A Beginner’s Guide to Scandal: A Friends to Lovers Historical Romance (Tales from Honeysuckle Street Book 1) by Alivia Fleur
A tale of unrequited love for the boy next door…
Prologue
Iris knew where Hamish would be. She waited until the sun set and the house was not yet still, but only murmuring, before she crept from her bed. She threw a coat over her nightgown, tugged on her slippers, eased the window open, and swung her legs out onto the oak branch. Moving with a familiar purpose, she shuffled along, over the fence, the way she had for as far back as she could remember over her eighteen years, then dropped to land on the overgrown lawn of the abandoned villa at Number 6, Honeysuckle Street.
The earlier frantic conversations and garbled shouts still rang in her ears. The Dalton staff spoke high and frantic, conveying horrid news about an overturned phaeton. Hamish’s father was abed and anguished, his mother had been injured badly and had died before arriving at the hospital, and Lewis, thrown hardest and furthest, was gone before the first passer-by had stumbled upon the twisted wreck. The horse, with two legs broken, had been the final casualty.
Throughout the afternoon, the rumour mill ground out grist of half-truths. Some said the earl, who had never been patient, had pulled too hard on the reigns and the horse had taken offence. Others suggested a robber from the shadows had upset the normally calm mare. The truth, when it was declared by the coroner, was more mundane. Moving too fast because they were late, a wheel had hit a rut in the road and the conveyance had tipped, spilling Hamish’s family onto the street like milk.