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

“No…Yes…That is to say—” Colling stood at the bottom of the shallow steps, wringing his hands and shuffling from one foot to the other.


The butler was pale, his distress obvious. “It’s Sir Eustace, Mr Ashton.”


I felt myself turn pale. “Never tell me he’s arrived already?”


“Yes, sir. He travelled through the night, and he’s in a beastly mood. Beg pardon, I’m sure, sir.”


“That’s quite all right.” I waved aside his words. Bloody hell. I’d thought we had more time.


Colling blinked furiously and continued to wring his hands, and abruptly I saw him as the elderly man he was. Of course he now feared my uncle’s temper as much as any of us. He could be turned out without a character at a moment’s notice, and at his age, another position would be impossible to come by. “If Mr William or Mr John were here, I would fetch them, but they aren’t in the Hall, and Mr Ruston says their horses aren’t in their stalls.”


Chapter 22