds of it, but city girls have so little say unless they’re married – were simply greedy.”

Jonathan sat and sipped his tea for a bit and let that sink in. He wanted to believe it, to blame his current condition on some unseen relative who he’d only experience through his father’s stories, distorted by parental affection. It was easy as well – he didn’t even know their names. Even his sister had simply been known as “the city dove” to Elaine’s “country dove.” Finally he shook his head and continued, “Either way, it’s done and over with leaving us without a home.”

“But surely you have friends in the country that can take you in!”

“Not forever. My family is currently living on a little guest cottage belonging to one of our good friends, but – being a country bastard himself – he’s not the wealthiest gentleman out there and having six more mouths to feed that aren’t producing anything other than embroidery…well, he would do it out of love for us and go bankrupt in the process. Besides, if anything happened to him, if health should fail or his house burn down…no, we needed a way to take care of ourselves rather than relying on someone else. If this has taught me nothing else, it’s the importance of self reliance.”

She nodded. “Fair enough. It’s a good lesson. But why slavery?”

At that, Jonathan laughed. “Because we’re worthless, the entire lot of us! Oh, we have a country aristocrat’s education – we can read and write and Erik and Elaine both have heads for numbers, but that’s only worth something if someone needs a clerk or a secretary or an accountant and, well, no one does right now. Our lawyers are all the legitimate gentlemen who have been sent to school in the city and trained, so there’s no hope there. Hells, no one even needs a maid or a stable boy, and in the country you don’t keep staff you don’t need. You can’t afford it. It could be nearly a year before any of us found work and we were left with precious little more than the clothes on our back. We couldn’t afford a year.” He stopped, sighed, and shrugged. “Laying on your back doesn’t take much talent and with the laws and the stipend – I’d much rather be a slave paid for pleasure than see any of the others paid for it on the street.”

“A good older brother.” Sofie smiled at him. “I rather suspect you underestimate your own talents, but no one can say your heart isn’t in the right place and I will not argue with you about the state of employment in New Bronxshire. I’m sure I know nothing about it. So. You clearly know all about country mistresses – city gentleman falls in love with country girl or city girl who’s low enough in status that he can smuggle her out to the country and he visits her at least once a season while his legal wife stays at home and minds the city servants. It’s a neat enough arrangement, when it works, but it doesn’t always. For instance, there are plenty of poor young gentlemen who have the poor fortune to fall for city girls the same status they are who can not be smuggled out to the country to live happily ever after. Why, if one of our city’s highest daughters was to go missing, the scandal would be unimaginable – and I don’t know how it is in the country, but here you fear scandal more than you do the law.”

“So what happens in that case?”

She grimaced slightly and shrugged. “Bribe price. The parents of the girl send the boy – or the parents of the boy, depending on age – a payoff to leave their daughter alone.”

Jonathan blinked, again, and then frowned. “Wait, but – you’ll forgive me. I met Richard Carval, very briefly I admit, but – he’s not a girl. There’s no way you could mistake him for a girl.”

“No, but he is – or was until today – Master Nathaniel’s lover and has been, oh since they were in school! And Lord Richard is engaged to Miss Anna and Miss Anna – poor sweet thing! - is the sister to Lord Edward and Lord Edward is -” She stopped speaking, took a very deep breath, and pulled her face into one of those tight lipped smiles people make when they want to say something very unpleasant but aren’t. “Well, I believe Master Nathaniel described him very well.”

Jonathan sipped at his tea and thought over the scene that had greeted his arrival and Samson’s announcement. “So, Lord Edward is – or we believe he is – threatening to call off Miss Anna’s marriage to Lord Richard if Lord Da-er-Nathaniel doesn’t break up with Lord Richard?”

“Exactly.” Sofie nodded. “And he’s just the sort to do it too, nasty piece of work. He could give leeches lessons on sucking blood.” She sighed and looked at her own, cooling cup of tea. “Such a pity too. Lord Richard and Master Nathaniel have been so completely in love for so long. And Miss Anna! Why, she’s as dear to Master Nathaniel as if she were his sister instead.”

“Master Nathaniel said that she knew.”

“Oh yes, she knew! I believe when he introduced her to the Master, Lord Richard introduced them as fiancé and lover.” She frowned as if trying to remember something. “I think they were a bit put off by each other at first, but it didn’t last long, not at all, and then, well.” She laughed. “I’d swear Miss Anna would go to war for either of the boys and they would do the same for her. They had it all planned out, how it would be after the wedding, and now.”

Jonathan shivered. “Now I’m here.”

Sofie gave him a sharp, almost alarmed look. “Oh don’t think of it like that. It’s not your fault. If Edward really is behind it, well, we can all be happy bribe price was even an option and the man didn’t cry scandal himself! It will be alright. Master Nathaniel will get over it – eventually, I’m sure, and in the meantime we’ll find something for you to do. No matter how upset he is, the Master is a good man and he’s not just going to turn you out because you happened to be supporting your family in the wrong place at the wrong time. Count on it.” That said she stood and took his half empty, tepid cup of tea and refilled it. “Now, you’ve undoubtedly not eaten all day either. Did you even have breakfast?”

“A little.”

“Luncheon?”

He shook his head.

“Didn’t think so. The servants take our dinner in the dining kitchen off the main kitchens at six o’clock. You could come down and meet everyone or, if you’d prefer, I can bring something up for you and you can meet everyone tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow, please.” Jonathan ran a hand over his eyes. He was tired. More than that, he was exhausted. Nothing sounded better than stretching out on the bed, sheets or no sheets, and going to sleep.

“Right then.” Sofie picked up his now full tea cup, then hesitated and put it back down again. Instead of bringing him his tea, she walked over, sat on the arm of the chair, and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “It’s alright.”

The move surprised him. What surprised him even more was that her words made his eyes burn. He tried to respond, but instead his throat wound up closing over and he buried his face against her shoulder and cried.

“Shhh. It will be alright.”