A Fine Caprice - A Regency Romance by Kate Harper Page A

debris that infested the place.
    Oddly enough, Abbey Cross had been desert ed when he had arrived, with no t a servant to be found. He had searc hed the place but there had been no sign of his uncle’s valet Priss. Having established that he was alone, Cass had been unclear as to what he was supposed to do but had decided to begin by search ing his uncle’s papers in the hope that they might give him an idea of the state of Abel Merridew’s affairs . It had to be done anyway, as he owned the place . It had been an admirable idea but di fficult to execute as Uncle Abel eschewed the dr eary necessity of keeping his pa pers in any kind of order . On the contrary, a cursory look through things had made Cass realize that his uncle had mixed bills and correspondence, idle s cribblings with invitations , all of which were st rewn about in the most haphazard manner imaginable. Cass hoped that Mr. Farris, his uncle’s solicitor , would be able to clarify matters with some kind of legal document . The man was due to ar rive on Frida y to elucidate the contents of the wil l .
    Cass glanced around the room and g rimaced. When he had claimed his uncle’s bedchamber he had collected up a dozen or so of the boxes that had been piled about the room, removing them into the dressing room next door because the clutter was making him claustrophobic. The state of Abbey Cross was incredible, stifling beneath fifty years of collected detritus . Abel had always been a hoarder but Cass had not realized the old man had gotten so bad in his latter years . The old man seemed to have taken to dumping things anywhere he fancied, which meant that almost every room seemed to be choked with rubbish . At least, Cass assumed it was rubbish. How he was to find anything of significance in amongst the mountain of madness was hard to envision , especially as he had no real idea wha t he was looking for. The mess was probably deliberate for Abel might have been utterly unpleasant and alarmingly eccentric but he always possessed a streak of lo w cunning that meant there very well might be nothing to find. Not without a great deal of work, anyway.
    The condition of Abbey Cross – both the house itself and the grounds - had come as an unpleasant shock for it appear ed no maintenance had been done for years. Cass had been told in the village that a t the end of his days, his uncle had only ret ained the services of Priss , an ins crutable man who had been entirely devoted to his master. Where the hell had the man gotten to? Unless he had fal len on his sword when Uncle Abel had passed away, unable to face life without his detestable employer, then by rights the man should still be o n the premises but an air of aba ndonment hung over it like a fetid stink. Or perhaps that was the drains. Like everything else, they needed attention.
    Although initially Cass had half believed he was on a wild goose chase, the arrival of his cousin Ravener the day after his own had seemed to suggest that there was something in Fenshaw’s story for Ravener never went anywhere without a purpose and that purpose inevitably benefited himself . Not that Cass hadn’t been expecting Hadley to turn up at some stage, him being U ncle Abel ’s favorite in as far as the man had possessed one. He would be hopin g that he would profit from Abel ’s death, no doubt. His cousin had been accompanied by his fiancée, the Grand Duchess that Fenshaw had alluded to and Cass had taken the opportunity to observe the woman , wondering if she truly was a spy and, if so, wondering just who it was she was spying for . A Prussian by birth, Maria was beautiful, sophisticated and possessed an acute intelligence that seemed to suggest her business at Abbey Cross had nothing to do with a patently absurd engagement to Hadley. Upon arrival, b oth of the new arrivals – in the company of their servants – had turned their noses up at the accommodation, declaring that the place was unfit for habitation. But