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’d talked with Mrs Johnson a time or two after they had moved into the cottage, and from what I could understand from her broken English, she’d been a lady’s maid at one time. I didn’t press either of them on the fact that they were now working on an estate in the country. I couldn’t fail to notice that the child looked nothing like his “father.” Female servants, even those in as elevated a position as lady’s maid, could easily fall prey to the master of the household.


Or a visitor to the master’s household.


Considering the man Sir Eustace had been, and considering the occasions when Aunt Cecily had been increasing, what surprised me was there weren’t many more of his by-blows about the estate.


Once we reached the cottage, we found Mrs Johnson in their bedroom, hovering over the boy, who was writhing and moaning steadily. “I want my mama. Ma…Ma…”


Chapter 74