A/N: Hey guys! After I finished writing Newlyweds (which can be found on my page), I was inspired to write the story that brought the two lovebirds together. So here's the first chapter! Please let me know what you think! I'd love to hear any feedback 😊
Taking in a deep breath of the rich sea air, you could not stop yourself from reminiscing on the events in your life that led you to standing alone on a bustling port near your hometown of London.
Thinking back, you could not identify the exact moment your life had taken such an unexpected turn. You just knew that at some point, it did. You also knew there were many moments in your past that could have been the catalyst for how you ended up here.
The moment of your birth came to mind as you began to take in all the activity occurring around you.
You had been born to the Marquis and Marchioness of Dorchester almost twenty-five years ago on what you were told was a beautiful Summer morning. Your father's noble line went back centuries and your mother was the high-born daughter of an Earl. Though their match had been arranged, you knew they had loved each other by the time you arrived. Even in your earliest memories of them, there was nothing but contentment in their eyes as they looked at you and one another.
Your childhood was a joyous one! Filled with laughter and play as your parents indulged all of your childish whims, you remember feeling like the epitome of happiness all of the time in your little bubble of three.
You remember the feeling because you remember when it started to slowly slip away from you.
Beginning when you were eight, laughter seemed to leave your life when your mother did. Lost at sea when the ship she was on capsized during a storm, it took a while for you and your father to get used to her absence. And because you so strongly resembled her, it took a while for your father to get used to you.
Never really being able to look you directly in the eyes again, a distance grew between you two as you both grieved the late Marchioness.
But as the years went by and the pain minimized, so did that distance. You were fourteen when you finally felt like your relationship with your father was what it once was, but those feelings changed when he brought a new woman into your life.
A well-born widow with a daughter of her own near your age, your father insisted she was exactly what you needed. Marrying your father when you were fifteen, things began to slowly change with the addition of her presence. Gradually being excluded from dinners and family outings under your new stepmother's influence, you could not remember when you last spent time in the presence of your father.
But you do remember the next time tragedy struck your home.
No more than six months into your father's second marriage, your new step-sister fell ill with a fever. In your kindness, you had tried to care for her only to become sick yourself.
In order to keep the sickness from spreading to others in the house, a physician had suggested you both stay quarantined within your rooms for everyone's safety. A week later, you walked out of your room completely on the mend.
Your sister-by-law never left her room, having succumbed to her illness that same day.
You could not be sure how her death affected your stepmother as she never allowed you to see her emotions, but you did know how her daughter's death affected the way she interacted with you.
Not even pretending to be polite with you anymore, she only spoke to you when completely necessary and with barely concealed disdain. It was a wonder your father never noticed, but you were smart enough to read through the lines.
She did not like you and she wanted you to know it.
That is why you know the true catalyst moment of your life came when your father died three years later. At the young age of eighteen, you remember being told that he had an unexpected heart attack and that, thankfully, he did not have to suffer long.
Since no will could be found, you were left in your stepmother's care and she was left with all of his assets. However, because she could not be bothered with you, she arranged for you to live with your father's sister—located in another country—for the foreseeable future.
And that is where you have been for the past seven years. You had truly started to believe that you would never see London again when you received one fateful letter. A letter that made you realize your life was about to shift once more.
"My Lady?"
Turning to look in front of you, you saw that you were being addressed by what looked like a footman.
"Yes?" You replied with the slightest bit of hesitance.
Bowing before you, the footman said, "I am from the Danbury Estate. I was sent by Lady Danbury to escort you there as soon as you arrived."
Handing you a letter with her family seal on it, he and another footman picked up your trunk before leading you to a carriage. Helping you in and closing the door, you leaned back and got comfortable as they made the horses pull off. As the carriage began to move, you remembered the letter.
Breaking the wax seal on the envelope, you pulled out a slip of stationary and saw the words,
"Welcome Back"
Written elegantly on a notecard and nothing else.
Despite what you were up against, you could not help allowing one small, genuine smile to grace your lips as you turned to look out the window and take in all the sites you had missed.