Chapter I: Fire and Rain

A thunderstorm was roaring outside the manor house filling the trenches and lakes of The Cambias Estate with late May rain. Atop one of the few hills on the property, inside a modern day castle, Alexander James Cambias the Second was marching through the entrance hall uncaring that his heavy boots and the boots of his three mates and their belongings were tracking mud inside.

Less than a week ago, Alex himself had just arrived home from his first semester in college. And as he went to fetch his friends from the train station this morning the dark grey skies had finally made good on their threat and decided to open up and make his trip home again miserable.

"Don't worry over your luggage," he ordered, ignoring the etiquette he'd been reared on and nonchalantly pulling the skeleton key from around his neck and opening the wide doors of his Father's drawing room. "The valets will get to them before my Father gets home."

The thick velvet curtains were always drawn and the gas-lamps were always low in the drawing-room giving it a most eerie appearance. As a child it had been one of the least likeable rooms in Alex's opinion but as the summer before his sixteenth birthday he'd discovered why his Father liked it so much.

Stopping at the edge of his father's new carpet, Alex slipped off his worn boots and crossed to the liquor cabinet in his soiled socks. The maids would have no problem peeling the dirt and grass from the Merbau floors but it almost seemed unfair to make them scrub it out of his father's new Persian rug.

His late teenage intentions in the parlor were simple and innocent enough. He just wanted to nick as much alcohol from the liquor cabinet as possible. Alex knew it would've been much simpler to merely steal the liquor from his father's horde in the wine cellar, but this method just seemed like so much more fun.

He squatted down by the cabinet, careful not to drip much water on the floor as he inspected the small latch. "Conner, get off your boots and come have a look at this," he whispered, ordering his friend by his side.

Conner O'Dell made barely a sound as he moved gracefully over the rug and squatted down beside him, quickly finger-combing his wet blonde hair away from his crystal blue-eyes.

"So?" Alex asked, knowing he'd called the right friend over.

Conner merely smiled at him as he dug a pin from his denim-jean pocket. His small pale hands made quick work of the lock springing the mechanism with as much ease to him as his trust and Celtic accent did at getting the knickers off a sorority girl.

"As easy as pie," he stated, swinging opening one of the small cabinet doors and like a treasure chest full of gems showing the deep cabinet and all the sparkling decanters it held.

At nineteen unlike his schoolmates Alex was particular when it came to his choice of drink and it took a few minutes before he found the Scotch he wanted. His three friends however were much less discriminatory and were each hiding a random crystal decanter beneath the raincoat they wore before Alex had gotten the cherry doors of the cabinet closed.

His mates applied no stealth as they raced up the staircase that led to the rest of the spacious manor and Alexander's room. He could hear their snickers fading into the first hall as he shut the drawing-room doors behind him and inserted the skeleton key to lock it.

He was pulling the leather thong he carried the key on back over his head when a string of unpleasant words stilled his hands. At the sound of the light English accent he suddenly felt his lungs were incapable of taking a breath and skin was suddenly clammy beneath his cotton shirt.

That couldn't be his father, could it? No, he was supposed to be out for the day and it was only five-past-four.

Supposed to, A thought reminded him. But that doesn't mean he is.

Ignoring the voice behind him, Alex began imagining a probable excuse for him being in the drawing room and having a decanter of Scotch beneath his arm. But fortunately he would never get to spin that tale as he quickly recognized the voice as light and female.

Spinning around, the decanter still clutched beneath his arm, Alex didn't see her on his first sweep of the room, but as he looked again he saw a girl kneeling on the floor next to a pail of dirty water.

Her dark hair was pulled back in a messy chignon and her mint colored dress was all he needed to see to know that she was certainly one of the many house maids. She didn't seem to notice him or she didn't care as her head was tilted down and she put her weight behind her dirty washcloth and scrubbed at a dried boot print. Normally, he would've just made his way up to his room but the sound of her voice or the vulgar words they created made him stop.

"Is there a problem?" he asked, not moving from beside the door he'd just exited.

She looked up quickly and from the unnatural arch of her dark brows and roundness of her brown eyes Alex could see that indeed she hadn't known he was there.

"No-no sir, Mister Cambias," she answered, her eyes and brows falling back into their more natural and much more pleasant appearance in her pale face. She was young. Probably a couple of years younger than himself and much too young to be working as a maid for his father, but Alex ignored that fact as he rolled his shoulders letting the tension that had crept upon him seep out.

"Mister Cambias?" Alex chuckled, widening his smile instinctively around an attractive girl. "That's my father's name."

Shyly she gave him half a smile as her dark eyes traveled down to his feet and meeting his boots she suddenly returned to her hands to wipe the dried mud from the floor.

"Whatever you say Mister Cambias?" She answered, an evident harsh change in the tone of her Limey accent.

Stunned by her attitude Alex almost scoffed and quickly searched his memory but couldn't match her round face with any name.

"You know," he remarked, taking a few steps toward her. "For help you aren't very respectful?"

"And for an heir you're not very noble," she answered. But from the way she covered her own mouth and the widening of her dark eyes again as she looked up at him, Alex knew she wished she could catch those last words and shove them back in.

"Well, aren't you a little spit fire," he commented, looking down at her with much interest now. "You do know I could have you sacked for that gob of yours. All I'd need to do is tell my father-"

"Yes, tell your father that you were stealing spirits from your late mother's cabinet."

Hannah Nichols knew that her statement had been bold, probably too bold, and as she watched his sun kissed complexion pale beneath his black fringe and then blush with anger she knew her statement hand been much too bold.

TBC...

Author's Note: I'm apologizing for present and future discrepancies with not only Zach's character but that of the time. I apologize for not updating my other story. I have not hit a wall or writer's block but this story is much easier to write at the moment and quicker to get up so again I'm sorry. I'm hoping to have a chapter of "Without Me" up in a week. Also, on I won't be able to post most of the chapters as they fall in the range of "Adult-fiction" so I will most likely be putting those chapters on my LJ (or the website link). Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed.