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It’s far past time you took your birthright and social position seriously, Aston. I’ve had enough of my grandson galivanting about the country like a lowborn gypsy. You humiliate and degrade yourself and our family’s noble name with your obstinate, uncouth behavior.

Your latest escapade is beyond the pale. I demand you cease teaching dance and music lessons at that finishing school and call upon me at Sutton House within the week. I have an important matter to put to you.

Defy me in this, Aston, and I promise you the consequences will be dire and far-reaching.

~ Milton Terramier, Viscount Woolbury,

in another threatening letter to his grandson, Aston Terramier

London, England

Upper Clapton Street

Mrs. Longsdon’s Lodging House

10 August 1818 - morning

A nascent sneer skewed Aston Terramier’s mouth upward on one side. Taking a bite of perfectly browned toast smeared with pear preserves, he skimmed the slashing penmanship again.

Galivanting…humiliate…degrade…escapade…beyond the pale…

Dire and far-reaching.

Dear Grandpapa is truly frothing.

It might be worth answering his summons just to see the inflexible curmudgeon turn lobster-faced. Sputtering and steaming like a forgotten kettle on a hot stove, the old codger would point his knobby finger at Aston as he had since Aston’s parents died when he was three.

In his booming voice, his grandsire would call down the Almighty’s wrath—God wisely ignored the insufferable, blasphemous tosspot—and grandfather would launch into a well-rehearsed and impossibly lengthy monologue of Aston’s faults and shortcomings. All of which he’d heard so many times, he could recite them by rote in his sleep should he desire to.

He did not.

Nor would Aston respond to the viscount’s letter. He’d ignore this directive just as he had the dozens of others delivered over the past eight years. Some missives had been curt two-sentence invectives and others pages and pages of acrid diatribe. Each had been burned to cinders and eventually tossed in the rubbish bin.

It wasn’t that Aston couldn’t forgive.

He could and had chosen to forgive for his benefit, not to absolve his grandfather. Unforgiveness led to bitterness, and Aston was determined not to permit his grandfather any influence over his life. Nevertheless, forgiving and forgetting were two vastly different things. Furthermore, once again subjecting himself to his tyrannical grandfather’s demands and expectations was unthinkable.

Toast in hand and his head cocked, Aston paused momentarily in chewing the savory morsel. His gaze fell on his humble yet comfortable accommodations. He could afford better now, but these lodgings had become his home, such as they were.

Mismatched end tables flanked a saggy sofa of an undeterminable shade of reddish-brown beneath the paned window. A dented pewter lamp by which Aston read in the evenings dominated one end table along with three neatly stacked books. As he became quickly bored, he never read one book at a time. A haphazard pile of news sheets, music, and journals topped the other end table.

An oval braided rag rug, faded by time and usage, was centered before the sofa. An overstuffed armchair, even saggier than the sofa and covered with the same peculiar shade of upholstery, sat kitty-corner to the couch and the fire grate.

The only other furnishings in the room were an overflowing bookshelf, a violin in its case, and the scarred table and rickety chair where Aston currently sat. Another chair situated across the table held more books and music sheets.

Situated on the other side of the sagging open door on the far side of the sitting room lay his stark bedchamber containing only a narrow, lumpy bed, a lopsided bureau with a cracked beveled mirror by which to shave, a washstand, and a wardrobe. Two small four-paned windows allowed the morning sun in to warm the drafty room.

He shrugged. The simplicity suited him.

Had it really been eight years since he’d stormed from his grandfather’s opulent mansion with nothing more than the clothes on his back, vowing never to return?

Aye, it had—since Aston’s twentieth birthday.

He’d kept that oath, uttered by a rash, wounded, and enraged young man. Even after all of this time, a surge of molten fury tunneled through his veins at the unwanted memory. By God, he’d never agree to an arranged marriage—to a woman his grandfather picked to boot.

Stop.

Aston deliberately turned his mind from that fateful day. Dredging up unpleasant recollections served no useful purpose. Not, in point of fact, that he looked forward to today’s activities with much more enthusiasm.