Brönte LeBlanc Age: 15 ¾ (very important distinction to Bronte)

Brönte LeBlanc is the only child of billionaire business tycoon Jean-Pierre LeBlanc. Brönte's mother died when she was three years old, and Brönte lives almost exclusively under the care of servants since her father's work takes him away for months at a time as he travels the world. Jean-Pierre is a doting father when he's in attendance, and also extremely overprotective. Fearing the day that his little girl will eventually grow up and leave him, he exerts a rather passive control over his daughter by encouraging her to believe that she is more frail and sickly than she really is. Brönte lives in a huge old Victorian mansion named Whitecliff that sits on a hill that overlooks the sea to the east and the small rural village they live in to the west..

The house is a historical landmark that has been in the LeBlanc family for seven generations. The contents of Brönte's house - the furniture, paintings and other heirlooms - are all priceless. Many local historians and collectors would love access to Whitecliff, but Jean-Pierre is adamant that no strangers are allowed in Whitecliff. Because of this, Brönte has never really had friends. When she was younger she was friendly with some of the servants children that were of an age with her, but fearing for Brönte's safety, over the years her father slowly replaced all of the servants with older, childless employees.

Brönte has never been to school, but is an extremely intelligent and clever girl. She has almost educated herself entirely by spending hours upon countless hours in her father's private library that overlooks the ocean cliffs for which her family home is named. When Brönte turned fifteen, she declined all of the numerous and expensive birthday presents her father showered upon her saying that all she wanted was to go to school like a normal girl. When her father refused, saying that she was too weak and frail and that the exposure to the germs and diseases (his words!) that school children carried would surely be deadly to her, Brönte steadfastly retaliated by refusing to eat and take her many medications, many of which were placebos.

Her father, concerned that the omission of her medications - only one of which she actually needs for asthma - would make her sick in truth, finally relented against his better judgment and agreed for Brönte to have a tutor. Jean-Pierre, desiring only the best for his precious child, contacts the private university in the neighboring city and hires Professor Hiram Glickman who is the head of the History Department. He selects the Professor Glickman not only for his qualifications in History - a subject that Brönte is fascinated with - but also because the professor is eighty-five and therefore not a threat in Jean-Pierre's eyes. Engaging the professor's services as a tutor did not come easily or inexpensively, but Jean-Pierre is a man who always gets what he wants and after lengthy negotiations and agreeing to fund several scholarships he has his tutor of choice and Jean-Pierre immediately leaves for his latest business trip to the Far East. Before Professor Glickman can begin tutoring the Brönte, the elderly professor falls off a ladder in the university library while filing some old first edition books and breaks his hip and leg. Due to his advanced age and failing health, Professor Glickman confined to a wheelchair for four months while he heals.

As he is unable to make the trip to Whitecliff to meet his tutoring obligation, the professor entrusts the young Brönte LeBlanc's education to his own protégé and favorite Graduate student North. Francis Xavier North Age: 23 Born in the Northwestern United States to a young Greek mother who was visiting the country, North was orphaned at nine months of age when his teenaged mother was mugged and killed. With no way to identify the toddler or find any relatives, he was taken in and named Francis Xavier North by the local catholic convent and orphanage. Sister Mary Ezra, a kind young nun who had just taken her vows adored the chubby toddler that had been placed in her care and nicknamed the boy "Adonis" because of his beautiful eyes and curly black hair. The nickname and extra attention from the young nun earns the boy many years of teasing and bullying from the jealous older boys.

This stops immediately however once the small for his age North learns to fight back and win. Despite his love for the Nuns who raise him - especially Mary Ezra - North hates his name and by the time he is sent to nursery school he insists on only being addressed as "North" and will not respond to any other name. He will grudgingly answer to "Adonis", but only when he and Sister Mary Ezra are alone. Brilliant for his age, North absorbs knowledge like a sponge and he skips several grades during his years of public education, ultimately graduating two years early. He wants desperately to go to college to study history - a passion instilled in him by Mary Ezra -, but due to the poor condition of the orphanage and convent that he lives in there is no money to send him. This doesn't stop North however, and at the age of 16 he leaves the orphanage against the wishes of Mother Superior and Sister Mary Ezra to make his own way in the world. For nearly four years North never stays in one place longer than a month or two as he travels all over the world.

He's had almost every job imaginable, from working construction on skyscrapers in Hong Kong to fishing boats in Portugal. He speaks no less than five languages fluently. He also faithfully sends money home to the orphanage as often as he can and sends postcards monthly. To North the nuns of the Sacred Heart are closer to him than family ever could be. North's deep love of history is re-kindled during a year he spends in Europe and the Middle East, visiting some of the oldest places on Earth and his desire to study these things formally and to share that knowledge with others grows to a near obsession. He is determined to go to college and become a teacher - preferably a professor - so he can give back to others. A value that was fundamental in his upbringing.

One day, during a rainstorm in Ireland, North, who happened to be riding his motorcycle from Dublin to Cork on a job, stopped to help an elderly gentleman whose car had gotten stuck in the mud. Graciously, North gave the man a lift to the nearest town and accepted the grateful man's invitation to dinner. This is how North at age 19 met Professor Hiram Glickman who was in Ireland on sabbatical. Fascinated to meet someone with the same interests as his own, North quit his latest job as a sheep shearer to follow the Professor around Ireland as his assistant. Prof. Glickman is so impressed with the young man's intelligence and charm that when he leaves the country he tries to convince North to come back to America with him. North is reluctant to accept what he perceives as charity and declines, saying that he will make his own way in the world. The Professor tells him that North is too intelligent and too gifted to throw his life away fishing and laying bricks. North still gently refuses his offer, and as they part the Professor tells him that if he ever comes to America he must come and see him at the University. That he will see that he gets a college education even if he has to pay for it himself. North eventually does find his way to America and the East Coast and on a whim he stops by the University to visit his friend the Professor.

Hiram is so happy to see North that railroads the young man into helping him catalogue the university's museum collection and from there to helping him teach his freshman history classes. To North's great surprise, Mary Ezra makes the trip to the East Coast to see North while he is staying with the Professor and she brings with her a most wonderful gift. She had saved and invested every cent that North had sent home to the convent over the nearly five years he was gone and she gives it to him. The professor, more determined than ever to see North formally educated calls in some favors and within six weeks of his arrival at the university, North is officially a student. One year after that he earns his first degree.