Yes! Enjoy the opening of A Beginner's Guide to Scandal, right here.
February 1875
The old house had been demolished.
Hamish shouldn’t have been surprised. The place had been an eyesore and a death-trap when he was young. A dilapidated relic even in his earliest memories, Number 6 Honeysuckle Street had likely been built before the Peninsular Wars. The front door had always been boarded and nailed shut, while the back door wouldn’t close. On cold days, the wind pushed itself through cracks in the walls and broken panes of glass, sending the scraps of curtains flickering.
Hamish’s grandfather, may he rest in peace, had constantly bellyached about the state of the hideous building. When sufficiently roused, he would stamp his cane against the rug in time with each bellowed syllable until Hamish’s father promised to write to the authorities, again.
Yes, it was a blessing that the old ruin had been knocked down.
And yet Hamish, Lord Dalton, heir to Earl Caplin, felt bereft. Twelve years had passed since he had last been in London, and when he recalled his childhood visits, the old house always figured in his memory. It had been the backdrop to many epic battles and adventures as he and the other spare heirs of the street played while nannies and maids gossiped. From the clacking shutters to the missing third stair, or to the cellar kitchen where they would light small fires in the old stove and make tea in a scavenged pot, or the treasure trove of busted furniture they used to build castles, it had all remained solid in his thoughts. For how long had he imagined it unchanged when here it was rubble?
A shadow shifted, and from behind a pile of bricks and dirt, a grey tail with a white tip flicked.
‘It can’t be.’
Hamish picked his way between the uneven bricks and clumps of weeds until he stood a few feet from the pile of debris, then he squatted down. As he tugged off his glove and extended his hand, he gave a low whistle before gently calling, ‘Remember me?’
The raggedy tom regarded Hamish with narrow green eyes. His white whiskers twitched, sniffing the air, before he pushed his nose against Hamish’s outstretched fingers and smooched against his palm. He could have walked straight from a memory. Spencer, the cat owned by no one and everyone, was somehow still alive, and judging by the slight paunch to his belly, was still king of Honeysuckle Street. As Spencer nuzzled into his palm, Hamish curled his fingers to scratch beneath an ear and was rewarded with a rumbling purr.
‘I would advise against that.’
Hamish didn’t want to break his reacquaintance with an old friend, so he remained squatting as he turned towards the street seeking the source of the comment. In the strained light of a mid-morning fog, he saw only the silhouettes of two women in walking attire. He couldn’t clearly see their faces, but that voice… it wasn’t so much the tone, which was deeper than the light, girlish tenor from his memory, but the all-knowing boldness that rang with incredible familiarity.
‘All is well,’ he called before running his palm down Spencer’s back, who arched into the stroke with an extra loud purr. ‘We’re old friends.’
‘Friendship won’t save your suit, I’m afraid,’ she called back. ‘He’s moulting.’
As if scalded, Hamish pushed himself to standing and clapped his hands together furiously. How had he not noticed? Flecks of fur wafted in the air, floating languidly before attaching to his suit as if it were magnetised. His trousers, brand new, were now sprinkled with specks of white and grey. Blast it. He’d need to change now before he went to the club.
A light laugh carried, high and bright, with the same assuredness that had chased him through streets and over fences all through his childhood. Never once giving a jot for who he was or who she was. After all this time, was she still living on Honeysuckle Street?
Hamish brushed the last of the fur from his palms. ‘Do you know what happened to the house that used to be here?’
But when he looked to the street, the lady and her companion were gone.
