The Call from Across the Sea
The October rain fell in sheets over the Sussex countryside, turning the gravel drive of Harlow Manor into a river of mud and small stones. Cassidy Lennox pressed her forehead against the cold glass of the hired car’s window, watching the ancient estate emerge through the gray curtain like a memory she had spent five years trying to drown.
The manor had not changed. It never did.
Three stories of honey-colored stone rose from manicured gardens that had been cultivated since the Tudor dynasty, their symmetry a quiet declaration of centuries of order. Ivy climbed the eastern tower where she had once spent a stolen afternoon reading Shakespeare aloud to a man who had listened with his hand resting on her ankle. The fountain in the forecourt still depicted Neptune rising from marble waves, water streaming from his trident in the same pattern it had traced the night she had packed her bags and left England without a forwarding address.
“Mommy, is this where the movie people are?”
Noah’s voice pulled her back from the precipice of memory. She turned to find her son pressed against the opposite window, his small palms leaving prints on the glass, his eyes—those impossible, devastating eyes the exact shade of aged whiskey—scanning the manor with the unguarded wonder that only six-year-olds possessed.
“Yes, baby.” She reached over and smoothed a strand of dark hair from his forehead. The gesture was automatic, maternal, a cover for the tremor that had taken up residence in her chest the moment the car had passed through the manor gates. “The production office is in the west wing. Mr. Sterling’s team has been here for three weeks.”
“Will there be swords?”
“Probably not real ones.”
Noah considered this with the solemn gravity of a child who had recently discovered that the world was full of disappointments disguised as safety precautions. “Fake swords are still okay. Jasper said he’d teach me stage combat when I’m seven.”
“Jasper talks too much.”
“Jasper says you talk too much too.”
Cassidy allowed herself a genuine smile, the first in the seven hours since they had landed at Heathrow. Jasper Hale, the head of security for Sterling Productions, had become an unlikely fixture in their lives over the past year—a quietly competent man in his late forties who treated Noah with the gentle patience of someone who had raised children of his own. Margot had hired her after the first round of threatening letters had arrived at Cassidy’s flat in Santa Monica, and though the danger had faded, Jasper had stayed. Friends, she had told herself. He’s just a friend who happens to carry a concealed weapon and know three ways to disarm a man using only a ballpoint pen.
The car pulled to a stop before the main entrance, and the driver killed the engine. The rain drummed against the roof in a steady rhythm that seemed to count down the seconds until everything she had built would collapse.
“Stay close to me inside,” Cassidy said, reaching for her bag. “And remember—”
“No running. No touching things that aren’t mine. If someone asks where my dad is, I say he lives in America and I don’t see him much.”
The rehearsed answer landed like a slap. She had taught it to him two years ago, when he had started preschool and the questions had begun. She had refined it as he grew older and the lie required more elaborate foundations. She had never once considered that bringing him to Harlow Manor would force her to confront the shape of the truth she had been hiding.
“That’s right.” She kissed his forehead and opened the door. Cold air rushed in, carrying the smell of wet earth and something floral from the gardens. “Let’s go find Mr. Sterling.”
—
The foyer of Harlow Manor was designed to intimidate.
A double staircase curved upward to a gallery lined with portraits of men who had carried the Ashford title for four hundred years. Crystal chandeliers caught whatever light managed to penetrate the storm clouds and scattered it across marble floors that reflected the gathered production staff like a dark mirror. Costume assistants hurried past with garment bags. A PA balanced three coffee cups while arguing into a headset about a lighting issue in the library. The air smelled of tea, paper, and the particular desperation that accompanied any film production operating behind schedule.
Cassidy kept her hand on Noah’s shoulder as they navigated the chaos. She had dressed carefully that morning—a cream blouse, tailored trousers, minimal jewelry. Professional. Untouchable. The costume designer who had won the BAFTA for her work on *The Winter Palace* and who had been flown across an ocean to design forty period-accurate gowns on a six-week timeline.
The truth was simpler: she had needed to return to England. She had needed to prove to herself that she could stand on this soil without falling apart. The film had been an excuse, a professional lifeline extended by a director who valued her eye for historical detail over her complicated history with the country.
“Cassidy!”
She turned to find Margot Chen weaving through the crowd, her laptop clutched to her chest like a shield. Margot had been her assistant for three years and her friend for two, a sharp-eyed woman from Bristol who had a gift for managing impossible schedules and an unwavering loyalty that Cassidy had done nothing to deserve.
“You look terrible,” Margot said, reaching them. She crouched to Noah’s level. “Hello, terror. Did you bring your coloring books?”
“In my backpack.” Noah held up the bag in question. “I finished the whole dragon one on the plane.”
“Splendid. I’ll need to see that later.” Margot straightened and met Cassidy’s eyes with the kind of look that meant bad news was incoming. “We have a situation.”
“We always have a situation. That’s why they pay you.”
“Not that kind of situation.” Margot lowered her voice. “Reid Sterling is here. He showed up this morning with his father’s personal assistant and a stack of notes on your costume sketches.”
Cassidy’s stomach tightened. Reid Sterling. The heir to Sterling Productions, a man who had built his reputation on appropriating the work of others and claiming it as his own. She had worked with him once, five years ago, on a period drama that had nearly destroyed her career. He had taken credit for her designs, dismissed her research, and made it abundantly clear that he considered her presence on his set a favor rather than a professional arrangement.
“Fantastic,” she said. “What kind of notes?”
“The kind that start with ‘I’m no expert, but’ and end with ‘perhaps we should adjust the silhouette to be more commercial.'” Margot’s voice dripped with contempt. “He’s in the green drawing room with the director. I’ve already moved your workspace to the morning room. It has a door that locks.”
“Good instincts.”
“Jasper’s outside doing a perimeter check. He said to tell you the grounds are secure, whatever that means.”
It meant that Jasper was still doing his job, still treating the threats from last year with the seriousness they deserved. The letters had stopped, but the memory of them had not faded. You have something that doesn’t belong to you. Return it, or we will come to collect.
Cassidy had burned the letters. She had not told Margot or Jasper who she suspected had sent them. She had not told anyone the truth about what she had taken from England when she had fled.
“Keep Noah with you,” she said, handing her son’s hand to Margot. “I’ll deal with Sterling.”
“You hate him.”
“Professionally.” She smoothed her blouse and began walking toward the green drawing room. “There’s a difference.”
The difference, she had learned, was survival.
—
The green drawing room was a masterpiece of restrained opulence. Sage walls rose to a ceiling painted with clouds and cherubs. A fireplace large enough to roast a boar dominated the far wall, its mantle cluttered with photographs in silver frames. Lamps with silk shades cast warm pools of light across furniture that had been in the Harlow family longer than the United States had existed.
Reid Sterling stood before the fireplace, gesturing at a tablet held by a woman Cassidy did not recognize. He was handsome in the way that expensive tailoring and strategic tanning could make anyone handsome—all sharp angles and practiced charm, his smile a weapon he deployed with precision.
“Cassidy.” He turned as she entered, and his smile widened. “There she is. The prodigal returns.”
“Reid.” She kept her voice even. “I wasn’t told you’d be on site.”
“Last-minute decision. Father wanted me to oversee the production personally.” He set the tablet aside and approached, his hand extended. “It’s good to see you. You look well.”
She took his hand because refusing would have been a declaration of war. His grip was firm, proprietary. “I wasn’t aware your father had any interest in period dramas.”
“He doesn’t. But he has an interest in Harlow Manor.” Reid’s eyes flickered to the photographs on the mantle, then back to her face. “Curious thing, isn’t it? How certain properties become available at exactly the right moment.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing. Just making conversation.” He gestured to the tablet his assistant was holding. “I’ve been reviewing your costume sketches. They’re beautiful, of course. But I wonder if we might discuss adjustments to the lead gown for act three.”
Cassidy forced herself to focus on the work. They discussed seam lines and fabric weights, the practicality of corsets versus modern undergarments, the director’s preference for natural light that would wash out certain colors. Reid’s suggestions were, against her expectations, reasonable. He had done his research. He knew the period. That, more than anything, unsettled her.
“There’s someone I’d like you to meet,” Reid said as the conversation wound down. “He’s been following your work for years.”
He turned toward the door, and the world stopped.
Rowan Harlow, the eighth Earl of Ashford, stood in the doorway with rain still glistening on the shoulders of his coat.
He looked exactly as she remembered—tall, broad-shouldered, with dark hair silvering at the temples and a jaw that could have been carved from the same stone as the manor that bore his name. His hands were in his pockets. His eyes, the color of aged whiskey, swept the room with the practiced detachment of a man who had learned to hide every emotion behind a wall of aristocratic composure.
Then those eyes landed on her, and the wall cracked.
“Cassidy.”
Her name in his voice was a wound she had never stopped carrying. Five years of silence collapsed into a single syllable, and she felt the floor shift beneath her feet.
“Lord Ashford.” She heard herself speak as if from a great distance. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“This is still my home.” He stepped into the room, and the space between them became a chasm filled with everything they had never said. “The production company leased the west wing. I was informed they were bringing in a costume designer from Los Angeles. I wasn’t informed it would be you.”
“Would it have mattered?”
The question hung between them. Reid watched with the focused attention of a predator who had just spotted weakness in his prey.
“I think,” Reid said, his voice surgically casual, “that I should leave you two to catch up. Cassidy, we’ll continue our discussion tomorrow. Lord Ashford, a pleasure as always.”
He exited with his assistant, the door clicking shut behind them with the finality of a prison lock.
Rowan did not move. Cassidy did not breathe.
“Five years,” he said.
“I needed to leave.”
“You didn’t say goodbye.”
“You would have stopped me.”
“Of course I would have stopped you.” He took a step closer, and she caught the scent of him—woodsmoke and rain, the same cologne he had worn the night they had first kissed in the library beneath a portrait of his great-grandfather. “Because I loved you, Cassidy. I loved you, and you vanished.”
The words should have broken her. Instead, they crystallized into something hard and protective.
“You were engaged,” she said. “You were engaged to Eleanor Vance, and your family had already announced the wedding date. What was I supposed to do? Stay and watch you marry someone else?”
“I would have called it off.”
“Would you?” She heard her voice rise and forced it back down. “Would you have defied your mother, your title, four hundred years of tradition, for an American costume designer you had known for three months?”
The silence that followed was answer enough.
“That’s what I thought.” She moved toward the door, needing to escape before the tears she could feel building behind her eyes betrayed her. “I’ll have my assistant send the revised sketches to Mr. Sterling by morning. It was good to see you, Rowan. I hope you find everything you’re looking for.”
She stepped into the hallway and nearly collided with Margot, who was holding Noah’s hand and wearing an expression of barely suppressed panic.
“We need to go,” Margot whispered. “Now.”
“Why? What’s happened?”
“Jasper found someone on the grounds. A man with a camera, taking pictures of the estate. He ran when Jasper approached, but he dropped this.” Margot held up a leather wallet. Inside was a business card embossed with the Sterling family crest and a photograph of Cassidy and Noah taken three days ago, outside their hotel in London.
Someone had been watching them. Someone had followed them across an ocean.
Cassidy took the wallet and shoved it into her pocket. “Where’s Jasper?”
“Chasing the man into the woods. He told me to get you and Noah to the car and not stop for anything.”
They moved through the foyer, past the production staff and the chaos of equipment and the portraits of dead earls who seemed to watch them with judgment in their painted eyes. Rain hammered the windows. The clock on the landing struck four, its chime echoing through the stone corridors like a warning.
Cassidy reached the entrance and pushed open the heavy oak door.
The rain hit her face, cold and cleansing. The car was thirty feet away. Noah was at her side, his hand clutched in hers, his small face turned up to the gray sky with an expression of confused trust.
“Mommy, is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine, baby. We’re just leaving.”
“Cassidy.”
The voice came from behind her. She turned.
Rowan stood in the doorway, rain soaking his shoulders, his eyes fixed on her face with an intensity that made her chest ache.
“Who is he?” His gaze dropped to Noah, who had pressed himself against Cassidy’s leg, studying the stranger with the wary curiosity of a child who had learned that adults were unpredictable. “Cassidy, answer me. Who is that boy?”
The truth pressed against her teeth, demanding release. She had carried it alone for six years—the secret of the night before she had left, the morning she had discovered she was pregnant, the decision to raise their son in a country where no one would connect the child to the earl whose heart she had broken.
She opened her mouth.
“My son,” she said. “His name is Noah.”
Rowan took a step forward. His eyes moved from her face to the boy’s, tracing the line of Noah’s jaw, the shape of his eyes, the dark hair that curled at his temples in the exact same pattern as his own.
The rain kept falling.
The clock kept chiming.
And the truth that Cassidy had spent five years burying rose from its grave with terrible, undeniable life.
Rowan froze, his gaze dropping to the boy who held Cassidy’s hand. “Who is he, Cassidy?” he asked, his voice low and dangerous. “And why does he have my eyes?”