The Guardian Duke: A Forgotten Castles Novel Read Online Free PDF

"accidents" like her happen.
    "I overheard them talking before they left, as you well know." Alex reminded Ann as she continued her planning. "They were going to take a ferry from Whitehaven. That's where I will go first and see if I can find out anything about where they went in Ireland. But I can't leave without that traveling money! I do hope the duke hurries with his response. Time is of the essence." A stab of very real fear threatened when Alex thought of her parents in trouble and needing her. If they weren't dead, and certainly they weren't, then something must be very wrong that the prince regent had appointed her a guardian.
    "The old duke could have all manner of reactions, my lady. Why, he might think it's time you married. That would get you off his hands."
    Alex sucked in a sudden breath. "He wouldn't dare."
    "And why not, I ask you? It's past time you married, not that you'll find anyone around here. I've been harping on your mother for years that you need a London season, but she never got around to it."
    It was an unspoken fact that her mother's mind was rarely concerned with her daughter or her future. Besides, Alex didn't want a London season, and she certainly didn't want to get married. She frowned. Ann's reminder of the duke's sudden power over her made her stomach flip over. "I don't need a husband. I intend to follow in my parents' footsteps and take on cases, just as soon as I can convince someone to give me one. I am twenty, for goodness' sake, and not a child."
    "Just as I was sayin'." Ann nodded. "You may think the world runs different out here on Holy Island, and maybe it does, but that duke will have London ways on his mind, you mark my words."
    "Oh, bother, do you always have to be so glum?" Alex turned her face away and sighed.
    "Just speaking the truth, my lady."
    Alex had heard quite enough of the truth for one afternoon and stood up to flee. "I believe I will go and check on Thomas William's knee. I do feel a mite responsible for his tumble from that tree."
    Ann snickered. "He was spying on you again, was he?"
    Heat filled her face. He and another boy had been trying to catch her swimming again. She'd only been wearing a shift, and it was wet and sticking to her . . . and well, she'd best find something that covered better or her swimming days just might be over.
    Alex started to walk away but shot over her shoulder, brows raised, "Don't you have supper to start?"
    Ann rubbed her knees and nodded. "Aye, that I do, mistress. You'll be home before dark to eat it, won't you?"
    "Of course." It was the typical push and pull of their relationship. Alex threw back her shoulders and marched from the room. Why was it that Ann always harped at her about every little thing?
    The crisp fall air cooled her cheeks as Alex walked down the steep hill called Beblowe where the castle seemed to grow right from the flat-topped outcropping of whinstone. She followed the dirt path that ran beside the shore of the North Sea toward the village. The path was rock and weed choked, but Alex knew every curve and obstacle, more familiar than her face in her bedchamber mirror. She kept her chin up as her gaze scanned the seemingly endless blue horizon that surrounded her from every angle. It was like being inside a dome, she thought with a whimsical smile. Her home. And for this time in its history—her island.
    She thought back on its long and sometimes bloody history. Holy Island was a small plot of land on the eastern edge of Northumberland and near the Scottish border. In the seventh century the Irish monk St. Aidan founded the Benedictine monastery of Lindisfarne. It became the Christian base for centuries, allowing traveling monks to come and go as they spread the gospel to Northern England. Now the monastery was in ruins, but there was still a grand air about the place, as if it were holy ground, the way the sound of her voice echoed among the huge arches and towering columns of crumbling stones. She had played