The first book in the Brides Of L'Amour series, 2003

A QUESTIONING frown in his keen dark eyes, Christien Laroche studied the portrait of his late great-aunt, Solange. A quiet woman who had never made a wave in her life, Solange had nonetheless startled her entire family with the contents of her will.

‘Extraordinary!’ a cousin commented with fierce disapproval. ‘What could Solange have been thinking of?’

‘It grieves me to say it but my poor sister’s mind must have weakened towards the end,’ an aghast brother of the deceased lamented.

‘Vraiment! To leave a piece of the Duvernay estate away from her own family and favour a foreigner instead…it is unbelievable!’ another exclaimed in outrage.

In a more laid-back mood, Christien would have been struggling not to laugh at the genuine horror that his relatives were exhibiting. Wealth had not lessened their passionate attachment to the family estate for that atavistic link back to the very land itself still ran deep and strong in every French soul. But they were all overreacting for the bequest was tiny in terms of monetary worth. The Duvernay estate ran to many thousands of acres and the property in question was a little cottage on a mere patch of ground. Even so, Christien had also been angered by a bequest that he considered both regrettable and highly inappropriate. Why had his great-aunt left anything at all to a young woman she had only met a few times several years earlier? That was the biggest mystery and one he would have given much to comprehend.

‘Indeed, Solange must have been very ill for her will is a terrible insult to my feelings,’ his widowed mother, Matilde, complained tearfully. ‘That girl’s father murdered my husband, yet my own aunt has rewarded her!’