I can't believe it's finally here! I have been working on this story for months now, and it is finally ready to be shared! This is the product of watching/reading too many historical romance pieces.

I hope you'll like it as much as I liked writing it! Huge thank you to my beta a href=" /users/ARandomDream/profile" rel="nofollow" ARandomDream /a for correcting my mistakes ❤️

Let me know what you think :)


Chapter 1: The Greek Gambit

In the autumn of 1790, Brennan Nicholas Ashbourne Jones, the illustrious third Marquess of Hookstone, Earl of Blackmoor, Viscount Silvermere, found himself entangled in the sorrowful tendrils of fate. Consumption, that relentless harbinger of grief, claimed his beloved wife and precious child.

Wed under the stern eye of paternal decree, the Marquess had nurtured a semblance of affection for his dutiful wife, the mother of his fine progeny. Love, by the whims of society, was a rare and elusive guest in his heart. Yet, within the labyrinth of his nature, he harbored a deep-seated devotion for his sprawling estates, particularly the ancestral gem, Ashbourne in Dorset—his indomitable mistress.

However, his treasured dominion demanded a hefty ransom, and his coffers were far from brimming. At the prime age of forty-two, the Marquess confronted the unavoidable necessity of matrimony once more, driven to wed both fortune and a suitable bride to satiate the voracious appetite of his estate.

In the latter part of 1791, destiny introduced the Marquess to the beguiling Aliki Georgis, a seventeen-year-old heiress bathed in Thessalonian splendor. This union sent scandalous ripples through high society, long accustomed to the Jones lineage weaving itself exclusively into the tapestry of English history. Generations of ancestral pride murmured their disapproval, chalking up the Marquess's exotic choice to the lingering shadows of his grief.

Within mere months, the Marquess found himself questioning his own sanity. His enchanting bride, with raven tresses and adoring glances, turned out to be a dormant volcano. The ink on their marriage certificate had scarcely dried before she erupted with spoiled pride, unbridled passion, and reckless extravagance. Her uninhibited nature, both in speech and deed, clashed spectacularly with the Marquess's expectations, especially within the intimate confines of their bedchamber.

Driven by the looming specter of his lineage's extinction, he reluctantly returned to her bed, weathering the stormy seas that had become his marital obligations. When she finally conceived, he fervently prayed for a son, hoping to be released from the chains of such tempestuous duties.

In June of 1793, the heavens appeared to grant his fervent plea. However, as the Marquess gazed upon his heir for the first time, a gnawing suspicion began to take root. The infant, with its wrinkled olive complexion, oversized blue eyes, elfin ears, and unmistakably Greek features, looked more like a mythical sprite than a proper scion of English nobility. His silent prayers turned into anxious whispers, questioning the celestial jest that had bestowed upon him such an enigmatic progeny.

The wrinkled babe, unmistakably branded with the familial birthmark on its left buttock, forced the Marquess into a reluctant acknowledgment he desperately wished to refute. In his darkest musings, he ascribed the child's peculiarities to unholy and unnatural forces, casting his young wife as a consort of the infernal and the newborn as an otherworldly imp. These beliefs condemned him to a lifetime of estrangement from her bed, leaving a frosty void in the once-sacred chambers of their union.


The lad was christened Killian Francis Ashbourne Jones and, in keeping with tradition, assumed his father's second highest title, Earl of Blackmoor. An apt title, the gossips quipped behind the Marquess's back, as the boy sported the olive complexion, ocean-deep eyes, and raven-black hair of his mother's lineage. He also bore the distinctive Georgis ears. On a very small, awkwardly proportioned child, they appeared grotesque.

Regrettably, he'd also inherited the Georgis' hypersensitivity. By the tender age of seven, he was painfully aware that something was wrong with him.

His mother had procured a collection of splendid picture books. Yet none of the characters bore any resemblance to him - save for a dark-haired, malevolent devil's imp, who perched on a young boy's shoulder and enticed him into mischief.

Though no elves whispered mischievous counsel in his ear, Killian was convinced of his wickedness by the scoldings and whippings that were his frequent companions. He preferred the whippings his tutor gave him. His father's scolds made Killian feel hot and clammy cold at the same time, and then his stomach would feel as though it were filled with birds, all flapping their wings to get out, and then his legs would shake. He dared not shed tears, for he was past infancy, and tears only fueled his father's ire, transforming his countenance into a more fearsome sight than his sternest words.

In the pages of those idyllic picture books, parents beamed at their offspring, showering them with affection and endearments. His mother indulged in such displays occasionally, when her spirits were high, but his father never did. There were no playful conversations or joyous rides on shoulders or horseback with him. Killian rode his own pony, and it was Marco, one of the grooms, who taught him.

He knew better than to ask his mother what was awry with him and how to remedy it. Killian had learned not to say much of anything - except that he loved her and she was the prettiest mama in the world - because nearly everything else upset her.

Once, during her trip to Salisbury, she had asked him what he'd fancy as a gift upon her return. He had innocently requested a little brother to play with. Her initial response was tears, followed by a storm of angry Greek expletives. Though Killian couldn't decipher their exact meaning, he sensed their wickedness because Papa promptly rebuked her upon hearing them.

Their ensuing quarrels were more distressing than his mother's tears or his father's most furious glares.

Killian had no desire to be the catalyst for such bitter disputes. He especially didn't want to provoke his mama into saying the wicked words, because God might get angry, and then she'd go to Hell.

For then, he reasoned, no one would ever again cuddle or kiss him.

And so there was no one Killian could ask what was wrong and what to do, save his Heavenly Father, who, much to his dismay, remained steadfastly silent.

Then, one fateful day, when Killian was eight years old, his mother went out with her maid and did not return.

His father had gone to London, and the servants told Killian his mother had decided to go there, too.

But his father came back very soon after, and Mama wasn't with him.

Summoned to the foreboding depths of the study, Killian faced his father's stern countenance behind a vast desk, the weighty tome of the Bible open before him. With a gesture as commanding as thunder, he bid Killian to take a seat. Trembling like a leaf, Killian complied, for speech eluded him. The fluttering wings in his stomach threatened to unleash a storm.

"You must cease your pestering of the servants about your mother," his father declared with a severity that could quench fire. "She is not to be mentioned again. She is a vile, godless creature. Her name is Jezebel, and 'The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel'."

Inside Killian's mind, someone was shrieking so loudly that it drowned out his father's words. Yet, his father appeared oblivious to the inner turmoil, engrossed in the scriptures spread before him.

"'For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil'," he recited solemnly. "'But her end is bitter and wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to earth; her steps take hold on hell'." With a steely gaze, he lifted his eyes from the pages. "I renounce her, and I am glad that the taint has departed from the house of my forebears. We shall speak of this no more."

He rose and yanked the bell rope, summoning a footman who promptly escorted Killian away. Yet, even as they descended the stairs in haste and the study door shut behind them, the cacophony in Killian's mind refused to cease. He attempted to muffle it by covering his ears, but the relentless noise persisted until he could no longer contain it—a primal, agonizing howl escaped his lips.

In his distress, when the footman sought to calm him, Killian lashed out with kicks and bites, breaking free from the grasp. Then, as if a malevolent force had seized control, a torrent of vile words erupted from his mouth. The beast within him seemed unleashed, wreaking havoc as it seized a vase and hurled it at a mirror, shattering both. A fragment struck his cheek, leaving a deep gash that went unnoticed amidst the rush of adrenaline.

Next, it seized a fragile plaster statue, sending it crashing to the ground in a deafening crescendo. Through the great hall it ran, screaming with unchecked fury, smashing anything within its reach.


All the upper servants hurried toward the tumult, but none dared approach the child, each convinced he was beset by infernal spirits. They stood transfixed, aghast, as they bore witness to the Marquess' heir apparent laying waste to the once-immaculate Great Hall. From above, not a syllable of reproach, not even a murmur, emanated. His Lordship's door remained closed tight, as if barring out the very devil itself raging below.

At last the enormous cook lumbered forth from the kitchen and scooped up the wailing boy, undeterred by his flailing limbs, as she enveloped him in a bear hug. "There, there, my dear," she murmured.

Unfazed by demons or the wrath of his father, she carried Killian to the warmth of the kitchen, dismissing all other staff, and settled into her grand chair by the hearth. Tenderly, she tended to the deep cut on his cheek, which promised a lasting scar, and gently rocked the sobbing child until his tears were spent.

Like everyone else in the manor, Hilda was privy to the scandalous tale of the Lady of the estate absconding with the scion of a prosperous shipping magnate. She hadn't fled to London, but to Portsmouth, where she had embarked on her lover's vessel bound for the New World.

The boy's heart-wrenching cries about dogs devouring his mother stirred in the cook an urge to wield her cleaver against her master. The young Earl of Blackmoor was no picture of cherubic charm; his elven ears and unmistakable Greek lineage elicited reactions across Dorset, possibly even Somerset and Wiltshire, that could only be described as 'astounded'—and not in the most flattering sense. Yet, he was but a child, deserving far better than the hand Fate had dealt him, she reckoned.

In a tender moment, she explained to Killian that his parents' relationship had soured so profoundly that his mother, in her misery, had chosen to flee. Regrettably, Hilda elucidated, running away was a graver mistake for a grown woman than for a little boy. It was an irreparable misstep, sealing the Lady's fate to never return.

"Is she going to Hell?" the boy inquired, his voice quavering. "Papa said-"

"God will forgive her," Hilda reassured him with unwavering resolve. "He will forgive her, if He is truly just and merciful."

With gentle determination, she escorted him upstairs, dismissing his austere nursemaid, and tucked him into bed.

Alone in the quiet aftermath, Killian sat upright, clutching the small portrait of the Blessed Virgin and Baby Jesus his mother had bestowed upon him. Pressing it close to his heart, he offered fervent prayers.

He had diligently learned all the prescribed prayers of his father's creed, yet tonight he recited one he had often heard his mother whisper, fingers tracing the long strand of beads. The words were imprinted on his heart, though the nuances of Greek still eluded his grasp.

"Axion Estin hōs alēthōs makarizein se tēn Theotokon…" he intoned softly.

He did not know that his father stood outside the door listening.

He did not know that the recitation of this "popish" prayer was the final straw for the Marquess.


A fortnight later, Killian found himself unceremoniously bundled into a carriage bound for Eton.

Following a perfunctory meeting with the headmaster, he was left to fend for himself in the sprawling dormitory, at the dubious mercy of his peers.

Lord Pan, looming as the largest and oldest in the vicinity, fixed Killian with an unyielding stare before erupting into raucous laughter, echoed by the others like a pack of deranged hyenas. Killian stood rooted, surrounded by what felt like a cacophony of mocking banshees.

"No wonder your mama fled," Pan declared once he caught his breath. "Did she shriek when you were born, Killie?" he taunted.

"It's Killian," Killian gritted out, fists clenched.

"It's what I say it is, insect," Pan retorted with disdain. "And I say she bolted because she couldn't bear the sight of you another minute. You resemble a wretched earwig." With hands clasped behind his back, he circled Killian leisurely. "What say you to that, Killie?"

Killian surveyed the contemptuous faces leering down at him. Marco, the groom, had said he would find friends at school. Killian, who'd never had anyone to play with, had clung to that hope through the long, lonely journey.

Now, however, there were no friends in sight, only jeering visages—all towering far above his own. Each lad in the vastness of Eton seemed older and larger than he.

"I asked a question, Killie," Pan insisted. "When your superiors ask, you'd best respond."

Killian locked eyes defiantly with his tormentor. "Maláka," he stated firmly.

Pan lightly cuffed his head. "None of that gibberish, insect."

"Maláka," Killian repeated boldly. "Wanker."

Pan arched his pallid eyebrows and surveyed his assembled comrades with a sardonic grin. "Did you catch that?" he inquired, voice dripping with disdain. "Not content with looking like Beelzebub's distant cousin, he's also cursed with a gutter tongue. What shall we do about this predicament, my lads?"

"Toss him!" one exclaimed.

"Dunk him!" chimed another.

"Into the cesspit!" a third proposed, sparking uproarious approval.

This suggestion met with howling enthusiasm.

In the blink of an eye, they were upon him.


Several times en route to his doom, they gave Killian a chance to recant. All he needed to do was bow to Pan, beg forgiveness, and kiss his boots, and he would be spared.

But the beast had taken hold of him, and Killian responded boldly with a barrage of every foul English and Greek curse he had ever heard.

However, defiance proved less helpful than the laws of physics in that moment. Despite his small stature, Killian's proportions were awkwardly misshapen. His narrow shoulders, for instance, were too broad to fit through the privy door. All Pan could manage was to cram Killian's head into the opening and hold it there until he vomited.

The incident, much to Pan and his cronies' chagrin, failed to instill even a shred of deference in the earwig. Despite their relentless efforts to school him in the finer arts of humility, Killian remained obstinate. They ridiculed his ears and mixed heritage, taunted the scar on his cheek that refused to fade, and composed ribald ballads about his mother. They dangled him like a ragdoll from high windows, subjected him to blanket tosses, and left deceased rodents as macabre surprises in his bed. In the rare moments of solitude - a rarity at Eton - he wept with a mix of sorrow, fury, and profound isolation. In public, he hurled curses and fists, always ending up on the losing end.

Between ceaseless torment outside the lecture halls and regular thrashings within, Eton swiftly purged any vestiges of tenderness, kindness, or trust from his young soul. While some boys thrived under Etonian tutelage, for Killian it brought forth only the darkest aspects of his character.

At the tender age of ten, the headmaster solemnly informed Killian that his mother had succumbed to fever in the West Indies. He listened in stoic silence, then promptly sought out Pan for a confrontation.

Pan towered over him by two years, dwarfing him in both size and speed. Yet this time, the beast inside Killian stirred with icy fury, propelling him to fight with a chilling resolve, silently and tenaciously, until he had felled his adversary and left his nose bloodied.

Battered and bleeding, Killian cast a defiant glance around the circle of spectators.

"Anyone else?" he challenged, each word a struggle to breathe out.

Not a soul dared to speak. As he turned to depart, they parted before him like a river before a boulder.

Midway across the yard, a break in the eerie silence came with Pan's booming voice.

"Nicely done, Jones!" he called out.

Killian halted in his tracks, spinning around sharply. "Go to Hell!" he retorted with venom.

Then, as Pan's cap soared skyward, a roar of approval erupted. In an instant, a flurry of caps followed suit, and jubilation filled the air.

"Bloody fools," Killian muttered under his breath. With a dramatic flourish, he theatrically tipped an imaginary hat, lamenting the irreparable demise of his actual one, now crushed beyond recognition. With whimsical flair, he executed an exaggerated bow that seemed to mock the very atmosphere.

In the blink of an eye, a throng of exuberant lads surrounded him. Before he knew it, Killian found himself hoisted onto Pan's broad shoulders, his sharp wit met with cheers and laughter from the assembled throng.

Soon enough, he became Pan's confidant. And once that line was crossed, there was simply no turning back for him.


Among all the hellions being thrashed and bullied toward manhood at Eton at the time, Pan's crew stood as the undisputed champions of chaos. Along with the usual Etonian pranks and harassment of the hapless locals, they were gambling, smoking, and drinking themselves sick before they reached puberty. The wenching commenced promptly thereafter.

Killian was initiated into the erotic mysteries on his thirteenth birthday. Pan and Rufio - the boy who'd advised privy dunking - primed Killian with rum, blindfolded him, dragged him hither and yon for an hour or more, then hauled him up a flight of stairs into a musty-smelling room. They stripped him naked and after removing the blindfold, left, locking the door behind them.

The chamber boasted a fetid oil lamp, a mattress grimy beyond redemption, and a corpulent maiden with ginger curls, flushed cheeks, oversized cerulean eyes, and a diminutive nose perched like a button. She fixed Killian with a gaze akin to staring at a defunct rodent.

He didn't need to speculate on her stare. Despite gaining two inches since his last birthday, he remained a vision reminiscent of a sprightly hobgoblin.

"I won't do it," she declared, her lips pursed obstinately. "Not for a hundred pounds."

Killian discovered that he did have some feelings left. If he hadn't, her words wouldn't have stung. His throat tightened, a lump forming, and he battled an urge to shed tears, resenting her for evoking such vulnerability. She seemed nothing more than a dim-witted, ordinary piglet, and were she a lad, he'd have given her a sound thrashing.

Yet, concealing his sentiments had become second nature by now.

"Such a pity," he retorted coolly. "On my birthday, no less, and I was feeling so magnanimous that I considered parting with a whole ten shillings."

Killian was well aware Pan had never lavished more than sixpence on any harlot.

She cast Killian a petulant glance that drifted down to his manhood, where her gaze lingered a tad too long. Predictably, it responded with eager enthusiasm.

Her pouting lip trembled.

"I did mention I was feeling generous," he interjected before she could mock him. "Ten shillings and sixpence, then. Not a penny more. If you're not keen, I'm sure I can find someone else."

"I suppose I could close my eyes," she mused.

He flashed a sardonic grin. "Whether they're open or shut, it's all the same to me. But I do expect my money's worth."

And indeed, he received it, with no closed eyes but plenty of theatrical enthusiasm, satisfying his every expectation.

Reflecting on the encounter later, Killian extracted a life lesson with the finesse he applied to all others.

Thenceforth, he decided, he must take his motto from Horace: "Make money, money by fair means if you can, if not, by any means money."


Since his enrollment at Eton, the sole communiqués Killian received from home consisted of terse notes accompanying his quarterly stipend, penned by his father's secretary.

As Killian approached the conclusion of his tenure at Eton, he received a letter, unusually expansive at two paragraphs, detailing arrangements for his enrollment at Cambridge.

He acknowledged Cambridge's esteemed reputation, deemed by many as more forward-thinking than its cloistered counterpart, Oxford.

Yet, he harbored no illusions that his father's selection was based on Cambridge's progressive merits. The Jones lineage had long been intertwined with Eton and Oxford, institutions as ancient as stone. Sending his son elsewhere was as close to disowning him as the Marquess could muster—a proclamation to the world that Killian was a blemish on the family crest.

A stain he undeniably embodied.

Not only did he conduct himself with a monstrous air—never quite managing to merit expulsion before the authorities—but had indeed become a physical specimen of one: standing nearly six feet tall, every inch dark and implacably firm.

Throughout his tenure at Eton, he had meticulously cultivated a reputation as a creature to be remembered. He took pride in the knowledge that respectable folk dubbed him the "Doom and Decay of the Joneses."

Until now, the Marquess had shown little indication of noticing or caring about his son's actions.

However, the succinct letter conveyed otherwise. His Lordship intended to chastise and disgrace his son by exiling him to a university no Jones had ever deigned to grace.

The retribution arrived belatedly, finding Killian well-versed in the art of parrying attempts to manage, chastise, or shame him. He'd uncovered the potency of wealth, often trumping physical coercion.

Adopting Horace's creed, he honed his knack for multiplying his stipend through games of chance and wagers. Half his gains vanished into women, various vices, and private Greek lessons - the last because he wouldn't let anyone suspect he was at all sensitive about his mother.

He had planned to buy a racehorse with the other half of his winnings.

In reply, he advised that his parent use the allotted funds to send a needy boy to Cambridge, because the Earl of Blackmoor would attend Oxford and pay his own way.

Then, risking his racehorse nest egg on a wrestling bout, Killian gambled his way to victory.

With his newfound fortune and the leverage wielded by Pan's influential uncle, Killian secured his passage to Oxford.


At the ripe age of twenty-four, Killian received a terse missive from home bearing news: his father had met his maker.

Ascending to the Marquessate of Hookstone, he inherited a sprawling domain of lands, stately abodes—Ashcourt, their opulent ancestral estate chief among them—and a mountain of mortgages and debts.

His father had left his affairs in an appalling state, and Killian hadn't the smallest doubt why. Unable to control his son, the dearly departed had determined to ruin him.

But if the sanctimonious old codger anticipated a heavenly chuckle as he awaited the fourth Marquess of Hookstone's descent into ruin, he'd find himself waiting through eternity.

By now, Killian had ventured deep into the realm of commerce, deploying his wits and audacity to conquer it. Every penny of his current comfortable income had been earned or won through his own cunning. Along the way, he had rescued more than a few faltering ventures from the brink of insolvency, turning them into lucrative investments. Compared to these feats, sorting out his father's trifling mess was child's play.

He promptly liquidated all non-entailed assets, cleared the debts, revamped the antiquated financial structure, ousted the secretary, steward, and family solicitor, and installed replacements with acumen, detailing their exact duties. With a final nostalgic ride through the moors of his youth, he bid farewell and set off for Paris.