Dating isn't easy. Finding love is harder. But being a Delaney makes it all a thousand times worse because let's face it, with parents like theirs, the NextGen never stood a chance.
11 short stories following the disastrous love lives of:
Seraphina...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
A/N: Remember that Daniel's father died before Constance, so she would have been the last person to live in the manor house on the Amesbury estate. And Daniel and Sophie are now in the main house, rather than in a smaller house on the estate.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
It's a rarity to have all my family in one place. It's even rarer to have us all in the country house, but that is where I find myself this morning while nursing the worst hangover I've ever had. I would like to say that I can't remember how I got here, however, I vividly recall Sera waking me up this morning and dragging me to Paddington train station so we could make it to Amesbury on time. I wish she had left me in bed. While I love my cousin, Olympia, and I want to celebrate her birthday with the whole family, I also want to crawl under a blanket and die.
Today is Olympia Courtenay's thirteenth birthday, however, and no matter how drunk I was a mere six hours ago, Dad would kill me if I didn't show my face. Mum would help him bury my body. If there's one thing my family go overboard with, it's birthdays. Not in an ostentatious way, but more through making the birthday boy or girl the centre of everything, and unfortunately for Olympia, she's a Daddy's girl and whatever Uncle Sam wants to do for his daughter, Uncle Dan will see to it.
I'm not entirely sure when Dad found his passion for party planning but he gets a real buzz out of all this. Honestly, he loves nothing more than staying up until one in the morning blowing up balloons, hanging banners, and decorating the entire house with embarrassing photos that are too humiliating to display permanently. With Dash and myself as winter babies, Éliane always has the best birthdays. She's usually fresh off Wimbledon and the July weather means lawn games galore, a fire pit, and a huge barbecue feast cooked up by Isaac.
Today, however, is hugely different to the usual family party. The second I stumble through the door, Dior glasses hiding my bloodshot eyes, there are no balloons, no banners, and no photos.
"Shit, did you get the wrong day?" I mutter to Sera, watching as she eyed the space and frowned. "Did my dad get the wrong day? Is this the right house?"
Sera shrugs and quickly makes her way through the various grand rooms, heading for the family kitchen. This house is ancient; it's been in the family for centuries and has been home to the Dukes of Kendal for at least two hundred years, but it's poorly designed for this day and age. Still, it has all its charms, with original features in the older part of the house, and it's a great place to play hide and seek. When we were younger, Dash could never find Éliane or me whenever we played. It was a fun place to grow up and Dad has some wonderful memories here from his childhood, tinged, naturally, with some sad memories of his unloving parents. I guess that's why he's always gone out of his way to make this our family home, whereas the London house is just the city base.
