The Hermit of Aldershill Manor
By K.L. Noone
5/5
()
About this ebook
Charlie Ash is ready to start a new job and a new life at Aldershill Manor. As a historian, he’s thrilled to dive into the estate’s archives. And he can hide from all the memories of his messy break-up back in California, where the man he’d thought he’d marry left him instead. He can find solace in exploring Aldershill’s famous gardens ... until he’s caught in the rain, and found by a gardener.
Lionel Briar enjoys making people happy, as long as he doesn’t have to talk to them. He does not like tourists, small talk, or social obligations. But he does like plants and history and his job, taking care of Aldershill’s historic gardens, helping beauty grow. He likes gently tending the world.
So when Lionel discovers the estate’s adorable new historian getting drenched by a summer thunderstorm in his gardens, he offers Charlie the shelter of his home on the grounds ... a moment of rescue that just might bloom into love.
K.L. Noone
K.L. Noone loves fantasy, romance, cats, far too sweet coffee, and happy endings! She is also the author of Port in a Storm and its upcoming sequel, available from Less Than Three Press, and numerous short romances with Ellora’s Cave and Circlet Press; her fantasy fiction has appeared in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword and Sorceress anthologies. With her Professor Hat on, she teaches college students about Shakespeare and superhero comics, and has published academic articles and essays on Neil Gaiman’s adaptations of Beowulf, Welsh mythology in modern fantasy, and Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels.
Read more from K.L. Noone
Port in a Storm Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Midwinter Music Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLightning in a Bottle Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fire and Ink Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bedknobs and Brimstone Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Coffee and Tea Epilogue Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Midwinter Marriage Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOf Starlit Balls and Starship Captains Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Arch-Mage's Firebird Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBisclavret Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSound the Fairy Call Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDecember Beginnings Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsElemental Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings2019 Top Ten Gay Romance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSorceress Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMidwinter Firelight Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPeaches and the Shadow Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLove Songs for Every Day Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Leather and Tea Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sunlight and Gold Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRevelry Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Merchant Witch Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Leather and Tea Morning Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTempests in April Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to The Hermit of Aldershill Manor
Related ebooks
Celebrations Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Sea Calls My Name Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFindley Black and the Ghosts of Printer's Devil Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMidwinter Firelight Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Death of Digby Catch Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTis the Season Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAll the Things I've Lost Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRobert and Louie: steampunk mystery gay romance, #2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThicker Than Water: Shadownotes, #2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCall Me Church Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAloes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Carpenter's Tale Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Crow and Crown Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTurning Wood Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhat Matters Most Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Dream: Aisling, #2 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heat Wave: Tucson Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Timely Gift Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHero Worship Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBlown Away Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRaising the Stakes Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Ghost Dater Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Demon for Forever Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSomething Shiny in the Distance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsYou're Worth It: shifters and partners, #24 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Maddest of Men: In the Kingpin's Shadow, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFox Heart: shifters and partners Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSome Reservations: shifters and partners, #6 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Dragon of Bellerose Island Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Partner and Me: shifters and partners, #2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Gay Fiction For You
The Measure: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pomegranate: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In the Lives of Puppets Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Him: Him, #1 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Priory of the Orange Tree Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Farrell Covington and the Limits of Style: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Zombie: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Exquisite Corpse Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Marvellous Light Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Orlando: A Biography Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Kiss Her Once for Me: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5City of Night Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Are Water: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We the Animals Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maurice Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Silver in the Wood Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Faggots Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle: Chapter Sampler Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHalf Way Home Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Other Terrors: An Inclusive Anthology Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Young Mungo Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lie With Me: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Lonely Broadcast: Book One Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Any Man: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Orlando: A Biography - Unabridged Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Us: Him, #2 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Prelude to a Kiss and Other Plays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Picture of Dorian Gray Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Bones Beneath My Skin Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for The Hermit of Aldershill Manor
1 rating0 reviews
Book preview
The Hermit of Aldershill Manor - K.L. Noone
The Hermit of Aldershill Manor
By K.L. Noone
Published by JMS Books LLC
Visit jms-books.com for more information.
Copyright 2022 K.L. Noone
ISBN 9781685501297
* * * *
Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com
Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.
All rights reserved.
WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review. This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published in the United States of America.
* * * *
For my lovely fellow Gardeners group, and all attendant courgette, aubergine, gushing sprinkler, and seed-related jokes. Also for my Dad (even though that’s an odd juxtaposition!), who knows more about plants than I could ever hope to learn.
* * * *
The Hermit of Aldershill Manor
By K.L. Noone
Chapter 1
Charlie Ash should have expected rain, on an English countryside afternoon. Unfortunately, he hadn’t thought about it.
As usual, he thought rather helplessly: exactly the way his life seemed to be going lately, the way he kept not seeing things, not realizing, until they snuck up and hit him on the head with thunderstorm force.
Like Aaron leaving. Like the finality of a closed door, an emptied closet.
Or like large fat raindrops, here on a soggy garden path, a good two miles from the spires and crenellations of the historic Aldershill Manor.
He’d gone for a walk because he’d arrived early, tossed his luggage into his assigned scholarly guest room in the east wing, texted his parents that, yes, he’d made it across the Atlantic safely, and then immediately wanted to explore. The skies hadn’t opened up yet, and rolling green grass and tall ancient trees and herb-scented kitchen gardens and a winding silver ribbon of stream had all tempted him. Statues, marble and granite, arched in classical curves and twists. He’d heard there was a lily-pond, the subject of multiple paintings over the centuries.
He’d been on a plane, and then a train, and then in a car, for way too many hours, coming from Los Angeles. So he’d grabbed a light jacket, and he had sneakers on, and he’d thought he’d be fine.
The universe, of course, had chosen now to pour water onto his head. And all across the sprawling lapidary violets and marigolds and ferns and hedges. And dirt—now mud-river—walking paths.
He said, aloud, At least it’s pretty?
He did always try to be optimistic.
A few ruffly blue flowers bobbed at him in thanks, and shed raindrops of their own. Charlie, being here to look at estate records and eighteenth-century economic trends, knew next to nothing about horticulture, but he could appreciate beauty. The Aldershill gardens were famous, justifiably so, even in the midst of a startling late-July English thunderstorm.
The estate, dating in parts to the Elizabethan era, remained the home of the current viscountess; she’d opened it for weddings, events, tours, even lavish historical movie productions. The house stood up majestically over its grounds, a solid guardian comfortable in its old bones. The gardens—kitchen, herb, medieval, rare and exotic imports, radiant roses, waterscapes and lily-ponds, towering oak forests—wreathed around it, and drenched the landscape in beauty, everywhere Charlie looked.
Billows of color, pinks and purples and golds, fluttered like butterflies in the rain-mist. Centuries-old ornamental fountains glimmered. The river leapt and splashed.
It was splashing even more in the deluge. Lances made of drops sliced tiny needles through his thin jacket.
Charlie eyed the mudslide of the path up the hill. Considered his shoes. Considered, with longing, thick manor walls and a cozy old-fashioned scholarly guest room with the heat turned up, and a cup of tea.
He could go around the lower incline over there, past the kitchen gardens, where there’d be stone steps, and less mud—except that’d be a longer walk, and he had short legs, and the rain wasn’t relenting, and his fingers were getting cold—
He could find someplace to hide, in the picturesque rock garden or under a tree, though with his luck the tree would get hit by lightning or the rocks would fall over—
He really was starting to worry about his fingers now. And he liked his fingers. Good for research. Writing. Emphatic gestures while teaching. Not that he was doing that, these days.
He essayed a step, in the mud, in the direction of the stepping-stones and the kitchen gardens.
His foot slipped. He flailed, caught himself, shoved