It was day break. A rosy, warm sunrise glowed over the vall
ey. Galloping through the
early morning mist, Tobias Cavendish-Blake finally slowed his h
orse to survey the
sight before him. Treweham Hall stood proud and majestic agai
nst the smooth, rolling
hills. The imposing building was made of sandstone with four co
rner turrets and
sturdy buttresses that gave it a castle-like appearance. Gothi
c windows with stained
glass twinkled in the sunlight. He sighed heavily: would it alway
s remain so resilient,
the fortress of his family?
That seemed dubious, going through the estate accounts. His fa
ther, the late Lord
Richard Cavendish-Blake, had looked after the place well
–
too well. All the
contingency funds had haemorrhaged, bled completely dry re
lentlessly maintaining
the upkeep of the Hall. The outgoings far outweighed the incom
ings. The payroll of
the staff alone made Tobias
’
eyes water, not to mention the colossal energy bills.
Tobias had suggested shutting down the many vast unused rooms, but
his mother
wouldn
’
t hear of it. Lady Cavendish-Blake had been sheltered by
her late husband,
leaving her totally oblivious to the fact that her home was a m
oney pit and the current
state of affairs could only be described as dire. As the
new custodian, it was down to
Tobias to keep the place running. He was responsible not only for
the staff, but the
village tenants too. Feeling the burden weighing down on his broad
shoulders, he
realised it was time to grow up. Time to settle down. The future
meant kissing
goodbye to the wild parties for which he was notorious.
His thoughts turned back to his thirtieth birthday bash, making hi
m wince. It hadn
’
t been so much a party, more a two-week brawl around Europe
with a few friends,
including his oldest childhood chum, Seamus Fox, son of a m
illionaire racehorse
trainer. The two of them together had been a lethal c
ombination, each egging the
other on, the more daring and outrageous the exploits the
better, resulting in the
occasional brush with the tabloids. The picture of him an
d Seamus plastered over the
fr
ont page of a newspaper showing them tumbling out of a St Tr
opez nightclub,
legless (and trouserless) with a beauty on each arm, was
one he couldn
’
t forget. His
father wouldn
’
t let him. They
’
d been dubbed
‘
the Heir and the Fox
’
. Ironically,
Tobias wasn
’
t a natural wild child, the opposite in fact.
His one true love, Carrie, had been a local girl from t
he village. They
’
d always
been close. Even when he had been sent to Eton they
’
d written, phoned and