Page 1 of The Homecoming (The De Montforte Brothers #6)

My dear brother, Lucien,

Greetings from our home here across the sea, where all is well, and I remain content and blessed.

Little Aidan is thriving and Ruaidri has already introduced him to boats, something to which he took as readily as a de Montforte to a horse.

Our new home reminds me in some ways of Gingermere, and the smell of salt air brings to mind memories of that place.

Enough of my ramblings and I shall get straight to the point .

.. I am dreadfully missing home and pining for my family.

Ruaidri says he is willing to take me back for a visit now that you and Sir Roger have addressed and settled the very issue that made it impossible for me to return to England.

Of course, my dear husband worries for my safety, never his own, though surely, he’s clever enough to get us safely across the sea despite the fact this tedious war is still dragging on.

We will be leaving here in about a fortnight and hope to be at Blackheath Castle in time to see the roses blooming.

Please let our brothers know we are coming so we can all gather together as one big family; I hope Charles and Andrew are looking forward to finally meeting Ruaidri as much as he is looking forward to finally meeting them. I miss and cannot wait to see you all.

— Nerissa

L ucien de Montforte, the fifth duke of Blackheath, pursed his lips on a little grin, folded the vellum, and holding it lightly between his fingers, moved to the library windows.

He had read the letter—still smelling faintly of his sister’s perfume—a dozen times, maybe a hundred.

Run his fingers over her words, anticipated her homecoming, envisioned it in his mind, and carefully masked a boyish excitement he hadn’t felt in some time.

Would today be the day?

Beyond his dark gaze, the downs fell away to the village of Ravenscombe a mile off in the distance, and a gentle spring breeze stirred the leaves of the old copper beeches that lined the moat.

She would be coming through that gatehouse soon enough.

In time to see the roses blooming , she had written.

He looked at them now, planted around the gatehouse by his long-dead mother.

Waiting, just as he was, tight red, white and pink buds thrusting up through shiny green leaves, ready to burst open any day now.

Waiting. Like the whole family—already gathered here at the ancient family home—were waiting.

Like the whole house with its five centuries of de Montforte history was waiting.

Waiting, for the prodigal daughter to come home.

A lifetime, it felt like, since she’d last walked these ancient rooms and halls. She, who had left here a maiden and was returning with a husband and child. And yet it had only been just over a year and a half.

He cast a glance at the road beyond the gatehouse. It was still empty, and by now the stage up from Southampton would have come and gone on its way to Oxford. Not today, then. Not today...

But soon.

Maybe tomorrow.

He sighed and looked out the ancient, mullioned windows at the lawn outside, his gaze seeking the two people he loved most in this world.

Augustus, his son and heir, played on the lawn, his mother sitting in a chair nearby and watching him with a sharp eye.

Beside her, the red setter Esmerelda lolled, tongue hanging out of her smiling mouth, a few grey hairs now sprinkling her eyebrows.

Overhead, clouds drifted eastward, dropping shadows that rolled steadily in and out of the late afternoon sunlight in an ever-changing array of light and shadow.

Where was she right now?

Would it be today that her feet once again touched the shores of England?

Tomorrow?

Yes, he had “addressed” the matter that had kept his little sister exiled from her childhood home.

Or rather, he thought wryly, fixed it. Her very faith in his supposed supernatural abilities to change the world were not exactly .

.. misplaced. Lucien had accomplished many impossibilities in his life—and would accomplish many more—but getting his little sister off the hook for bludgeoning a Royal Navy seaman in order to save her husband’s life had taken every bit of his considerable influence and skill.

It had been treason, pure and simple, and certain execution had awaited her if she’d ever set foot on England’s shores again.

But the idea of Lady Nerissa de Montforte—that is, Nerissa O’Devir, he thought with a hard-earned acceptance—never seeing her ancestral home or her family again, was something that was beyond Lucien’s ability to imagine or tolerate.

The idea of her child—in blood a de Montforte if in name he was something else— was equally intolerable.

He’d “fixed” it, all right.

And while Lucien might’ve gone to America a year and a half earlier with the sole intention of killing Ruaidri O’Devir and bringing his sister back home, he now knew with a certainty that if the unthinkable happened, and the clever Irish mariner who now captained a vessel for the American Continental Navy were to be caught by the Royal Navy, he would pull out every stop to save him just as he would any other member of the family.

But Ruaidri was wily and smart. He would never get caught.

The clouds thickened, and off in the distance, Lucien watched a dark band of rain moving steadily forward, ready to water those same roses that stood waiting, below. Best to go summon Eva and little Augustus before the clouds opened.

He cast one last wistful glance down the road beyond the gatehouse.

Empty.

He laid the letter on his desk, and turning, went to join his wife and son.