Chapter 1 – A Man Appears in the Dovecote
Lady Ophelia Darlington stabbed at the garden soil with a trowel as if it had personally insulted her family name. The early spring mist curled around her ankles like a cat begging for breakfast—if cats were made of water vapor and disappointment.
“Five more creditors yesterday,” she muttered to a reluctant tulip bulb. “And not one of them offering to accept payment in ancestral guilt or moldy tapestries.”
She jammed the bulb into the earth with unnecessary force. The Darlington estate finances resembled a game of cards played by drunken mathematicians—all numbers, no logic, and somehow everyone was cheating. Including, apparently, the tulips, which had decided to bloom approximately half as tall as last year, as if economizing along with the rest of the household.
A white goose waddled past, eyeing her with the judicial disapproval of a magistrate who’d caught her dancing on Sunday. Toni—because of course the beast had a name; Mrs. Plym insisted all the estate’s creatures be properly christened, as if that somehow made their existence less irritating—deposited a precisely aimed dollop of goose excrement directly atop the freshly planted bulb.
“How splendid,” Ophelia said dryly. “Fertilizer. Just what the gardener ordered. Though he quit last month, so I suppose you’re reporting to nobody. Much like the rest of us.”
Toni honked once, a sound that suggested both imperial decree and gastrointestinal distress.
Ophelia straightened, pressing a soil-stained hand to the small of her back. At twenty-eight, she was already developing the hunched posture of someone who spent too much time examining ledgers by candlelight and wondering which ancestral treasure might fetch enough at auction to repair the roof. Not that there was much left to sell, unless London suddenly developed a market for moth-eaten tapestries depicting scenes from hunts where the prey looked suspiciously like the hunter’s mother-in-law.
The mist parted just enough to reveal Darlington Hall in all its faded glory. The east wing was developing a distinct southerly lean, like a drunk uncle at Christmas dinner. The roof resembled a patchwork quilt sewn by someone with cataracts and vengeance in their heart. And the windows—well, glaziers were expensive, and newspapers were cheap, which explained why half the diamond panes on the second floor were replaced with old editions of the county gazette.
“Cousin Ambrose wants it all,” she informed a nearby rosebush. “The ancestral pile. The unpaid bills. The geese with notions above their station.”
The rosebush, displaying more sense than the average Darlington, kept its thorny opinions to itself.
“I need only keep the place standing until—” She paused, frowning at the leaning dovecote in the distance. Had that decrepit structure just… groaned?
Dovecotes, in Ophelia’s limited experience, did not typically vocalize their structural complaints. They merely collapsed with a dignified sigh, like impoverished gentlemen at the end of a particularly trying dinner party.
A second groan confirmed that either the dovecote had developed an unprecedented talent for opera, or someone was inside. Someone who, judging by the timbre of their discomfort, was not a dove.
Ophelia gripped her trowel like a dagger and strode toward the structure, her gardening boots squelching in mud the consistency of yesterday’s porridge. If it was those village boys again, using her property as a staging ground for their mock battles, she would deliver a lecture so scorching their ears would smoke for a week.
The dovecote door hung askew, its hinges having surrendered to rust and gravity sometime during the previous decade. Ophelia nudged it open with her foot, trowel raised in a manner that would have looked threatening if the tool hadn’t been adorned with a cheerful painted daisy on its handle.
“Whoever you are,” she announced in her best this-is-why-the-servants-quit voice, “you have precisely ten seconds to explain yourself before I summon the constable and his very enthusiastic dog.”
The interior of the dovecote was dim, smelled of feathers and regret, and contained a surprising number of items that were not doves. Specifically, it contained one (1) man, who was:
a) Sprawled across the floor boards b) Missing a shirt c) Clutching what appeared to be the broken weather vane from the south gable d) Smiling at her as if she were a long-lost relative with a recently updated will
“At last,” the man said, his voice carrying the precise mixture of relief and condescension that Ophelia associated with visiting bishops discovering the tea service. “A subject with sense.”
Ophelia blinked. Then, finding that insufficient to process the situation, she blinked again.
The man sat up, revealing a torso that suggested someone had taken Greek statuary as a personal challenge. His dark hair fell across his forehead in the casual disarray that Ophelia’s own hair only achieved after a hurricane. Despite apparently sleeping in a structure designed for birds, he somehow managed to look as if he’d just stepped out of a fashion plate—albeit one where shirts were optional and weather vanes were the accessory of the season.
“You,” Ophelia said, pointing her trowel at the exact center of his chest, “are trespassing.”
“Technically impossible,” the man replied with a smile that had probably extracted at least three dowries and a small duchy in its career. “One cannot trespass in one’s own dominion.”
“This is Darlington land. Unless you’re suggesting you’re Cousin Ambrose—which, given that Ambrose is gout-ridden and resembles a potato that’s been left in a damp cellar for a month, seems unlikely—you are, by definition, trespassing.”
The man rose to his feet in a single, fluid movement that made Ophelia deeply suspicious. People with legitimate reasons to be in dovecotes generally didn’t move like cats in a cream factory. He executed a bow so elaborate it required its own postal code.
“Prince Edward Augustus Foxcroft,” he announced, the words carrying the weight of royal proclamation, “of Glowerhaven.”
Ophelia lowered her trowel fractionally. “Glowerhaven,” she repeated.
“Indeed.”
“The principality of Glowerhaven.”
“The very same.”
“Which is located…?”
The man—Prince Edward, if one were inclined toward credulity, which Ophelia most certainly was not—waved the weather vane vaguely eastward. “Across the narrow sea. Just beyond the Isle of—” He frowned. “Well, that’s rather the issue.”
“The issue being that Glowerhaven doesn’t exist?”
“The issue being that my twin brother has erased it from the maps. Quite literally. Had the royal cartographers draw right over it. Replaced it with an extra-large sea serpent, last I checked.”
Ophelia considered the options. Either she was speaking to:
- A madman
- A very ambitious con artist
- Actual royalty who had decided her dilapidated dovecote was the ideal accommodation for their exile
None of these possibilities recommended themselves.
“I think,” she said carefully, “that you may have had a head injury.”
“Several,” he agreed cheerfully. “Most recently when my gondola capsized off your charming coastline. Before that, when the royal goatkeeper revealed his treachery. And before that, at my seventh birthday celebration when my brother replaced the ceremonial orb with a hornet’s nest. He’s always been the creative one.”
He took a step closer, still clutching the weather vane like a scepter. In the dim light, his eyes were the precise green-grey of expensive jade, or possibly of the mold currently flourishing in the Darlington Hall wine cellar.
“I’ve been betrayed,” he continued, his voice dropping to a theatrical whisper. “Framed for crimes I did not commit. My own twin—identical, though he lacks my distinguished chin cleft—has seized the throne. The treasury. The ceremonial ermine underwear.”
“The what?”
“Not important. What matters is that I’ve found sanctuary. Your garden—” He inhaled deeply, as if the scents of mud and goose droppings were the finest perfume. “Your garden smells like safety. And regret. But mostly safety.”
“My garden,” Ophelia said firmly, “is private property. As is this dovecote, decrepit though it may be. And you, sir—prince or pauper or lunatic—are leaving. Immediately.”
He looked genuinely distressed for the first time. “But I’ve only just arrived. And the journey was most taxing. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to paddle a gondola with a weather vane? The aerodynamics are entirely wrong.”
“Not my problem. Out.” She pointed toward the door with her trowel.
Instead of moving toward the exit, the man stepped closer and reached for her hand. Ophelia jerked backward, raising the trowel to strike.
“If you attempt to kiss my hand,” she warned, “I shall be forced to demonstrate why the Darlington women have historically excelled at croquet.”
He froze, then slowly retracted his hand. “My apologies, Lady…?”
“Darlington. Lady Ophelia Darlington. Owner of this estate, custodian of its debts, and current holder of a trowel with your name on it if you don’t remove yourself from my property within the next thirty seconds.”
A soft honk drew their attention to the doorway. Toni the goose stood there, neck extended, blue eyes fixed on the stranger with the intensity of a tax collector spotting an undeclared income stream.
The man’s face lit up. “Ah,” he breathed. “The ambassador arrives.”
Ophelia looked from the goose to the man and back again. “That,” she said slowly, “is a goose. Not an ambassador. Its primary diplomatic functions are eating grass and terrorizing the kitchen maid.”
“You underestimate her greatly,” the man said solemnly. “In Glowerhaven, the white geese are sacred messengers of the crown. Their judgment is binding in all courts save the High Chamber of Gosling Appeals.”
Toni honked once—a sound that, to Ophelia’s increasing alarm, did sound unnervingly like a formal decree.
“Out,” Ophelia said, grabbing the man’s arm. “Now. Before I fetch something larger than a trowel.”
She attempted to drag him toward the door, but he slumped dramatically, becoming approximately as movable as a sack of wet flour. “My lady,” he whispered, “I beg sanctuary. Just until the equinox. Or until my brother is devoured by the sea serpent he so thoughtfully added to the maps. Whichever comes first.”
“The equinox is weeks away!”
“A mere blink in the grand pageant of sovereignty.”
Ophelia released his arm and stepped back, realization dawning. “You’re one of Bartleby’s people, aren’t you? Is this some scheme to mock the Darlington finances? To pressure me into selling the east pasture?”
The man looked genuinely confused. “I know no Bartleby. Unless—” His eyes widened. “Is he in league with the goatkeeper? Does he have access to ceremonial dairy products? This could change everything.”
“Right.” Ophelia straightened her gardening gloves. “I’m going back to the house now. When I return in one hour, you will be gone. If you’re not, I shall introduce you to Constable Hobb, who may not look particularly threatening but has a remarkable talent for appearing exactly when you least want him to.”
She turned on her heel and marched out of the dovecote, ignoring both the man’s protests and Toni’s judgmental honk.
The mist had thinned during their conversation, revealing a garden that somehow looked even more bedraggled in the clear light of day. Like the Darlington finances, it improved considerably when viewed through a blurring agent.
Ophelia strode up the uneven path to the main house, her mind racing. If the stranger was indeed in Bartleby’s employ, this was a new low in their neighbor’s campaign to acquire Darlington land. If he was simply a madman… well, the countryside was full of them, wasn’t it? Something about all that fresh air and cow proximity drove people to eccentricity.
She entered through the kitchen door, acknowledging Mrs. Plym with a terse nod.
“Tea,” she said. “And perhaps a splash of brandy.”
Mrs. Plym raised an eyebrow but reached for the tea caddy without comment. After fifteen years of service to the Darlington household, there was very little that could surprise her—though a request for brandy before noon came remarkably close.
“There’s a man in the dovecote,” Ophelia explained, removing her gloves. “Shirtless. Clutching a weather vane. Claiming to be a prince of a place that doesn’t exist.”
“Ah,” Mrs. Plym said, as if this were a perfectly reasonable occurrence for a Thursday morning. “Will he be staying for luncheon?”
“He will not be staying at all. I’ve given him one hour to vacate the premises before I fetch the constable.”
“Pity. Cook’s made a rabbit pie that would impress even royalty.” Mrs. Plym poured the tea, then uncorked a bottle of brandy that had survived the last three generations of Darlingtons primarily by tasting terrible enough to discourage consumption.
Ophelia accepted the cup, took a fortifying sip, and grimaced. The tea tasted of desperation and poor financial decisions—much like everything else at Darlington Hall.
“He’ll be gone by noon,” she muttered.
Outside the window, Toni the goose raised her head, fixed one baleful blue eye on Ophelia, and honked in clear disagreement.