Chapter 1

Ivy trudged down the soggy gray street, abandoning any pretense of trying to stay dry. Women selling flowers stood under dripping awnings, and a bus rumbled by in a splash of crimson, street water sloshing in its wake. Men sat on the wet ground, the world flowing around them like rapids around a rock. Some had signs and cups, but most just sat, eyes glazed, faces set. A twinge of guilt ran through her as she hurried past a man with one leg, his trouser tucked around the missing appendage. He had fought for his country in the Great War, and now he was reduced to begging for change on the street, as invisible as the pigeons that flocked around the city. Would that have been James, if he had come back from France? No, of course not. He would have had Ivy. She would have taken care of her brother, no matter what.

Plunging her numb hands deeper into her pockets, Ivy put her head down against the rain. Miserable rainy days were meant for curling up inside with a cup of hot tea and a good book, not tramping across the city with only one's thin coat for protection. Never mind that the interior in question had leaky windows and a cranky landlady, and everything perpetually smelled of mildew. Inside was always preferable, simply by virtue of there being books.

If she'd had the fare money, Ivy would have taken the Underground, but curiosity and more than a little apprehension propelled her through the driving rain and the busy Piccadilly sidewalk. Her hand curled around the paper in her coat pocket, the unexpected missive's words already seared into her mind.

Miss Radcliffe, your presence is respectfully requested at the reading of the late Lord Hayworth's last will and testament.

Signed,

Mr. Cecil Duncan, Esq.

Most things in life could be distilled down into a simple pattern, and there was comfort in that. Whether it was walking the same route to the employment office to receive the same answer every week, or eating the same tinned herrings and biscuits every night, predictability was something Ivy did not take for granted, not after the last few years. But letters like this did not simply appear out of the blue. She didn't know any Lord Hayworth, and certainly not well enough to be included in a reading of his will. Perhaps the solicitor had the wrong Ivy Radcliffe. Well, she would go and clear up the misunderstanding and fall back into her pattern. She skirted a line of men snaking around the front of a benefits office, hats pulled down low over their faces. The wind chased her down a respectable street with modest homes and offices, well-kept front gardens and pubs boasting flowering window baskets.

She stopped in front of a row of brick offices. Checking the soggy note one more time, she took a deep breath and let the brass knocker swing.

The door cracked open, and a small, hawk-nosed woman with spectacles on a chain around her neck peered out into the rain. She looked Ivy up and down, her shrewd gaze taking inventory of Ivy's worn coat and battered shoes. "You have an appointment with Mr. Duncan?"

Ivy shifted her weight, trying to appear respectable despite the rain plastering hair into her eyes. "Yes, ma'am."

The woman nodded for Ivy to follow her and led her into a blessedly dry and warm office. "Have a seat. He'll be right in."

Gratefully, Ivy lowered herself onto a chair and removed her soggy hat. After the damp of the street, the small office was like heaven, with leather chairs and cheery electric lamps, the carpet plush beneath her wet shoes. There was a comfortable, lived-in feeling, with piles of books stacked haphazardly on every shelf, and teacup rings staining the varnished desk. No sooner had she peeled her gloves off and tucked her straggling hair back, than the door opened and a jowly middle-aged man with receding brown hair and a healthy paunch bustled inside.

"Miss Radcliffe, thank you for your patience." He stuck out his hand and she rose to accept it. "I'm Cecil Duncan, solicitor and executor of the Hayworth family," he said in a slightly nasal upper-class accent. "Nasty day out, isn't it? I do hope you didn't have to come too far."

His introduction did little to illuminate any questions she might have had about why she had been summoned. Taking her seat again, Ivy watched him settle behind his desk. "You'll have to forgive my confusion," she said, when he didn't say anything, "but you see, I don't know any Hayworths."

Mr. Duncan had produced a thick envelope from the desk drawer and was in the process of leafing through the contents. At her words, he looked up over his half-moon glasses. "I don't suppose you do, Miss Radcliffe. But the fact of the matter is, you are actually a distant relation of the great family, the last living relation for that matter."

She absorbed this, as he resumed rifling through papers, then shook her head. "I still don't understand. I received this letter, asking me to come here. How did you even find me?"

"Oh, we have our ways." At her dubious expression he broke into a smile. "Your address was publicly listed."

"And this family...the Hayworths, who are they exactly?" Her friend Susan religiously read the society and gossip pages, but Ivy couldn't bring herself to care about the lives of people far above her, and how they spent their time and wasted their money. The Hayworths might have had their name splashed across the pages every week, and Ivy would have been none the wiser.

Setting aside the papers, Mr. Duncan leaned back in his chair, a kindly expression softening his already-round face. "You'll forgive me, Miss Radcliffe. Sometimes we lawyers forget that not everyone operates in the same circles that we do, and that what might be standard procedure for us, is in fact, a life-changing event for someone." He tented his fingers, sighing, and Ivy resisted the urge to leap across the desk and shake the answer from him. "I will do my best to explain it simply," he said finally. "The late Lord Hayworth of Blackwood, Yorkshire, passed away leaving no issue. Tracing the lineage back, it appears that your late father was..." He broke off as he peered down his glasses at the paper in front of him. "Ah, here it is. Your late father was a third cousin of Lord Hayworth's." He paused, as if waiting for Ivy to confirm the impossible story that she was now hearing. When she didn't say anything, he continued. "Of course, the line would pass to your elder brother, but I believe that he is likewise deceased?"

Ivy cleared her throat, her mouth suddenly dry. "Yes."

"My condolences," Mr. Duncan murmured. "Usually in these circumstances the estate would then revert back to the Crown, but I am not sure if you are aware that the laws of investiture have recently changed, meaning that under the new law, women can now inherit titled land."

A faint buzzing began to build at the base of Ivy's neck. Mr. Duncan leaned forward in his seat, his eyes locking on hers over the rim of his glasses. "Miss Radcliffe, you are the sole heir of Blackwood Abbey, seat of the Hayworth family in Yorkshire."

If there was a pattern to everything, then the pattern of Ivy's life was one of deaths and disappointments, and by the age of twenty-five, she had resigned herself to an existence of poverty and struggle. Surely, she would have heard about a wealthy relation before, however distant? Possibilities whizzed before her eyes: being independently wealthy, not needing to beg for a job or find a husband. Comfort. Stability.

"Miss Radcliffe? You look very pale." The lawyer rang a bell and a moment later the spectacled woman appeared again. "Mrs. Harvey, please bring a cup of tea for Miss Radcliffe, she's received some very startling news."

Mrs. Harvey shot a curious look at Ivy before retreating and closing the door behind her. A clock on the mantel ticked. Mr. Duncan was going on about bloodlines and titles, something about a stipulation in the will which required she live at the abbey. But Ivy hardly heard him.

Her eyes drifted closed. How very far away from her monotonous life in the East End she was. She stood, teetering on the edge of a gilded world, cold and hunger and want at her back. What would her parents think if they could see her now?

The plan had been for her mother to emigrate to England and land herself a peer; her American money paired with a revered yet impoverished bloodline. The only problem—and luckily for Ivy—was that she never made it to the altar. Instead, she met and fell in love with a handsome young man who shared her passion for the written word, and happened to be a destitute professor. She sold her train ticket, wired home that she would not be wedding a lord or earl or what have you, and was promptly disowned without a penny.

Ivy's family often teased that Ivy had inherited her American mother's sentimentality. But that was the joke; her mother was pragmatic and unreserved, someone who would make the journey across the Atlantic to the unknown. It was from her father that Ivy inherited her romantic notions, the gentle slant through which she viewed the world. Ivy knew that the Radcliffes were an anomaly, a tightly-knit group that considered themselves friends as well as family, and who enjoyed spending time together in the evenings reading and laughing. No boarding schools or being sent off to work for the Radcliffe children. If they struggled, they struggled together.

What might have been minutes or hours passed when the door opened again, and Mrs. Harvey brought out a tray with wobbling teapot and cups. Ivy received the teacup with shaking hands. She had little appetite after the news, but she wasn't about to pass up something hot to drink.

"There now, that helps, doesn't it?" Mr. Duncan was regarding her with something between apprehension and pity. "Do you have any questions for me? Is there any way in which I might put your mind at ease?"

She thought of her friend Susan and the flat they shared, all the things they'd been through together. Between Ivy's small war pension and Susan's dancing money, they got by, but they were always one missed rent payment away from destitution. Susan insisted that she had no interest in marrying, and Ivy was of the same mind, but how long could two young women realistically survive in a world that closed all the doors to employment to them? Jobs were for the war heroes, the boys who came home. Women might have stepped in to do their bit during the war, but now that it was peacetime, it was back into the kitchens and bedrooms for them.

"You said I would be expected to live in Yorkshire?" Ivy managed to ask. The place brought to mind bleak moors and howling winds, summer heather and castle ruins. Romantic maybe, but far from everything that was familiar to her.

The shadow that flitted across the solicitor's face was quick, but Ivy caught it all the same. "Erm, yes. There is a stipulation in the will that the heir live on the premises."

"Is that normal in these types of situations?"

"It's a little unusual, but not unheard of. It won't be as daunting as it sounds. I believe prior to Lord Hayworth's death, the abbey was being used as an infirmary for the wounded in the war. Many landowners are finding that selling some of the land, or letting the buildings as hotels is more financially judicious. Of course, the house is not what it once was, but it is an abbey of some significance all the same. My firm would be more than happy to help you, perhaps by finding tenants for cottages. Regardless, it should be a pretty source of income for you."

Rain smeared down the window, casting London in dreary monochrome. Automobile horns blared at each other, and she could practically hear the disgruntled mutters of pedestrians navigating their way around ankle-deep puddles. Perhaps a change of scenery would be good for her. Her mother was buried in a small churchyard in Bethnal Green, and her father lay on some anonymous field in Europe where he had fallen. As for James, Ivy didn't know where he was. What did it matter if she mourned them from her flat with the peeling wallpaper, or a cold, empty estate in Yorkshire? She wondered why she had never heard of her relations before. Had the Hayworths lived like kings the whole time her family had been scraping by? Why had they never reached out? Had her parents even known about them? Well, Ivy intended to find out.

Nodding, she reached for the pen. "Where do I sign?"

Mr. Duncan's brows rose. "To accept the bequest? Are you certain you don't want to read everything first? I would hardly be doing my due diligence if I didn't make certain you understood exactly what you are signing."

But she shook her head. Reading the giant packet of papers would only give her time to second-guess herself.

With obvious discomfort at her rash decision, Mr. Duncan flipped through the pages, indicating the lines where she needed to sign. By the time she'd finished, her hand was cramped and smudged with ink.

She sat back in her chair, heart racing. Mr. Duncan scanned over the last of the papers before looking back up. "Congratulations, Miss Radcliffe. You're now Lady Hayworth, sole owner, proprietor, and heiress of Blackwood Abbey."