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’m glad he had someone.” And whether my uncle and his man had the sort of friendship Jem and I had had was none of my affair.


“Thank you, sir. As I was saying, after racketing about the Continent for some months, we wound up in Milan. When he saw the Contessa—well, it wasn’t long after that they were married. And me and her woman as well.”


“You said my uncle and his wife were lost in a sailing accident?”


He nodded. “That was in May of ‘33, sir. The Lady of the Lakestruck an iceberg in the North Atlantic. She was sailing to Quebec. From there, Mr Osburt was going to show the Contessa where he had made his fortune. Unfortunately, they were among those who were lost.”


“And yet you didn’t arrive at Fayerweather until more than a year later.”


Chapter 103