A Gentleman By Any Other Name

London, 1811

CHANCE BECKET SAT IN the formal drawing room of his

Georgian house located in Upper Brook Street, not two blocks from Hyde Park, unaware of his expensive, fashionable surroundings.

No, not unaware. Uncaring.

How could he not care? Wasn't this what he wanted, what he'd always wanted? What he worked for, what he longed for...what he had achieved almost entirely on his own?

Perhaps that was the rub. He had done nothing entirely on his own. His extensive education had been a gift from his father, Ainsley Becket, the mysterious, reclusive and very wealthy Becket of Romney Marsh.

This house? This house had been a gift from his late father-in-law. Even the furnishings, the fine silk sofa he slouched in now, had come to him along with his wife, Beatrice.

Chance sipped from the wineglass that had moments earlier dangled from his fingertips, nearly spilling onto the fine Aubusson carpet.

He was a sham, a farce, living no more than the shallow dream of a reality that had fallen far short of all his youthful expectations. Gentlemen were born, not constructed out of w ... read full excerpt from: A Gentleman By Any Other Name ebook