The Ravenstone Heir

Chapter One, Scene 1

Ravenstone Castle, Northumberland, 1827

Fletcher Graham's father left him a pittance, his name, and a thorny problem when the older man inconveniently fell into the River Blyth, took a chill, and died. Fletcher could ignore the pittance, having parlayed a much larger sum from his maternal grandmother into a growing commercial enterprise that left him far better off than his feckless relatives. The name, given as it was to a bastard his father might well have disowned, had been welcome. The problem, however, sat in sullen discontent across his grandfather's study and threatened to drive him mad.

"I don't see why he didn't just come forward when grandfather died," Fletch's younger brother Gordon—the problem in question—grumbled. His complaint referred to their hitherto unknown cousin, the likely heir to the title Gordon had expected to inherit.

Their grandfather died in the summer of the ravages of age, and the estate's solicitors initiated a search for his oldest son, the heir apparent, who had left home thirty years before. Their father, never one to allow inconvenient facts to interfere with his desires, moved into Ravenstone Castle and the role of earl with no fuss, happily ignoring efforts to find for his older brother. He even took over Grandfather's blasted bird, Hrafn, squawking in its cage in the corner of the old man's study. His brother Horace, he insisted, had died in the wilds of North America.

"The solicitors claim the heir didn't know. It took the investigators months to find him," Fletcher replied as he had the last four times Gordon made the same complaint.

"You shouldn't have fired our solicitors; they might have helped. You shouted at them, and then you sent them scurrying back to London." Gordon managed to make a breach of manners sound like criminal activity.

In Fletcher's experience business progressed far more quickly when he dispensed with niceties. "They did nothing but grovel and propose delaying tactics—damned useless. My man in Manchester should arrive tomorrow," he responded.

"You mean you haven't frightened him off too like you did father's men? You frighten everyone," his brother glowered at him from the chair.

I wish I could frighten some sense into Gordon. If this stranger turns out to be Grandfather's true heir, my little brother will be out on his ear without a cent, and I'll have to pick up the pieces.

The incompetent family solicitors had arrived three days ago bearing letters from one of the most prominent law firms in London and the object they considered proof of his identity. Fletcher held it up to the sun streaming through the window and examined it again. He found no reason to doubt its authenticity. Horace Graham disappeared thirty years before, and he took the heir's intaglio signet ring with him, the ring in Fletcher's hand. Mounted in gold, the onyx stone had been carved with the raven of the Grahams—the hrafn his father claimed came from their mythical Viking ancestors.

Fletcher had examined the ring under magnifiers and compared it to documents in the family archives. It matched in every detail. Even if a counterfeiter knew enough about them to get the bird right, he doubted they would notice that the object in his claw was not an acorn. It was, in fact, an image of the ring itself, the details so small only magnification revealed the truth.

"If you're not going to stop staring at that thing, I have better things to do. I'm going for a ride." Gordon heaved himself to his feet and strode to the door. He held it open momentarily and glowered at his brother who still studied at the ring. Neither man noticed the streak of orange fur that ran past Gordon's feet to hide behind the heavy drapes. "You should come, Fletch. A ride would do you good."

Fletcher glanced up at his brother, tempted. "Perhaps, but getting to the bottom of the correspondence waiting in my quarters will do me more. Business doesn't wait for family crises to resolve." Gordon slammed the door behind him, setting Hrafn off in a fit of squawks and feathers and causing Fletcher to wince.

"Well bird, I better get to it," he said. He glanced down at the ring and tossed it into a crystal bowl on grandfather's desk that still held pebbles worn smooth by the river and dragged home by their father on his daily walks. "Damned fool never could stay away from the river," he muttered as he let himself out.