It had been after Martyn’s death, on her father’s urging, that she and Christopher had moved into the Lodge. Her father was sad and lonely, finding it hard getting over the big reversals in his life. She knew at some point she had to make a life for herself and her son. But where? She couldn’t escape the Valley. Christopher loved it here. It was his home. He loved his friends, his school, his beautiful environment and his bond with his grandfather. It made a move away from the Valley extremely difficult, and there were other crucial considerations for a single mother with a young child.
Martyn had left her little money. They had lived with his parents at their huge High Grove estate. They had wanted for nothing, all expenses paid, but Martyn’s father—knowing his son’s proclivities—had kept his son on a fairly tight leash. His widow, so all members of the Prescott family had come to believe, was undeserving.
“Grandpa runs to a timetable of his own,” Christopher was saying, shaking his golden-blond head. She too was blonde, with green eyes. Martyn had been fair as well, with greyish-blue eyes. Christopher’s eyes were as brilliant as blue-fire diamonds. “You look lovely in that dress, Mummy,” he added, full of love and pride in his beautiful mother. “Please don’t be sad today. I just wish I was seventeen instead of seven,” he lamented. “I’m just a kid. But I’ll grow up and become a great big success. You’ll have me to look after you.”
“My knight in shining armour!” She bent to give him a big hug, then took his outstretched hand, shaking it back and forth as if beginning a march. “Onward, Christian soldiers!”
“What’s that?” He looked up at her with interest.
“It’s an English hymn,” she explained. Her father wouldn’t have included hymns in the curriculum. Her father wasn’t big on hymns. Not since the Tragedy. “It means we have to go forth and do our best. Endure. It was a favourite hymn of Sir Winston Churchill. You know who he was?”
“Of course!” Christopher scoffed. “He was the great English World War II Prime Minister. The country gave him a huge amount of money for his services to the nation, then they took most of it back in tax. Grandpa told me.”
Charlotte laughed. Very well read himself, her father had taken it upon himself to “educate” Christopher. Christopher had attended the best school in the Valley for a few years now, but her father took his grandson’s education much further, taking pride and delight it setting streams of general, historical and geographical questions for which Christopher had to find the answers. Christopher was already computer literate but her father wasn’t—something that infuriated him—and insisted he find the answers in the books in the well-stocked library. Christopher never cheated. He always came up trumps. Christopher was a very clever little boy.
Like his father.
The garden party was well underway by the time they finished their stroll along the curving driveway. Riverbend had never looked more beautiful, Charlotte thought, pierced by the same sense of loss she knew her father was experiencing—though one would never have known it from his confident Lord of the Manor bearing. Her father was a handsome man, but alas not a lot of people in the Valley liked him. The mansion, since they had moved, had undergone very necessary repairs. These days it was superbly maintained, and staffed by a housekeeper, her husband—a sort of major-domo—and several ground staff to bring the once-famous gardens back to their best. A good-looking young woman came out from Sydney from time to time, to check on what was being done. Charlotte had met her once, purely by accident.
© Margaret Way, PTY., LTD 2011
THE ENGAGEMENT
PROJECT
BRENDA HARLEN
AND
HER SURPRISE
HERO
ABBY GAINES
THE ENGAGEMENT
PROJECT
BRENDA HARLEN
About the Author
BRENDA HARLEN grew up in a small town surrounded by books and imaginary friends. Although she always dreamed of being a writer, she chose to follow a more traditional career path first. After two years of practicing as a lawyer (including an appearance in front of the Supreme Court of Canada), she gave up her “real” job to be a mom and to try her hand at writing books. Three years, five manuscripts and another baby later, she sold her first book—an RWA Golden Heart winner.
Brenda lives in southern Ontario with her real-life husband/hero, two heroes-in-training and two neurotic dogs. She is still surrounded by books (“too many books,” according to her children) and imaginary friends, but she also enjoys communicating with “real” people. Readers can contact Brenda by e-mail at [email protected].
Dear Reader,
I’ve always enjoyed reading and writing connected stories because of the opportunities they provide to meet new characters and revisit old friends.
A few years ago, I wrote a book called The Marriage Solution. It was, at the time, a stand-alone story, but the hero had a brother, and, even then, I knew that I would write his story someday.
Of course, Gage Richmond was an unapologetic playboy who had some growing up to do before he was worthy of his own happily-ever-after. Thankfully, Megan Roarke is just the right woman to help him on that journey.
I’m thrilled to share their story with you and excited to announce that The Engagement Project is only the first book in my new BRIDES & BABIES miniseries. Because I’ve always enjoyed meeting new characters and revisiting old friends.
I hope you enjoy reading their story as much as I enjoyed writing it.
All the best,
Brenda Harlen
To my mom—
Because you taught me to be strong, to believe in
myself, and to never give up.
And because there’s a little bit of you in every
one of my heroines.
I love you
Chapter One
Megan Roarke hated shopping.
Her older sister often teased that there was something defective in Megan’s double-X chromosome that she balked at going to the mall. Of course, Megan couldn’t expect her to understand. Ashley was “the beautiful one”—the one who looked good in anything and drew glances of admiration wherever she went.
Megan, on the other hand, had always been referred to as “the smart one.” She’d started to read when she was three years old and had spent most of the next twenty years with her nose in a book. She read everything she could get her hands on—from fantastical stories about magical lands to biographies of world leaders to technical manuals. Books were her bridges to so many different places, knowledge was the key that opened new worlds—and a whole lot of other clichés that hid the real truth: she’d been a painfully shy and socially inept child who found refuge from the harsh realities of life between the covers of a book.
And through her reading, she’d learned that the childhood labels attached to herself and her sister did both of them a disservice. While Ashley was undeniably beautiful, she was also a smart and savvy woman; and though Megan accepted that there would always