fal•la•cy

noun

a mistaken belief, esp. one based on unsound argument

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Introduction

Back in 1813, Jane Austen put into writing that: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."

Nicholas Austen couldn’t agree with her more.

She was no relation, although sometimes slipped into dull conversation to liven things up a bit. And no one would ever dispute the fact – the Austens were the sort of people everyone wanted in their town: they were charming, generous, and impossibly rich. The three of them (William, Margaret and their son Nicholas) lived in their estate, positioned proudly on the outskirts of beautiful Ashmore, but regularly ventured down to the town to consort with the normal folk.

Well, they did, until both William and Margaret took a wrong turn down an icy country lane in their luxury 4x4 and ended up skidding straight into the trunk of a giant oak. Nicholas was, naturally, inconsolable. The fact that he had been left all of their worldly possessions and their entire billion-pound fortune didn’t even raise a smile. Some said that he cried for three weeks solid, only stopping for brunch at eleven each morning. Some said that he vowed never to leave the house again. But Nicholas’ absence from the public eye was more to do with the note his Father had left him before their final journey out. Something along the lines of him having a sort out of all his old junk in the North Wing attic when they returned, and him liking a helping hand. He had immediately raced over to the North Wing and brought down every single item from the attic, setting everything out on the carpet of his second bedroom and proceeding to look through it all in chronological order. He read all about his Father’s school days (“William is an exceptionally talented student, but he does tend to be rather bossy at times”), right up to the love letters his Father had sent Margaret in the war and the grubby, fingered, sepia photos of their grand wedding. He was reaching the end of his now month-long reading session when he found an unopened letter addressed to ‘Our darling Nicholas’.

A large proportion of it was detailing just how much he meant to them, and how delighted they were to have a son to carry on the Austen name. The purpose of the letter then became clear: it was their intention to leave absolutely everything to him, and so he would need to find a wife as soon as possible to stop their entire legacy being lost forever. At first Nicholas didn’t understand – why couldn’t they just spread their money out between other family members? But his parents were self-made billionaires, and he eventually understood their reluctance to let other relatives loose on their staggering fortune.

He was now left with a problem: he needed to find a wife. There was nothing wrong with him physically – he was devastatingly handsome, with delectable chocolate brown eyes, perfectly-coiffed brown hair and the kind of jaw and cheekbones that would make women fall at his feet. But that was the problem – they never came near enough to notice all of this. It was like he had a wall built high around him, with golden bricks and a huge sign saying ‘AUSTEN’ hanging off it. Women didn’t even need to look at him to say “Ooh, he’s not really my type”; they knew of his family so well that the sheer size of his fortune turned them away before he could even approach. This again baffled Nicholas – surely women loved rich men? Wasn’t that everything they dreamed of? But, alas, to the people of Ashmore it was a huge turn off. And besides, most of the women in the town had been there since he was in nappies, and there’s nothing better to kill the moment than a memory of your date doing an accident in his pants.

With almost a year having passed since his parents’ demise, and still flying solo, Nicholas was becoming desperate. So he did the only thing he could – bundled some clothes and wads of cash into a suitcase and took the next train down to London.

So that was where Nicholas Austen found himself – perched on the edge of his suitcase, handle digging into his back, outside St Pancras station and trying desperately to hail a taxi.