My Adorable Little Maid

The rain fell in relentless sheets over the small town of Holmestead in Northern England, drumming a staccato rhythm against the cobblestone streets. It was a cold, miserable drizzle, the kind that seeped into bones and turned breath to fleeting clouds of mist. James Carter hurried through a narrow alley, his black umbrella tilted against the wind, his boots splashing through puddles that mirrored the gray sky above.
He muttered a curse under his breath, pulling the collar of his greatcoat higher. The weather was as wretched as his mood. He'd just returned from London, a city of smoke and clamor, summoned back to the countryside by his father's curt letter: "Manage Greystone Manor. It's time you proved your worth." As the second son of the Carter family, James bore no title to inherit, no grand estate to claim-only the burden of a crumbling old house in the north, a relic of his family's fading glory.
Greystone Manor loomed in his mind like a specter: ivy-choked walls, stained glass dulled by time, and a legacy he'd rather forget.