Tinnean

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

“Very well, Sir Ashton. But I must say you’re proving to be not very dashing.” Miss Munro smiled archly at what was evidently intended to be a drollery, but I didn’t find it amusing. I didn’t need her to tell me I wasn’t dashing; I was quite aware of that fact.


Perhaps that was why Geo had ceased to visit me. Perhaps he had found someone more dashing, more to his taste.


A burning began in my chest. I shouldn’t have eaten such a hearty breakfast.


“Shall we try a canter, Miss Munro?”


By the end of that first ride, I was satisfied Arabella’s guest was a competent rider given a sedate horse, but she was not a horsewoman. “See she is mounted on the less spirited animals,” I instructed my grooms. The thought of her on a mount like Jezebel didn’t bear contemplating


As for the colt, I didn’t even consider her upon his back, for save for Mr Ruston and myself, no one else rode him.


Chapter 79