Just to Have You (Blackwood & Friends #3)

Prologue

Author's Note:

Dear Reader

Welcome! This is the third and final instalment of the 'Blackwood & Friends' books. Though it isn't necessary to read any of them in order, there are a few links... except in this one. This one you can totes read independently! 

This story will be intrinsically lighthearted and favouring old-school romance, with added levels of hawtness and smut... 

To my devoted readers and voters and commenters- this story is dedicated to you. Just know that your support keeps those ideas becoming real, in a sense. 

Before you continue reading, you may find I drop a few 'Easter Eggs' in the stories I write since I've picked it up again. This is mostly in dedication of the mum and dad I've lost. Oriana had seasickness (same, but was a quickly added addition when I completed that story), Nicola had a necklace with a rose and Blanche had a greyhound I named Penelope after my mum. In this story, you will see a bigger role of the parish and in chapter 3 a hymn called How Great Thou Art will be referenced (not accurate by a few decades but I chose this particular hymn at my mom's funeral). They have been placed with a significance :) My dad's will come up in this story more obviously and I don't want to ruin it yet. 

As usual, enjoy and love, 

Ash

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Disclaimer

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents (and badly drawn artworks) either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2021 Ashlyn Montgomery

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to author directly. 

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Prologue

Oliver's Memory of 'That' Day

It's not every day one's best friend makes a proposition to sleep with you. The stone that Oliver Bennet Hollingsworth, the only heir to the Gravewood Earldom, had been about to skip across the heavily wooded stream they were standing beside dropped with an unceremonious plunk into the dark, rippling water.

"You do not have to look so shocked, Ben," Griff said, ignoring him after a moment and continuing to skip her own flat-topped stones against the surface of the water with perfect precision. He gaped at her then, not because of her use of his shortened middle name- only Griff ever called him that, and he only ever called Griff, well, Griff, when in actuality her name was Miss Amy Letitia Griffiths- but the fact that she could remain so cavalier when she had outright propositioned him... absurd, really. "I am merely being sensible, is all," she pressed casually, blithely unaware of his continued horror at the notion. And the more that he dwelled on it, the more horrified he became. She was Griff for crying out loud! "You are now nineteen years old, and I am eighteen years old." She stopped tossing her stones into the stream and turned to face him. "We both have the misfortune to reside in this miserable little village and we both have the misfortune to, er, well- be us."