title: Darroch's Promise
author: Priestley, Mave
description: A nightmare  No  Carissa very quickly realised she was living the nightmare. At age twenty two Carissa was horrified to learn from the reading of her father's Will that she and her younger sister and brothers could lose everything. The weeks following were the darkest of her life. Carissa had two choices: marry a man she hardly knew, and didn't particularly like, or she and her also adopted siblings would be ejected from the home they loved, leaving them homeless and near destitute. Carissa's despainr was exacerbated by the fact that shortly before her father's death she had refused a proposal of marriage from the man she truly loved: Raulo Darroch. She'd refused him believing that his proposal was founded in his aim of controlling her father's business. No words of love had passed his lips; his propsal of marriage had been pure business. Raulo months on did learn of Carissa's plight. He accepted what fate offered and played his hand to his and Carissa's advantage. He could at last carry out the promise he'd made to Carissa's dying father. A promise he would discover be placed in jeopardy Carissa, being an innocent victim.