I'd never heard any family lore about being currently related to anyone above the rank of homeless drunk. My family more closely resembled the characters of Oliver Twist than anything else. If Thorne had told me I had descended from the inspiration for the Artful Dodger, I wouldn't have been surprised.
I wasn't into genealogy. Hadn't bothered to care about Dad's side of the family. Certainly had no interest in digging it up. Mostly I'd fought to forget it.
Neither Thorne nor I blinked.
Being related to a duke sounded like something out of a fairytale. Or Now You See Me. A great, big, fat con.
"A duke? Really?" I said with a high degree of skepticism. "There are, what? About thirty-five non-royal dukes in all of Britain? He was a British duke, I assume, given my ancestry. Not Scottish or Irish." I wanted to see how far Thorne would take things.
"Very British," Thorne said. "There are twenty-four non-royal dukes." His expression was neutral as he corrected me.
"Even a rarer breed than I thought." Mine had been an educated guess. I'd overestimated on purpose. It would have been easy enough to Google.
"Your heritage is quite exceptional. The Duke of Witham was created by Queen Victoria in 1874 for the Earl of Witham for his exemplary service to the Crown in India. Highly unusual, given it was rumored he was a spy for the Crown."
"Let me get this straight," I said. "She elevated him from an earl to a duke as a way of saying thank you?"
Thorne nodded. "Precisely."
"For being a spy. Seems like a nice gesture."
"It was brilliant. Very generous of the queen. Spies are rarely given a peerage. And in cases where they inherit a title, prohibited from spying, no matter how honorable the cause. No one trusts a liar, especially with a seat in the House of Lords."
I resisted saying most politicians were liars anyway. A spy was at least honest about it.
"The early earl was, by all historical accounts, a different breed altogether. He was already a spy, and, having been raised in India and serving as a soldier, a bit of a wild hare, when he assumed the earldom.
"He had been far down in the line of succession until a tragic accident took the lives of all direct heirs shortly before his predecessor's death, stunning society. He had neither been raised in society, nor trained in the responsibilities incumbent in the position.
"When the old earl passed on, the first Rans Feldhem, whom the late duke was named after, was a only a distant cousin, but the heir nonetheless." Thorne gave me a piercing look.
History repeating itself, I thought.
"He took on the title to the dismay of many of the peers of his day. It was also rumored that his mother was an Indian rani. Another circumstance not in his favor.
"His countess, however, was lovely. And rumored to have been instrumental in preserving the earldom, and later, growing the holdings of the dukedom. A good duchess can make all the difference to a dukedom."
Thorne crossed his legs and continued his study of me. I assumed I was supposed to be impressed. Or scandalized. He was a good storyteller, if nothing else.
"If there was a duke in the family, he must have been an embarrassment to the aristocracy," I said, coolly, hoping to make Thorne sweat with my skepticism. And show him I wasn't a sucker easily buying this. Dukes, right. "The Feldhems, in my experience, are all reprobates."
"His Grace was an excellent lord of the estate." Thorne sounded defensive for the first time. But he made no attempt to reassure me the Dead Duke had been a great guy, well loved, and admired.
There you had it. Power and status didn't make the Dead Duke likable.
"The duke did exist, I assure you," Thorne said, understandably ruffled.
I'd just called him a liar. Politely, but still.
"I have served as his solicitor for many years. But if you would rather not take my word, I have the paperwork with me to prove it." He tapped the envelope. "And you are…incorrect. The name of Feldhem is held in high regard in the highest circles of British society. Every family has its black sheep. It is unfortunate if your association has been with only those members of your family who have not lived up to the name. Rest assured, you can be proud of your ancestry, really."
I shook my head again. I was beginning to believe Thorne. If he was a fake, he was a convincing one. My gut said he was genuine. I hadn't succeeded in business without having a knack for spotting liars. "I would have liked to have met him."
"The late duke was a reclusive man," Thorne said. "And very old. A hundred and five at his passing. He rarely saw visitors. Especially these last twenty-five years. He hadn't allowed children in his presence since 1970, I believe. He didn't like them. I regret to say, he would not have received you."
"Sounds like a great guy." I grinned. "Like the rest of the family." I paused. "You said you have good news? Did he leave me something? A family heirloom?"
"You might say so, yes. He left you a dukedom, Your Grace."
True Love is the Greatest Gift
SOME MEMORIES ARE TOO PAINFUL TO FACE
Tara Clark is spending her first Christmas at her grandparents' resort lodge since her brother died near there in a snowboarding accident on Christmas Eve ten years ago. When her matchmaking grandma sets her up with tiny Echo Bay's newest resident–none other than her ex-fiancé Ryan Sanders–not even a record snowfall can dampen the rekindling of a love that wouldn’t die.
SOME LOVES ARE TOO STRONG TO DENY
When Ryan Sanders returns to the small town he grew up in, his life feels nearly complete. But as the snow piles up in the week before Christmas, and his ex-fiancée Tara shows up, Ryan has to face the truth that he has never really gotten over her. And with Christmas Eve fast approaching, all he wants for Christmas is Tara.
A heartwarming, full-length, standalone small town holiday romance all about reunions and second chances!
Copyright © 2013 by Gina Robinson
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Gina Robinson
http://www.ginarobinson.com
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Cover Design: Jeff Robinson
Echo Bay Christmas/Gina Robinson. — 1st ed.
1
Welcome to Echo Bay, Idaho, Population 24
Tara Clark frowned, perplexed, as she drove past the carved sign with its gilded gold, partially snow-obscured lettering. Dark green, rectangular, with a painted 3D graphic of a bear fishing in a lake, and anchored by river-rock pillars, three fourths of the village could picnic in the shade of the monument. Usually the overly grandiose thing amused her to no end.
Echo Bay has another year-round resident?
She shook her head and bit her lip, trying to digest the news.
A sign-worthy move-in? And Grandpa, let alone Gram, who spreads news as easily as Twitter, hasn't shared the skinny with me? What's up?
It was not like her grandparents could have forgotten about it. As owner of Echo Bay Resort and village mayor, her grandpa Harry Jansen was keeper of the sign. Harry never waited for the federal census to make a change.
He always said a community should keep better track of its members than to count them once every ten years. That was the problem with big cities like Seattle, where Tara insisted on living, and the neighboring town around the lake from the resort, with its six thousand or so nameless souls. No sense of kinship.
Harry changed the sign whenever the situation required or he darn well felt like it. That he'd recently been in the mood and not told her
surprised Tara, especially since she'd been talking with her grandparents at least weekly since October.
Tara turned off Echo Bay Road, easing off the gas and downshifting to avoid braking on the slick roads. She pulled into a spot in the resort's plowed parking lot just as the first snowflake in the latest squall floated onto her windshield and melted on impact.
She couldn't believe her grandparents had finally agreed to a firm meeting with the hotel management company. Tara and her parents had been worried about Harry and Margie working too hard for years, encouraging them to retire. Then this fall Tara and her mom hit upon the idea of hiring a hotel management company to run the daily operations, freeing Harry up to fish and Margie to putter around the kitchen. They hoped Harry would be amenable to a partial retirement, at least.
Harry and Margie fought Mom every time she brought the subject of retirement up. So Tara and her mother decided it was best if Tara approached them with the idea and handled the details with them. Harry was determined to leave Echo Bay to Tara as her inheritance from him and her grandmother. Because she had a stake in Echo Bay's future, Tara and her parents hoped Harry would listen to her and take her ideas into consideration.
In October, Tara broached the subject and Harry reluctantly agreed to meet with Northwest Resort Management Services and hear them out. Then proceeded to postpone every meeting Tara set up. Until now, just before Christmas. If Tara would come to Echo Bay for the holidays, Harry promised he'd hear what Northwest Resort Management had to say.
It was loveable blackmail, and touching in its way. Her grandparents had been begging her to come for Christmas for years. It wasn't that she was hardhearted toward them. Tara visited Echo Bay several times a year, but she hadn't come for Christmas, or any time during the winter months, in nearly ten years. Not since her brother Chad's fatal snowboarding accident on Christmas Eve at the Basin, the local ski resort. The same Christmas Eve that precipitated her broken engagement with her brother's best friend, Ryan Sanders. The memories were just too painful.
And then there was Ryan. He was a local boy, a town favorite. He'd moved away after the accident, but his parents still lived in town. Tara never came to visit her grandparents when she knew he'd be visiting. She blamed herself, and him, for Chad's accident. To say things had ended badly between her and Ryan was putting it mildly. He'd broken her heart, and she still wasn't sure it was completely mended.
Ryan usually came home for Christmas. Her grandparents had been vague about whether he'd be home this year. The best she could hope for was that she wouldn't accidentally run into him. She had no intention of going to town if she could avoid it. She hoped he'd give her the courtesy of the same space and privacy she'd shown him over the years and stay away from Echo Bay during her visit.
Tara looked out the car window. Her breath caught. Her heart raced. Everything looked so familiar, so much like it had that fateful Christmas she'd been trying so hard to forget.
Tara turned off the engine and stared at the lodge. This place is going to outlive us all.
It was only three-thirty in the afternoon, but already dusk was falling quickly. Along the lodge roofline, multi-colored lights sparkled through the gray-white gloom of a growing snowstorm. An oversize evergreen wreath, complete with a red bow, hung on one of the double front doors, as it had every Christmas Tara could remember. Doors that jingle, jingle, jingle-belled whenever someone entered. Eager for Christmas, Gram always hung jingle bells and mistletoe above the doors the day after Thanksgiving.
Behind the resort lodge, the dam-controlled lake failed to reach its summer-level shores, leaving docks high and dry. A wind blew across the surface, rippling its depthless, light-absorbing gray waters that never, ever froze, even in the coldest winter. Beyond the lake, obscured by snow clouds, the mountain rose like Mount Crumpet.
In clear weather you could see the ski runs. Tara swallowed a lump in her throat, glad for the first time during this long, slow trip for the cloud cover. She pulled her coat collar up around her chin and grabbed her purse.
The heir to Echo Bay returns.
White-clad evergreens, white pines mostly, swaddled the lodge. The scene looked like something you'd see in an ad for a Christmas ski vacation.
She pushed open the door of her compact SUV and stepped into the wind and snow.
The jingle of bells over the doors carried on the stiff breeze to Tara's ears before she'd slid three steps across the icy lot. Gram stepped out onto the covered front porch. Just as Tara knew she would, Gram had been watching for her.
"Harry! Harry, she's here. Tara's here!" Gram, wearing nothing warmer than her signature cardigan sweater, called over her shoulder into the lodge.
"Gram!" Tara ran, slipping and sliding, into her tiny grandmother's hug. "How are you! So sorry I took so long getting here. The weather's atrocious—"
"Oh, stop making excuses." Gram, who stood a good six inches shorter than Tara, put her arm around her. "Get on in here out of the weather." Gram chuckled and her face lit up with her pleased smile.
But Gram felt thin and slight in Tara's grasp. Frail.
As Gram turned and shooed Tara inside, Tara noticed with a start how stiffly and slowly she walked. Gram wasn't healing as quickly as she should have from her hip replacement last summer.
"Everyone, she's here. My granddaughter's finally here!"
Tara's grandparents lived in an apartment at the back of the lodge. Gram treated the lodge's lobby, front desk, and great room as her personal home. As hostess, it was only polite to introduce a member of the family to the other guests. All the other guests.
If the people lounging around the lobby knew what was good for them, they'd flee before Gram caught them and recited Tara's every accomplishment at them until their eyes glazed over. As a kid, Tara used to be embarrassed by Gram's obvious pride in her and the way she showed Tara off. Now Tara thought it was sweet, a sign of Gram's love for her. But the guests might have a different opinion.
Fortunately, before Gram got far, Kathleen, Tara's favorite cook, next to Gram, scuttled out of the kitchen with a dishtowel slung over her shoulder. The opposite of Gram, square and wide with short, wavy gray hair, her face lit up when she spotted Tara.
Tara gave Kathleen a hug. Then Stormy, Kathleen's daughter who'd waitressed at the lodge for over twenty years, joined in. Finally Harry appeared and demanded a hug all his own. Suddenly everyone was talking at once.
"Give the girl some space," Harry joked. "Let her get some air. She'll be with us for a while. There'll be plenty of time for yakking."
"There better be." Kathleen, warm and pink from the kitchen, dabbed her forehead with the dishtowel. "We've got catching up to do and plenty of news to share."
"Like what?" Tara teased, knowing she'd be hearing hours of local gossip soon and hoping to find out about this new resident number twenty-four without being too obvious. "Nothing ever happens in Echo Bay." She winked at them.
"Big-city snob. Better watch yourself or I'll spit in your soup." Kathleen let out a hearty laugh.
"Hush now." Harry frowned at Kathleen. "Don't let the guests hear you. They don't know you're joking."
"Oh, sure they do!" Kathleen shook her head.
Tara glanced around the decorated lobby, happily surprised. The tree wasn't up yet, but the place looked good, well kept. Since her last visit in July, they'd replaced the rusty screen in the large stone fireplace. A window looked like it had recently been changed out. After her last visit, Tara had been worried that her grandfather was slipping and things were beginning to fall apart. "Wow! The place looks great."
Harry beamed.
Gram waved her praise aside. "Oh, we still have more decorating to do. We saved the tree for you."
"Excellent!" Tara feigned enthusiasm for her grandmother's sake. She and Chad had always helped Gram decorate the tree together. Without Chad as her accomplice in teasing and joking and horseplay, she doubted there would be much joy in the act of trimming the tree.
It was lonely being the only sibling left, with no older brother to share secrets with and go to for advice. Tara felt the hole of Chad's absence and the responsibility of being the only living grandchild all the time. But it was worse during the holiday season.
Stormy must have sensed Tara's sadness. She grabbed her arm and changed subjects. "We got a new bread man. He'll be here tomorrow."
"Another one?" Tara raised an eyebrow. She lowered her voice and leaned in conspiratorially toward Stormy. "What did you do to the last one?"
Stormy laughed and whispered in her ear, "Wouldn't you like to know?"
"This one's cute," Kathleen said. "About your age. Though I prefer the candy man, myself."
Harry rolled his eyes. "The candy man's too slick for Tara." He shook his head. "Give me your keys, kid. I'll go get your bags and leave you to these hens."
"I'll get them, Grandpa."
He waved her offer aside. "I'm not too old to carry a few bags. Do it every day." He grabbed his coat from a peg near the front desk. Then he grabbed a small envelope from the desk drawer, took out one key and handed another to Tara. "Gram put you in your favorite room, good old ten."
Tara's mouth went dry as she stared at the key. It took her a second to be able to speak. She'd specifically asked Gram not to go to any trouble, and not to put her in a view room, one that looked out across the lake at the mountain.
"Grandpa, there's no need to throw away good money by giving me a room with a lake view. You'll lose hundreds of dollars a night. Save it for a paying guest. I'll sleep on the hideaway in your apartment." She held the key out to him.
Christmas Duet: A Big City, Small Town Christmas Romance Bundle Page 16
