<a class="postlink" href="http://merryfarmer.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/thornton1.jpg">[ img ]</a><br/><br/>Tenby, England.<br/><br/>As far as most civilized Londoners were concerned, it was a rustic hole in the ground that was populated by ruffians. simple-brained fishermen and the uncouth, unskilled labors that made up the bulk of the lower Eastside population.  The town had a history that drew some of the more scholarly-minded and there had been some recent revival and interest in the town's fishing and railway industries in the last few years but as far as most Londoners were concerned, it was deserving of its reputation as just another pastoral English town stuck in the rural past.<br/><br/>There was a pastoral, seaside beauty to the ancient town with a population of just under four thousand but it was lost upon those who did not live there.  For the young doctor William Blakeslee, the town held a certain rustic charm that was well worth having returned to after years away.  He was from Tenby but it was only in the last two weeks that he had finally returned home after studying medicine at Oxford and Cambridge, with a stint in France before coming back to England's shores.  His father had passed away two years back and his mother was not far behind him, both of them suffering from tuberculosis.  He had not only come back to Tenby to pay his respects to his parents and to re-establish the private practice that his father had once seen to but also because of the people.<br/><br/>The populace had always been tight-knit and welcoming.  While many of them were distrustful of strangers, those who were from Tenby could always count on a warm cup of tea and all the friendliness the community could muster.  William's return home had been no exception and he felt as if he had never left his old hometown.  He was content in knowing that he would always be welcome there for foreign shores held little of the beauty and sense of closeness that Tenby did.<br/><br/>Tenby also had one woman in particular that he knew would never be found anywhere else.  She was far too precious, far too wonderful.  A childhood friend, he had finally found a reason to come visit her.  He was a somewhat reserved and shy man when it came to such affairs and calling upon her for no reason at all had seemed foolish.  But, with her father coming down with what sounded like the flu, he had all the reason in the world to come knocking at her home.<br/><br/>Dressed in a well-tailored suit of charcoal grey and starched white, the dashing doctor stood upon the front step of her familial home and knocked demurely.  He was a handsome man, standing just under six feet tall and appearing all the part of the adage "tall, dark and handsome".  He adjusted the black tie at his neck and grasped his worn, leather doctor's bag in his other hand.  William then waited for the door to be answered and to lay eyes on the woman who had haunted his dreams for all the time he had been away.