Page 36 of The Beach Hut on Plum Island
“But my grandfather didn’t want only that vineyard,” Harriet continued. “He was after Duke Gladstone’s olive groves, which surrounded the vineyard he acquired from Leon Senior.”
“Old Duke Gladstone never forgave our father for not marrying his daughter, so he refused to sell any of his land to a Joyce. I think it was stipulated in his will.” Gray added. “My uncle had a falling out with my grandfather when Harriet was nineteen, and when our grandfather refused him the crown and said he was going to pass it straight to me, Uncle Titus found a way to get back into our grandfather’s good books.”
“Yes, he sold me out!” Harriet hissed, her eyes flashing with anger. “He tricked me into what he called acourtshipwith Leon Junior, and before I knew it, my uncle was announcing our engagement.”
“Wait!” Finn sat beside Harriet, and when she flopped onto the sofa, Gray took a seat in an armchair. He looked at Harriet. “Your uncle manipulated you into a relationship with Leon Junior as a way to get the olive groves your grandfather has wanted?”
“He did,” Harriet confirmed. “Worse, my grandfather fell for it and believed that I was in love with Leon.”
“Our grandfather was already showing the early signs of dementia,” Gray explained. “We never noticed it because everyone forgets words or people’s names, but my uncle didn’t miss it. He saw it as an opportunity to get the crown early and add to Joyce Isle’s produce by acquiring the olive groves in Greece.”
“But the olive groves are in Greece,” Finn said.
“Yes, but the produce that comes from the olives would be made on Joyce Isles,” Gray told him. “Just like the wine from the vineyard, it’s all bottled and labeled from Joyce Isles.”
“Oh!” Finn’s eyes widened, and his heart went out to Harriet even more when he realized her uncle was using her. “That’s horrendous.” His brows creased. “So your uncle sees you as nothing more than a pawn in his wanting to increase Joyce Isles’s revenue?”
“Pretty much!” Harriet nodded in disgust.
“Why did he let you break off the engagement all those years ago?” Finn was interested to know, and his frown deepened when he saw the look that passed between Gray and Harriet. He tilted his face slightly sideways as he asked. “What did you two do?”
“My uncle was emotionally blackmailing Harriet.” Gray’s voice was laced with anger. “My sister made herself ill because of it. Harriet didn’t want to marry that pig. The man had a wandering eye and …” He glanced at Harriet as if looking for permission, and she nodded. “Leon emotionally abused Harriet.”
“Harriet…” Finn’s face dropped with his heart as he looked at her, and words failed him.
He couldn’t imagine anyone doing that to her. She was so strong and vibrant, but Finn had noticed her wilt a little around Leon. But Harriet had also stood up to the man, and pride burst in his chest. Finn realized his daughter, son, sister, and their friends were right about Harriet—she was a truly remarkable woman.
“My uncle kept reminding me that I had broken Alex’s heart and the only way for him to ever move on was for me to be unavailable,” Harriet told Finn. “My grandfather’s health was deteriorating as well. He’d had a transient ischemic attack, or TIA as the doctors call it, and my uncle used that to keep me engaged to Leon.”
“My uncle kept promising Harriet that as soon as they’d bought the land they wanted, she could end the engagement,” Gray told Finn. “But Leon’s grandfather, the old Duke, was stillalive, and he wouldn’t sell the land until Harriet and Leon were married.”
“I tried to tell my uncle that Leon was a no-good cheat and liar, and I doubted he would ever sell that land to my grandfather because it was their only leverage over our family,” Harriet added. “But my uncle told me that he liked Leon, and I was just looking for excuses to get out of the marriage.”
“All of a sudden, my uncle had gone from speaking about Harriet being engaged to Leon to getting married to Leon,” Gray shook his head. “That’s when I stepped in. My sister was wasting away. She’d become so thin from all the stress and abuse from that pig Leon.”
“Gray and I set Leon up,” Harriet said, looking at her brother with a smile. “We knew that my grandfather would never allow me to marry a man like Leon if he knew who he and Leon Senior really were.”
“After some investigation, Harriet and I found out that Leon Senior had not only gambled and partied his family’s fortune away, he was quickly going through the Gladstone’s money as well,” Gray told Finn. “To make matters worse, Leon had picked up his father’s bad habits and had nearly burned through all his trust fund money.”
“Geez!” Finn ran a hand through his hair and blew out a breath. “How old was Leon then?”
“Twenty-two,” Harriet answered. “A few months before I called off the engagement, Leon’s father had a massive heart attack that he never fully recovered from, and his mother, Gloria Gladstone, took back the reins of running the family.”
“It was not a good time for the Gladstones. They nearly lost everything,” Gray told Finn. “The push for Harriet to marry Leon got worse, and now, not only would it get my family what they wanted, but it would save the Gladstone family as well.”
“Gray came up with the idea to get proof to give to our grandfather of what my uncle and Gloria were up to,” Harriet continued the story. “We set up a trap for Leon, which he not only took the bait for but basically ran right into.”
“I got my grandfather to make me Harriet’s legal royal guardian as she wasn’t twenty-one at the time,” Gray told Finn. “I know it’s archaic, and it angers us all, but all the Joyce princesses and even the queens have to have a legal guardian. It’s usually a family member and can be an older brother as long as they are over the age of twenty-one.”
“When my father passed up the crown, my guardianship went to my grandfather,” Harriet explained. “So now you can see why I never wanted to be a princess.”
“I now completely understand that,” Finn assured her.
“As the next crown prince, if I found a valid reason, I could legally decline Leon as a suitable husband for my sister,” Gray explained. “So we hired a PI to follow Leon and get all the actual proof we needed to prove that the Gladstones were using the Joyce family to keep them from ruin.”
“I may have used this woman who I had a class with at Oxford who had on more than one occasion hinted at how she wished she was the one to be marrying Leon as the bait,” Harriet said with an unabashed grin. “She also just happened to be the daughter of a wealthy and very stuffy businessman.”
“The PI got us the information and pictures we needed to prove to our grandfather what kind of people the Gladstones were, especially Leon.” Gray’s grin mirrored Harriet’s. “And the next thing we knew, Harriet was free, and Leon was basically being marched down the aisle by the woman’s terrifying father.”
