Chapter 1

1

LONDON, ENGLAND, PRESENT DAY

E llen Bowe took the letter out of her purse and carefully unfolded it, just as she had done a dozen or more times since flying out of New York City twenty-four hours ago. The embossed letterhead read Norton, Ogilvy, Patton-Boggs, and Wormsley and it had looked official enough that Ellen's first thought when she received it was that someone was suing her. People sued for everything these days. Coffee that was too hot, ice that was too cold. Bodily harm and lasting trauma from a playful poke in the arm. Anything to scam a few dollars out of the legal system.

However, when her heart stopped pounding long enough to read past the letterhead, she realized it had originated in London, England, where they had barristers and solicitors, not lawyers or attorneys.

The letter, in essence, said that representatives of the law firm had been conducting an exhaustive search to locate a Miss Enndolynn Bowe. They were pleased and hopeful to have found her currently residing in New York and would she be so kind as to contact the office with regards to an important matter involving an inheritance.

The name on Ellen's birth certificate was, indeed, Enndolynn—an old family name she had been told—but she had never gone by anything other than Ellen. She had waited a full week before making the overseas call, a week during which she had used the internet to verify the existence of Norton, Ogilvy, Patton-Boggs, and Wormsley, and more importantly, to determine if one of her prankster friends had come up with the hoax.

The particular solicitor she was to contact was Ethan Wormsley III, a name which brought to mind a pencil-thin, straight-backed Englishman in a pristine three-piece pinstripe suit from Saville Row with the stereotypical gold pocket watch and chain draped across his vest.

To her knowledge, she had no living relatives, either in America or England. She had been told both grandparents on her father's side had died in a car accident. Her father had been an only child and, as far as she knew, had emigrated to America in the early sixties. He had stayed single, enjoying the bachelor life, until his late fifties, when he met and married Ellen's mother Anna, another solitary soul who had been raised by foster parents. Ellen had been two when Anna had been pregnant with a second child, but there had been early complications and she had died of a blood clot. Since her father's death five years ago Ellen was an orphan in the truest sense of the word.

A penniless, twenty-six-year-old orphan who worked two jobs just to pay her half of the rent on a tiny two-bedroom apartment in a not-very-savory part of Queens. Her roommate, Payton, was four years older but ten years younger in maturity. Half of the time when Ellen came through the door after working long hours at both jobs, the place reeked of weed and booze, and Payton was humping someone she picked up at a bar.

None of Ellen's friends, when cornered and threatened with unimaginable retribution, owned up to playing a prank. None gave her any reason to doubt their word; even Payton shook her purple hair in vehement denial.

And so she had called the number listed on the letterhead and spoke to Ethan Wormsley III. He had been pleased to make contact as they had been searching for some months and he had damn near given up hope of finding the right Enndolynn Bowe.

"There are more Enndolynn Bowes?"

"Bowe is a popular surname," he assured her. "Medieval serfs often took the name of their towns or parishes or farmsteads as their surname, and there was a village of Bowes in Durham around the time of the Conquest. Another possibility for the origin of the name, should your heritage trace back to Ireland, is the Celtic word ó Buadhaigh meaning victorious. I tend to lean toward the latter, due to the fact that the name Enndolynn would appear to have also originated in Ireland. If you are interested, we can send you a copy of your family's genealogy—we have managed to trace the name as far back as 1273. I have the chart here somewhere I'm sure. More recently, however, it was your grandmother's middle name."

Ellen frowned. She hadn't known that.

The sound of shuffling papers brought the subject back to the contents of the letter.

"You mentioned something about an inheritance?"

He cleared his throat. "Ah, yes. The matter of the inheritance is something we should prefer to discuss in person, as it is quite considerable and comes with several somewhat unusual conditions before it can be executed. We would, of course, be happy to arrange for your flight and accommodations at your earliest convenience."

Ellen was taken aback. "It isn't convenient at all. I can't just drop everything and fly off to England. I have two jobs, Mr. Wormsley, neither of which would appreciate me flying anywhere at short notice. I doubt they would even keep the positions open until I returned."

"Indeed." The sound of more paper shuffling came through the wire. "You are currently a barista in a coffee shop during the day and in the evenings tend bar at an establishment called Outrage?"

She felt herself blush for some unknown reason. Both jobs were perfectly respectable and paid the bills, which, even living in Queens, were considerable. At last glance, however, she had the grand flying-off-to-England sum of thirty-two dollars and change in her bank account.

"I can assure you, Miss Bowe, you will be handsomely compensated for taking time away from your work. As well, there is a stipulation in the documents that states you will be further remunerated for any trouble or inconvenience should the terms of the contract prove to be unacceptable."

"Contract? I thought you said it was an inheritance?"

"I also said there were some unusual conditions attached. Really, Miss Bowe, the matter would be explained with much greater clarity in person. You will not be disappointed; I can almost guarantee it."

And that had been the key word, Ellen supposed as she stood outside number 42 Morton Mews. Almost .

It might have been curiosity. Or it might have been the night she walked through the apartment door to see a crowd of rowdy, drunken strangers swilling beer and hard liquor, drifting through clouds of acrid smoke like blank-eyed zombies that made up her mind. It might also have been the weight of student loans that had forced her to work two jobs. A Bachelor of Science degree looked good on paper, but meant very little when your major was Comprehensive Design.

Whatever had influenced her, two weeks later she found herself seated in first class on a British Airways flight from New York to Heathrow. If nothing else, the champagne service was excellent and the air hostesses attentive to her needs. The plush leather seat was so comfortable she actually fell asleep at one point, something she had never been able to do crammed into coach class elbow to elbow with people on either side.

Most of her five-foot eight-inch height was in her legs, and while they looked marvellously long and lean and tanned in a bikini, having them jammed into a twelve-inch space between airline seats, unable to move or stretch or change position was sheer hell, regardless the length of the flight.

On this particular plane, there were only eight seats in first class and she did not have to even see another passenger if she chose to slide the privacy panel closed. The television screen was bigger than the one she had at home. The seat folded out to a full-size single bed, with slippers and a plush blanket provided. No one came by rattling carts or tossing a bag of stale pretzels at her. She ate salmon and roasted fingerling potatoes and luscious little French pastries. She stretched her legs out and propped her feet on a footstool and only felt slightly underdressed in her jeans and blouse.

A clearly shocked Payton had talked her out of taking too many clothes because hell! Wormsley had sent her an email deposit for two thousand dollars to cover expenses! She was going to London! She could buy what she needed there and fill two suitcases with the latest trends for the trip back!

It was not often Ellen heeded the fashion advice of someone who dyed her hair purple and had tattoos on both arms, but on this occasion, she squished a pair of large soft-sided weekenders into her suitcase and packed only the bare necessities around them: underwear, an extra pair of jeans, a couple of T-shirts, two blouses, and a wage-blowing navy micro-silk suit for her meeting with Ethan Wormsley III.

The one thing she had forgotten was an umbrella, but the quite glorious and God-could-only-guess-how-expensive Savoy Hotel had not only provided an umbrella, on this not so glorious rainy day, but a limo and driver to take her to Morton Mews.

All things considered, she looked presentable. Her shoulder-length blonde hair had not turned into a ball of frizz… yet. Her make-up regime consisted of mascara to highlight the striking sky blue of her eyes, and pinkish-nude lipstick that advertised it would last a full twenty-four hours. There was hardly a wrinkle in her suit, somewhat justifying the extravagant price she had paid.

The car had dropped her at a building that looked as if it had come straight out of a Regency romance novel. Three storeys of whitewashed stucco and six-foot-tall casement windows towered over her, the building being one of a long, gently curved line of rowhouses that must have been, at one time, quite elegant homes. The front door was weathered oak flanked on either side by beautifully ornate wrought-iron lamps that wouldn't have lasted a night in Queens without being stolen. A dignified brass plate affixed to the door stated simply: Norton, Ogilvy, Patton-Boggs, and Wormsley .

The limo driver held the umbrella and escorted her up the five steps to the covered stoop and opened the door for her. He touched his cap and told her he would be waiting when she was ready to return to the hotel.

Ellen stood inside a moment, letting her eyes adjust to the dark wood panelling on the walls and the twenty-foot-high ceilings.

"Can I ‘elp you, dearie?"

The voice came out of a small reception room on her right. A woman who looked as old as the building was seated behind an enormous desk that held five phones and an assortment of metal filing trays. Her face was as round as a melon, the skin as wrinkled as a roadmap. Her cheeks were rouged generously with smudges of the same shocking red lipstick that exaggerated the shape of her mouth. Bleached blonde hair was teased into a towering beehive and lacquered with enough spray to withstand a category three hurricane.

Ellen moistened her guaranteed lick-proof lips. "Ellen Bowe. I have an appointment with Mr. Wormsley?"

"You asking me or telling me, luv?"

Ellen fumbled to produce the letter again but the woman chuckled. "You're a wee bit early. We weren't expectin' you till eleven. Have a seat, dearie. I'll tell ‘is Lordship you're ‘ere."

She picked up one of the phones and pushed a button. Ellen glanced at her watch. It read twelve minutes to eleven.

English precision, or English humor?

She chose one of the antique brocaded chairs that occupied the corner of the room and instantly sank so deeply into the unsprung seat that she feared her knees would hit her chin .

"He's just finishin' up a phone call, luv, but he'll be right with you."

Ellen nodded and tried to discreetly adjust her seat. "Thank you."

"No trouble a'tall, luv. Is it still raining outside? Oh, no need to answer, I can see by the state of your hair it must be. Three days now it's rained solid. An' before that, naught but cloud, cloud, cloud. Ha'nt see the sun in a fortnight, I vow. Ah, ‘ere comes His Lordship now, I can tell by the creak of his great lumbering footsteps along the floorboards."

Thankfully the chair had robust arms so Ellen was able to heave herself out of the brocade pit just as Ethan Wormsley III appeared in the doorway. Her image of a tall, elegantly dressed English solicitor, fabricated from a voice over the phone, was not even close to the short, portly gentleman who stood before her now. Bald save for a fringe of gray hairs that stuck out every which way, he wore corduroy pants held up over his rotund girth with bright red suspenders. His jacket was tweed with suede patches at the elbows that had probably been the height of fashion a few decades before. His face was perfectly round, his nose short and bulbous with a roseate tip; his eyes were a twinkly hazel behind the bottle-thick glasses that magnified them to twice their size.

They seemed to fill the entire circle of the lenses now as he stared. For a long, awkward moment there was nothing but silence and the kind of stare that made Ellen wonder if she had something hanging from her nose.

"Mr. Wormsley?"

The spell broke and he hastened forward.

"My dear, my dear, my dear." His handshake was firm and friendly, as warm as his smile. "So lovely to meet you, Miss Bowe. How wonderful you could make the trip. I trust the flight was not too taxing and the accommodations at the Savoy are adequate?"

The ‘accommodations' were a suite and could easily have fit ten of her Queens apartments inside.

"Everything has been wonderful, thank you. The flight, the hotel… everything."

"Delighted to hear it, my dear. I left the arrangements to Veronica, and she rarely gives cause for a rebuke, what?"

Veronica snorted like a bull. "The old pinchfist would've put you up in a B n' B, if he'd ‘ad aught to do with it."

"Yes, well. We shall have some tea, if you please, Ronnie. And some of those lovely French macarons from across the way."

"It's rainin', in case you ‘adn't noticed."

Wormsley smiled. "Just wrap yourself in your batwings, dear. They will keep you dry." He turned to Ellen. "If you will follow me."

He led the way out and down a wide hallway, the century-old oak boards protesting loudly with every step. His office was on the left, very large, very cluttered floor to ceiling with shelves full of legal books. There was a fireplace at one end and opposite it, a massive hand-tooled desk that had to be several hundred years old. Twin brown leather chairs were positioned in front of it with a small antique side table between them. Two reading lamps were on the desk, both shaped like rearing dragons. The carpet underfoot was a faded kaleidoscope pattern in burgundy and blue. There were three tall windows facing out onto a small garden and although one of the sashes was open a few inches, the air was stuffy and faintly tinged with the scent of bay rum. Clever sleuth that she was, Ellen traced the source to a display rack on the shelf behind Wormsley's desk that held a large assortment of curved pipes .

There were framed pictures scattered amongst the books, and in a niche over the fireplace, an enormous oil painting of a battle raging at sea between two Spanish galleons and an English frigate.

"Sir Francis Drake fending off the invasion of the Spanish Armada," Wormsley said, noting her interest. "August 8, 1588."

"It's magnificent."

"A reproduction, of course. The original hangs in the National Maritime Museum here in London. I had it in my possession for a short while, bought at auction, but I thought the museum should have it. For posterity, yes? Please, do sit down, I promise you won't sink into the floor. I have had well-meaning intentions to get new chairs for the reception hall, but it gives Veronica such pleasure to see grown men fall between the springs that I don't dare."

He waited until Ellen was seated before he plopped himself into his own padded desk chair and swivelled around to fetch a thick blue file folder off the shelf. "Pleasantries aside, no doubt you would like to know why you have been brought halfway around the world?"

"I have been wracking my brain trying to think of anyone I might be related to on this side of the ocean, but I've drawn a complete blank."

He smiled as he opened the folder. "You have no siblings, correct?"

"Correct."

"Your grandfather's name was Elliot? Grandmother Gweneth? Mother Anna," he paused to share a brief grin, "and father William."

"You seem to know all of this already. I'm not sure—"

"Please do bear with me." He peered at her through his glasses with huge owlish eyes. "All will become clear in a few moments, what?"

"What?"

Wormsley looked confused for a moment, then smiled. "Oh yes. Figure of speech, I'm afraid. Bad habit gained from too many years in High Court. I believe you Americans would say: Ya know?"

When she didn't respond to his very bad Jersey accent, he cleared his throat and consulted his file again. "Your father left England in 1965. Were you aware of the circumstances that prompted his departure?"

"He never spoke about it. I just assumed he decided to emigrate."

"Mmm. And he passed away some… five years ago? Heart attack, I believe?"

"Following a massive stroke," Ellen said, her twenty-four-hour smudge-proof lips pressing tightly together. She had loved him very much and the loss was still raw.

"May I presume he never made any mention of his brothers? You had no knowledge of Malcolm or Henry Ward?"

Ellen blinked, momentarily caught off guard. She stared into the magnified hazel eyes, too stunned to think of, much less form a coherent answer.

"Oh dear. I shall assume, by your reaction, that he did not." Wormsley pursed his lips and made a small notation in the file. "Malcolm Ward was the elder brother by eight years; he was in the RAF and unfortunately perished in the last great war. Henry Ward was fifty-nine seconds older than your father. He married, but had no children. His wife passed about ten years ago and he never remarried."

"Did you say fifty-nine seconds? "

He flipped a page. "Or fifty-five. I could be mistaken. But yes, they were fraternal twins."

Ellen shook her head slightly, finding it difficult to grasp the fact that her father had had two brothers. That she'd had uncles she had never even known about. And that one of them had been her father's twin.

"Unfortunately, Henry passed away this past spring, which brings us to the matter at hand. You, Miss Bowe, are the only direct living descendant of Sir Elliot Holcroft Ward-- your paternal grandfather--and his wife Gweneth, both of whom died in the sixties." He consulted his papers again. "Sixty-four to be precise. A fatal car accident. Your grandmother's maiden name was Bowe, and for whatever reason, your father appears to have adopted it when he departed England." He paused a moment and peered at Ellen over the top of his glasses, giving her a quick smile. "You were born in '83, correct?"

Ellen, slightly numb, nodded. "Yes."

"Which would mean your father was sixty when you were born. Please take no offense. These days, thanks to science, women are giving birth at sixty. I only mention it so that you might appreciate our surprise when we discovered he had fathered a child. A pleasant surprise, I can assure you, when one is searching for heirs."

"So… Henry Ward was my uncle and I am his only heir?"

"Indeed he was, and indeed you are. The actual legacy comes through your grandmother's contiguous line. It is through her that your ancestry can be traced all the way back to the thirteenth century. It is also through her that you now find yourself the sole heir to four thousand acres and a castle in north Lincoln."

Ellen stared, dumbfounded. "Did you say… a castle? And—? "

"Well, three thousand nine hundred and eighty-two acres, to be absolutely precise. In Lincoln, yes. There is also," he paused to adjust his glasses and rifle through his papers, "an account which, after paying out considerable death taxes and estate taxes, environmental taxes and taxes, I vow, on the very air we breathe, amounts to some… two hundred and seventy-four million pounds."