Ashton Laytham was a happy little boy until, at the age of seven, he lost his parents. Sent to Fayerweather to be brought up by his uncle and his uncle’s wife, he was perceived to be an unhappy, unlovable child. Shunned by family and servants and permitted no friends to visit, he grows to adulthood alone and aloof, with only an occasional illicit rendezvous to lighten his days. When his uncle dies, leaving the estate virtually bankrupt, it’s left to Ashton to make good on his uncle’s gaming debts and save Fayerweather. But how? The family talisman, worth thousands of pounds, has been stolen and the suspects vanished in the night, leaving Ashton to face the loss of the home he’s come to love. Geo Stephenson, who works in His Majesty’s civil service, has ghosts of his own. The product of a marriage of convenience, Geo has known all his life his father never loved his mother, and he vows that will never happen to him. Marked by a physical scar earned in battle, none of his previous lovers could bear looking at it without shuddering; his mental scars are due to the many friends lost in useless battles. Geo arrives with a fistful of Sir Eustace Laytham’s IOUs and a solution: Ashton accommodating him in bed, thereby paying off the debt. Attracted to Geo in spite of himself and desperate for any human kindness, Ashton agrees ... never expecting to lose his heart to a man who has sworn he’ll never give his. Can these two men find a measure of happiness together?

Bless Us With Content

“I—” He swallowed so heavily I could hear him, and I straightened, curious in spite of myself as to what he might say. “I know I said it was only to be the one night—”


“Hardly one night, John. Was it even an hour?”


He flushed. “I should like another night.”


I stared at him for a moment. “After the supper tray?”


“Very well.” And I turned away and resumed my game. It wouldn’t do to let him see how very pleased I was.


That night and each night after, he would sneak into my chamber, spread himself upon his belly on my bed, and let me sodomize him until we exploded with muffled shouts and were both too exhausted to do more than pant breathlessly.


The first night had set the pattern: we seldom fell asleep side by side, and on those rare occasions when we did, I would awaken in the morn, the coolness of the linens on his side of the bed telling me he was long gone.


However, true to hisword—he was a Scarlett, after all—he stopped calling me Awful.


Chapter 14