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IT WAS by dint of my upbringing that I had spent scarcely any time beyond the limits of London at the age of twenty-eight, aside from the Eton schooling that a scholarship had paid for and the Cambridge education that had precipitated my career as a lawyer.

The son of a retired English colonel and a woman from Karachi he had fallen in love with, I enjoyed a comfortable, but not lavish childhood, a middle-class existence that was nonetheless far less than I thought I deserved.

Having finished school nearly three years prior, I had been gainfully employed as a lawyer since.

I had seen no reason to leave London, my cozy flat, my familiar haunts, for any considerable amount of time.

A few days in France, a week or two in a country pile owned by some colleague or distant friend—neither of these constituted a true vacation from London, and as another sweltering summer approached, I found that for once I was struggling to imagine another three months hunched over the desk of my crowded law firm.

It was barely June, and I could already taste the heat, feel the human crush of the city.

Most of the cases I had wouldn’t go before a judge until August at the earliest, and the paperwork could all go where I went.

There seemed little point in the years of work I’d done to become financially stable if I couldn’t take some time away from the office to gallivant during the summer months, but as my desire to go away intensified, my uncertainty regarding where to go did the same.

Leaving the country was my favorite choice, a little jaunt down to the continent within my grasp… and then the letter came.

For years after, I would wonder at the fact that the letter from Charles came at the same time my need to escape London turned into a full-blown obsession.

My daily routine was the same—breakfast, work, a hansom cab home—but that day it had simply been too much.

The heat was suffocating, the smell coming off the Thames stronger than usual, a shirt that had been comfortable when I’d left home now scratching the back of my neck where it met my skin.

The thought of subjecting myself to this until the fall chill set in was unbearable, and by the time I returned home I was in a truly foul mood.

“A letter’s come for you,” was the first thing my landlady said as I stepped inside. She held a small cream-colored envelope in my direction. “It’ll be that Ashford boy, I reckon.”

A letter from Charles was a balm I hadn’t known I’d needed.

Charles and I had been friends since Eton, and our communication was both regular and lengthy, to the extent that the letter I held in my hand felt measly compared to the letters I’d grown accustomed to.

However, Charles had an excellent habit of visiting me when he was in the city, and a short letter from him, perfectly timed at the beginning of June, was hopefully an indication that he cared to do just that.

“Thank you,” was the only thing I could say to avoid a deeper conversation, taking the letter from my landlady before running my thumb over my name written in the deep blue ink Charles favored.

I headed up to my flat on the top floor, a small and comfortable apartment that had once belonged to my landlady’s son, and walked over to my desk under the window.

The seal on the reverse of the envelope—a simple “C.A” in the same dark blue wax as his ink—came away easily against my ivory-handled letter opener and I was soon holding Charles’s letter, written in a looping script I knew so well.

June 1, 1851

Dear Tom,

I hope this letter finds you well. I write from Ashford Hall, a place I am sure you are familiar with through numerous stories regarding my childhood home.

I realized a few days ago that despite these years of friendship, I’ve never once thought to invite you here.

I know your practice in London is busy, but the summer months are never pressing for the courts, and I am missing you terribly.

My brother is a bore and a man can only ride his horse around the grounds so much before he tires of being alone.

If it isn’t too much to ask, there is a room for you here, along with a balcony where you can work on your cases if you’d like.

I think it would make both of our summers far more entertaining if we were to spend it together rather than apart.

I await your response, and if you decide to say no, just realize that I will spend the hottest months of the year in abject misery without my best friend.

Love,

Charlie

I could only smile, setting the letter down on the desk, leaning back in my chair, and looking out the window at London sprawling before me.

At that time I was living in a fairly nice part of London, better than the neighborhood in which I grew up, but even there I felt innately smothered; as culturally vibrant as the city was, the idea of passing up the opportunity to spend a few months in the country, the air fresh and the company pleasant, was utterly unimaginable.

I penned my response quickly in the spidery cursive that had served me well when taking copious notes in school but now meant I struggled to have my writing understood.

I, of course, gave Charles a hasty yes, with the promise that I would be in Somerset no later than the following Monday after having the opportunity to tie up some loose ends in London.

Luckily, there was something about summer that made people amenable to requests they wouldn’t have granted had they been made in the more oppressive winter months.

By Friday at the end of work, myself and a carriage filled with various boxes were on our way to Somerset.

The journey was, thankfully, not a particularly onerous one, although it was long compared to what could have been accomplished by train, and by the time the sun was setting over the country estate on Sunday evening, I was crossing the threshold into the esteemed Ashford Hall.

The stories Charles had told me over the years did not do the place justice in the slightest. As the estate was in the center of a massive forest, it took nearly half an hour to make it from the front gate posts to the inner walls, great stones meant to keep out whatever ancient enemies the Ashford family had stood against—although if I was being quite honest, I didn’t believe there were any.

The house was older than I could place, but there were more modern bits built onto it, including a cottage that sat at the edge of the woods for the deceased lord’s former manservant and his family, the construction of which an undertaking I remembered hearing about my first year at Eton with Charles.

Ivy sprawled up the stone facade of the house, including the roof of a large greenhouse attached to the manor that was currently reflecting the setting sun, and the sight of the manor home left me positively breathless.

It brought to mind some great French palace, sprawling and beautiful, and for a few moments I was certain I had been brought to the wrong estate.

I had never doubted that Charles had come from wealth, but this seemed an impossible home for a man like my friend to have been raised in.

The carriage driver stopped in front of the dual stone steps that led up to the home and before I could even dismount, Charles had thrown one of the great oak doors open and was hurrying down towards me.

Knowing him, he had undoubtedly been hovering by the front door awaiting my arrival, and the idea that someone had been so eagerly anticipating me was enough to bring a lump to my throat, the loneliness of London having been endured for too long.

I pushed the carriage door open, much to the chagrin of the driver, and stepped out onto solid ground for the first time since leaving the inn that morning.

There was no time to recover from the rumbling of the road before Charles had me in a bone-crushing embrace.

It was rather like being smothered by an oversized blond dog.

Charles had always been bigger than I was, my own good looks attributable to a slim build and dark, curly hair and no great robustness.

Six feet and two inches, Charles was ash blond with wide green eyes and broad shoulders that had served him well when we’d been at school and other boys had been particularly mouthy about Charles’s lack of a mother or my lack of a title.

I’m embarrassed to admit that despite how ungentlemanly the hug was, I rapidly hugged him back, tangling my fingers in the fine fabric of his white shirt.

It was nice to be greeted with so much excitement.

This sort of affection was rare, my friends in London newer, posher, less prone to physicality like this, and I couldn’t help but soak it in until Charles held me at arm’s length. “You’re far too thin, Tom.”

“You saw me in April, you liar,” I said, laughing as I finally removed myself from Charles’s grasp.

The carriage driver had already begun to unload the boxes, one of the stable boys assisting him in carrying them inside, and I realized for the first time that this was actually happening, that I was here for the summer.

A true country estate, something out of an Austen novel, and it was mine to explore.

“You’re sure that this isn’t an imposition? ”

“Positive,” Charles said. “Come along, I’ll give you the grand tour and show you to your suite.”

“Suite?” I asked, following Charles up the steps and pausing briefly to thank the carriage driver; I knew the man wouldn’t expect it, but after traveling with someone for nearly three days, it felt like the correct thing to do. “I hardly need an entire suite.”