Beauty in Spring (Beauty #1)
Kati Wilde
1
Cora
“Are you sure about this, luv?”
It’s the first thing that the hired driver, George, has said since picking me up from my London hotel just before dawn, when the full moon still lingered just above the horizon. Since then we’ve traveled almost two hundred miles north, but the silence between us over the course of those four hours was a comfortable one. I’d been too preoccupied for conversation, with nerves tumbling in my belly, my heart full of hope, and my imagination racing as I pictured how Blackwood Manor might have changed in the ten years I’ve been away.
But I never imagined this. George stopped the car in front of the manor’s gatehouse—the house where I lived the first fifteen years of my life. The stone structure straddles the lane that leads to Blackwood Hall, and serves as the entrance to the estate. While I was growing up, never once were those wrought-iron gates closed. Instead they were always open, inviting visitors to continue on toward the great manor house that sits like a crown upon the escarpment overlooking the woodlands and beautifully tended grounds.
Yet now those gates are closed. The heavy rusted chain looped between the wrought-iron bars looks as if it has been there almost as long as I’ve been gone. A weathered sign reading “No Trespassing” hangs from the gatehouse arch. The gatehouse itself, traditionally the home of Blackwood Manor’s groundskeeper, appears utterly abandoned.
And those grounds are no longer beautifully tended. The overgrown lawn beyond the gate looks as if no one has held that position since my father left—since he took me from Blackwood Manor, the only home I’d ever known. The home I’ve been dreaming of returning to for ten years.
But judging by the disrepair of the gatehouse and estate grounds, that home looks as if it has been left to rot. And instead of nerves in my belly and a heart full of hope, now despair thickens sourly in my chest.
Why had I been brought here? When I was contacted by the Blake family’s solicitor two weeks ago, he said that my father’s former employers had learned of his recent death and wished to discuss the repayment of a debt. As far as I was aware, they hadn’t owed my father anything, and the solicitor hadn’t been forthcoming with details. All I could imagine was that perhaps a severance had gone unpaid when he’d left their employ and they intended to bestow it upon his only living relative. Whatever debt they owe, they apparently felt it needed to be paid in person, so they arranged for me to travel from the Seattle airport to London, then hired a driver to bring me here.
But why? Clearly the Blakes don’t live here now. If anyone still resided at Blackwood Hall, then those gates would not have gone unopened and chained for as long as they appear to have been. There would be some sign of the staff coming and going, because an estate and house of this size simply cannot function without people to care for it.
Yet obviously no one has been, and seeing the neglect feels as if a razor is slicing away at my heart.
The driver softly clears his throat. “Would you like me to take you back to the village, then, and see you sorted at the inn?”
I tear my gaze from the gatehouse’s sagging roof and broken windows. At the inn? A flutter of panic quivers through the heavy despair.
The reason I never returned to Blackwood Manor before now is simply because I couldn’t. Especially after my father’s long illness. Even before that, however, money has been scarce for years.
And although the Blakes bought my plane ticket and hired George to drive me here, those arrangements didn’t include a return trip—or a stay at a village inn. I assumed that would all be taken care of after I arrived. Blackwood Hall doesn’t lack for guest rooms…and, in truth, I’d hoped that I wouldn’t have to make that return trip back to the States. I’d hoped that there might be a place for me here, and that I’d either find employment on the estate—
Or something more. Because the estate isn’t the only thing I left behind.
It’s not the only thing I’ve dreamed of returning to all these years.
Because there’s always been Gideon.
Gideon Blake, with eyes as green as spring and a devil’s smile. Two years older than me, we grew up together on the estate, but he was never like a brother—and always a friend. Until he was almost more than a friend. But we never got further than a kiss and a promise.
Then my father left his position here and put half a world between me and Gideon.
Of course I knew that my return might mean nothing to Gideon, and that everything I’ve hoped for was just a silly girl’s dream—I can hardly expect him to remember a promise of love he made ten years ago, as a boy of seventeen—yet the possibility of finding a job on the estate hadn’t seemed so silly.
I never dreamed that no one would be here at all, though. So I can’t stay. But I’ve also got nowhere else to go. There’s nothing left for me in Washington and the little coastal town where my father and I lived, even if I could afford the plane ticket back.
But although there’s nothing for me here, either, I’d like to stay just long enough to say good-bye to the place.
After that…well, I’ll figure something out.
“There’s no need to take me back to the village,” I tell George. “I’ll get out here and walk up to the big house.”