Eleanor: A New Beginning

By Penelope Wren

Forced to choose between an unhappy betrothal and marriage or becoming penniless and destitute, Eleanor Teague jumps at the chance for something more.

Madame Mortimer and her Rooksgrave Manor are everything Eleanor's friend, Esther, promised they would be. Living in the manor unlocks primal urges even Eleanor herself hadn't realized she possessed--and she thought herself well aware of her own appetites.

Eleanor finds herself keeping company with Sterling Cawley, a ghostly man with unique desires, as well a demonic being so utterly different from any human man that she may never be the same. But it's not until Madame Mortimer enables Eleanor's late fiance, Leopold, to visit her chambers that she realizes exactly how much the manor is capable of. Why would she ever want to leave?

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The Rooksgrave Manor Series is a shared universe series by Kathryn Moon and Penelope Wren. It features two women: Moon's Esther Reed and Wren's Eleanor Teague. Penelope Wren will author 3 books about Eleanor and her adventures at Rooksgrave. The series is a slow build, fast burn Reverse Harem Romance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penelope Wren
• Release date: Nov 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215523445

Book preview

one

I arrived at Rooksgrave with a solitary piece of luggage. Only the morning dresses and gowns I couldn’t sell were stuffed inside, and even so, it was relatively light. My toes pinched slightly in last season’s travel boots. I’d found them stuffed beneath the bed in my former bedroom when the movers had come to cart it away with the rest of my belongings to their new owners’ residence. I’d been lucky to sell most of the estate and its contents to my father’s former business partner. And while it hurt to see things I’d had since childhood sold off, it was also rather liberating.

One never knew how much useless clutter one accumulated, not until it was gone.

The smallest toe on my right foot twinged as I was helped down from the carriage. I wiggled them slightly, hoping to stretch out the leather. The boots themselves weren’t bad off, but the leather was scuffed and creased in addition to being out of fashion. They’d done for my purposes, however.

Need anything else ma’am? the coachman implored. You sure this is where you’re going? He glanced up at the great house with something akin to a sneer. Doesn’t look like anyone’s living here…

Well, I soon will be, I countered.

You’re wanting me to just… leave you here, then? he asked.

His concern was touching, but I’d had enough of that type of sentiment for a lifetime.

That’s exactly what I’m wanting, kind sir. You’ve been paid already, I presume? I flicked my eyes up to him and he sniffed before snapping the reigns.

As the clip-clop of the horse hooves retreated down the lonely lane, I inhaled deeply, sucking in the damp petrichor of the moors. I felt, rejuvinated, excited, nervous in the best possible way.

It was apparent that I was Eleanor Teague no longer. I had my name and my manners, true, but the words had no meaning any longer. In London, I’d been a pitiable figure. Someone who’d lost a great deal. Someone people could shake their heads at as they whispered about their misfortune.

It made for good gossip, but I’d never been a fan.

With my parents dead and gone and without the bank accounts to back up the Teague name, I was simply a poor woman, alone in the world, with few to no options. In my case, I had two.

One, if you asked the circle of so-called ‘friends’ who made up the tiny society into which I’d become ingrained. And that option was to marry Garrett Pickering.

Garrett was Charles’ son. My age, perhaps a few years older, I confess I hadn’t paid attention to him when he was telling me about himself.

He seemed a capital sort of fellow. Someone my father might have suggested as a reliable suitor once upon a time. Especially given the fact that our fathers had been partners once.

But his proposal had seemed, like everything else in my life, a pitiable thing. He didn’t love me. Didn’t want to love me. Simply asked for my hand as a favor to the memory of my father.

It was a very nice thing for him to do. He was a very nice sort of man. With a nice amount of money. And his father now owned my family’s old estate…

It made sense for me to say yes.

Had I not run into Esther Reed the very day before his offer of charity, I might have said yes.

But I had run into Esther, and she’d told me, in hushed whispers, about a wonderful place where she now found herself employed. And unbeknownst to her, she’d given me a second option.

One other than marrying a man with whom I knew I’d never be happy.

My feet were beginning to sink in the mud, so I gingerly continued my walk towards the house.

For what it was worth, Rooksgrave appeared to be everything she had assured me it would be.

Dark, foreboding, and yet… so unremarkable as to slip into the background. The moors rolling around it swallowed the estate up in darkness. There was apparently a loch somewhere nearby, but I wouldn’t be convinced to go look for it anytime soon.

I’d been to the North many times in my youth for holiday. Not so much as I grew older and father’s fortune had dwindled. But I knew I’d never seen the likes of Rooksgrave Manor before.

The house itself—for it couldn’t yet be called a home—was very large,