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

I crossed the Great Hall and was just entering my study when he startled me by bustling up bearing a tray with a bottle and a glass.


“I thought perhaps this might help, sir.”


“Thank you. Set it down on the desk, if you please.”


Behind him was David, who also bore a tray, his holding platters with meats and cheeses and slices of bread thickly buttered, and a teapot wrapped tightly in its cosy. Without asking, he placed it on the desk as well.


“Is there anything else I can get for you, Sir Ashton?” Colling asked.


He bowed and signalled David to precede him out of the room, but paused himself in the doorway. “If…if you’ll forgive me for being so bold, sir, but perhaps it might be well to send for young Mr. Stephenson to ask if he’ll come for a visit?”


Chapter 82