The Mistress of Trevelyan
Chapter 1
San Francisco
1873
The house on Trevelyan Hill had always beckoned to me. Its stone turrets, stained glass, and gray spires, often swirled with mists from the bay, rose like a dark manor in the clouds. Even today, an unusually bright San Franciscan day, the mysterious air hovering above the house intensified as I drew near.
Butterflies fluttered over my nerves, making me pause to stare at the house and dab at the perspiration upon my brow. As a child, in the rare moments when my mother and I escaped our laundering, I'd beg to go to Holloway Park. There, I'd sketch the manor's stark beauty and listen to my mother tell of her privileged life in England. She'd always drift off to sleep, dreaming of those days, and I'd make up stories about those who lived on Trevelyan Hill.
Such things as drawing and dreams were foreign to my practical nature, as was my penchant for books, but they were my only luxury. I held on to them as I grew from girl to woman -- the art, the books, and the dreams. They eased my soul, and were my only solace during the toiling days of scal ... read full excerpt from: The Mistress of Trevelyan ebook
