His Lordship's Secret
Page 26
He passed it over. “Try not to spend it all in one place, Your Lordship.”
The hand on his chest stilled before moving to take the coin from his hand.
“That’s that then,” Alfie whispered, but it sounded more like he was saying it to himself than to Dominick. Dominick opened his eyes and turned in his seat enough to look at Alfie, but he wasn’t looking back at him. Instead he was staring at the coin in his hand before giving a decisive nod and putting it away, reaching for the papers he had been fussing with before. The action pulled him away from Dominick, who put a hand on Alfie’s hip to keep him from falling off his lap and damaging his injured leg any further.
“I visited my solicitor quite a bit before we left London,” Alfie said, sitting back up with a sheaf of papers in his hand. Dominick kept his hand where it was. “In part because of well, everything. But also because I wanted to make a gift. To you.”
“Alfie, you’ve given me—”
“Nick, please, I need to say this all while I can.” He took a deep breath.
“You’ve saved my life more times than I can count, both in the last few months and in all our years together growing up. Not only that, but you started the fight with Baz intentionally so they would choose me instead of you. I would have died in that workhouse without you, and when I think of all the terrible things you had to endure while I lived the life you should have had…”
His hands were shaking now.
“Alfie…”
“Shush. I want to give you a gift not because of all that though, or out of some sense of thanks or obligation, but because I love you, Dominick. I always have, and if I have any say in the matter, I always will.”
He laughed wetly, and Dominick could feel tears pricking in the corners of his eyes. “The solicitor wouldn’t let me make a gift of what I had been planning, but he agreed to let me make a sale for a fair price. I decided to set that price at a sixpence.”
With that, he handed the papers to Dominick. He squinted, trying to read them, but between the jostling of the carriage and the fine, spidery lettering, he couldn’t make it out.
“What does it say?”
“It starts with a long section about the parties named herein, a Mr. Dominick Trent—”
“Of Cornwall.” Dominick mumbled.
“Of Cornwall,” agreed Alfie with a nod. “And a Right Honorable Lord So-And-So, etc. etc. but in short? Almost half of everything I own is now yours.”
“What?”
“I know, it would’ve been more fair to make it an even half, but quite a bit of it is entailed and sorting that out was more than I wanted to put my solicitor through. The poor man seemed distressed enough even after I had explained that following the untimely death of my cousin Reginald, it was only right that I wanted to ensure my only other—very, very distant—relation was well cared for.”
Almost half of everything Alfie owned. Dominick had no concept of how much that could be, but he guessed it was more than he would have made in a hundred lifetimes. A hundred-hundred maybe. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
Alfie jumped back in quickly, as if afraid of whatever Dominick would say. “The paperwork is binding. As soon as you handed over the asking price, it was yours.”
At this he turned to look at Dominick for the first time since he’d begun speaking. Dominick fell in love all over again at the fierce expression on his face, as if Alfie had conquered him in battle and Dominick had no choice but to accept the terms of surrender. Which in this case meant being forced to accept thousands upon thousands of pounds. Dominick had no idea what expression he was wearing, but whatever it was caused Alfie’s look to soften.
“There are no conditions or anything of that sort,” Alfie said. “It’s all yours outright, the money, the properties, everything. If you want, you can take it all now and go. I’d have no claim on it or you. But I was hoping… I was hoping you would come to Scotland with me anyway. To stay. For good. Or for as long as we want to stay. I never forgot the stories you used to tell me of faraway lands and extraordinary journeys. Someday I’d like to travel like my parents did. I’d like to see some of those places with you, and have our own adventures.”
What could Dominick even say to that? To this wild, beautiful, brave, caring, ridiculous creature who he loved and who, by some miraculous turn of fortune, loved him back?
He finally settled on, “I’d like that too.”
The smile Alfie gave him in return was worth more than any sixpence, or thousands of pounds, or manor houses, or the whole lot of them rolled in together.
Alfie took the papers back from Dominick and began shuffling through them.
“In that case, if you look at the bottom of page eight… No, Dominick, stop looking at me, look at the contract. At the bottom of page eight you’ll see that you now own several properties throughout the country.
“On the way to Scotland we will happen to be passing rather close to several of them. Mostly smaller things. Hunting lodges and the like. They’ve only been in use occasionally, loaned out to my parent’s friends, so there would be no staff. Only us. But as it will take some time for the household in Scotland to prepare for our arrival, I thought a good way to begin our adventures might be by visiting each and examining them all in thorough detail.”
“Only us, you say?”
Alfie looked up at him through his eyelashes. The coy minx. “Why yes. Most of them are close to inns where say, a coachman could stay with the horses and from which meals could be delivered, but we’d be very much on our own.”
“And we should do our inspections in thorough detail?”
Alfie hummed thoughtfully and tilted his head, bringing his butter-wouldn’t-melt mouth that much closer to Dominick’s. “It might take a few days. Each. Accounting for travel and any unexpected delays, the process will take at least the whole summer, perhaps longer, depending on how much exertion your injuries can handle.”
“Not to mention your leg. That sort of inspection can be quite strenuous,” Dominick agreed, scratching his chin in mock contemplation. He leaned in, stopping with his lips just a breath apart from Alfie’s. “I don’t suppose we’ll be passing anywhere near one of these properties by say, tonight?”
Alfie gasped, “You did read the contract!”
Dominick rolled his eyes. They were so close that Alfie’s self-satisfied smile filled the entirety of his vision. He’d spent the happiest years of his life chasing that smile and it looked like he was destined to spend the rest of them the same way. There was no choice but to accept his fate.
So with a long-suffering sigh, he did. He tossed the contract aside and pulled Alfie in for a kiss filled with promise for all the years and adventures ahead.
The End
His Lordship's Master
Book Two of His Lordship's Mysteries
Scotland 1818
Still reeling from the horrific events in London, Alfie thinks Balcarres House, the seat of his earldom, will be just the place to recover. But unexplained noises in the night, figures that vanish into thin air, and ghostly tales of the infamous Wicked Master all make for a less-than-restful stay. When one of the household turns up dead, matters only get worse.
While Alfie tries to solve this mystery, his lover Dominick struggles to fit into his new station in life. It feels like the mud from the slums still sticks to his fine new clothes. He begins to worry that he’ll never be able to stand by Alfie’s side, and about what will happen when Alfie realises the same.
But Balcarres House holds secrets that cry out for blood. If Alfie and Dominick aren’t careful, they may become the next ghosts trapped within its walls.
Available Here
Author's Note
This novel has been an absolute labor of love and I am so happy to finally be able to share it with the world. I began with little more than an idea, the desire to finally sit down and write, and the confidence that I knew a lot more about Regency England than turned out to be the case.
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A month into writing the first draft, I had the opportunity to visit London to further my research. All of the places mentioned in the book exist or existed at the time, from Alfie’s townhome to the Glasshouse Yard workhouse in Spitalfields. I even kept a list of good pub names I saw as I wandered for use in this and future books. Much of the information on Alfie and Dominick’s early lives came from the incredible Foundling Museum, which is well worth a visit if you have the chance. The token system I describe in the book, such as Dominick’s ring, was a real process used by the original Foundling Hospital and many others. There is a collection of unclaimed tokens on display in the museum and it is just as heartbreaking as you’d think.
Even once I’d wrangled all the research, I couldn’t have written this book without the help of many people, first and foremost Margot, who has been with this project from the first multiparagraph rant over text to the final proofreading. Thank you also to Emily for being my beta reader and looking this all over with a keen romance lover’s eye.
The writing community has been incredibly gracious and welcoming. I’ve received tips from authors I’ve read for years and had absolute strangers help me figure out everything from appropriately villainous character names to figuring out a release schedule.
Finally, I want to thank my family for all their love and support. Without their encouragement, I might not have ever had the determination to finish this book, and to start on even more adventures of Alfie and Dominick to come. At time of writing I have the rough draft for book two already sitting on my computer, and ideas enough for several more. Thank you, dear reader, for coming with me so far and I hope you stay with me for the adventures ahead!
About The Author
Samantha SoRelle
Sam grew up all over the world and finally settled in Southern California when she soaked up too much sunshine and got too lazy to move.
When she’s not writing, she’s doing everything possible to keep from writing. This has led to some unusual pastimes including but not limited to: perfecting fake blood recipes, designing her own cross-stitch patterns, and wrapping presents for tigers.
She also enjoys collecting paintings of tall ships and has lost count of the number of succulents she owns.
She can be found online at www.samanthasorelle.com, which has the latest information on upcoming projects, free reads, the mailing list, and all her social media accounts. She can also be contacted by email at
samanthasorelle@gmail.com, which she is much better about checking than social media!
His Lordship's Mysteries
His Lordship's Secret
His Lordship's Master