Page 1 of Return to Satterthwaite Court

Chapter One

London, England

December 1843

Lieutenant Charles Heywood came to a halt in front of the holly- and ivy-festooned window of the draper’s shop. He was just about to enter—intent on purchasing Christmas presents for his mother and younger sister—when a small, filthy gray mongrel dog darted past him.

It was a busy day in Bond Street. Shoppers bundled up against the cold in heavy topcoats and cloaks hurried up one side and down the other. Their arms were laden with parcels, their puffs of breath visible in the frosty December air. Carriages and cabs rattled by them through the mud. Drivers jockeyed for position amid the heavy afternoon traffic that clogged the center of the street. Pedestrians crossed at their peril.

But the thin little dog exercised no caution.

He flew straight into the path of an oncoming conveyance, seemingly set on catching the wheels of a passing carriage and four.

A jolt of alarm spurred Charles into action. He surged into the street, narrowly avoiding being flattened by a coach himself. Vehicles veered around him. The muck from the flying hooves of the horses spattered his greatcoat

“Bloody fool!” one of the drivers shouted.

Charles didn’t stop to apologize. The pup was on the move and Charles along with him.

He had many flaws, undeniably, but no one had ever accused him of failing to be a man of action. It was what he’d chiefly been known for during his time away. Eight years altogether, spent serving in Her Majesty’s Navy. Always the first into the fray, no matter the risk to life and limb.

It was a quality he’d hoped to put behind him now he was finally back in England. He’d had enough of swashbuckling adventure. He was ready to settle down to a quiet, uneventful life.

His ship had only docked in London yesterday morning. It was but a brief stop in his journey. Tomorrow, he’d be traveling home to join his parents and sister at Heywood House, their family estate in Somersetshire. A long-awaited reunion. A difficult one as well.

He’d seen his family only a handful of times since leaving Somersetshire eight years ago. Just a few short visits managed while he was on leave. It had been four years since the last one. Then, Charles and his father had argued, relitigating the past with no little acrimony. His father had never wanted him to be a soldier or a sailor, risking life and limb in service to the crown. Indeed, he’d strictly forbidden Charles from joining up.

But Charles had no thought for that now. Nor for the Christmas presents he was meant to be buying in a feeble effort to atone for the pain of his absence. There was only the dog and the immediate threat of danger.

Charles reached out to grab the muddy miscreant, but the little beast nimbly darted away, snapping first at the wheels of one carriage and then another.

The dog was in the throes of the chase, heedless of the crushing danger of the wheels or the steel-shod hooves of the horses. It was a madness in some creatures. Charles had observed it before. Raised in the country among his mother’s pack of unruly dogs (a ragtag group of dubious lineage and character), he’d learned from the cradle to count animals as his friends. He’d seen them at their best—and at their worst.

But this snarling canine was nobody’s friend. He didn’t appear to reciprocate any fellow feeling toward humankind at all.

Reaching the opposite side of the street, the dog turned his focus on the bustling shoppers. He weaved through the crowd, snapping at a passing woman’s skirts and baring his teeth in a threatening matter. Never mind that he couldn’t have been more than half a stone in weight.

“Away with you!” An elderly lady in a plumed bonnet batted at him with her silk-ruffled umbrella. “Do something, Smithers,” she cried to the liveried footman accompanying her, “before he ruins my hem!”

Obedient to his mistress, the footman swung his foot to kick the dog back into the street.

The wiry little mongrel was too canny. Nimbly dodging the footman’s boot, the dog set his sights on another pair of shoppers up ahead—two stylish young ladies walking arm in arm. His gimlet eyes fixed on the bell-shaped mazarine velvet skirts of the smaller lady’s expensive-looking carriage gown. Mayhem was plainly on his mind.

With a sigh of resignation, Charles moved to intervene.

He was thinking more of the dog than the young lady. A shortcoming of his, to be sure. It was one that arose as much from upbringing as inclination. His compassion for animals frequently overshadowed his concern for the comfort of well-to-do human beings.

“Pardon me, ma’am,” he began.

The velvet-clad young lady turned to look at him in the selfsame moment the little dog latched onto her skirts. Her eyes widened in surprise.

They were blue eyes.

Impossibly blue.

Charles’s words of warning died on his lips. For an instant, he forgot where he was.

It was only for an instant.