How to Ruin a Reputation. Bronwyn Scott

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СКАЧАТЬ pretty heiress at Seaton Hall. You need money and she’s got ‘piles’ of it.

      Genevra Ralston.

      All his thoughts seemed to come back to her. In and of herself, she was enough to keep a man busy with all her mysteries. Woman in hiding or brazen fortune hunter, it hardly mattered which. Both spelled trouble. It was a matter of how much trouble he was willing to tolerate along with her money. And trouble was a surety. Last night had established that without equivocation.

      He’d not dreamed she’d respond so ardently to his advances. He’d meant to warn her that she played with a man who was out of her league. He knew women and he knew their games. Just because he loved women didn’t mean he trusted them. They were as brutal as men when it came to getting their way.

      His head ached. The estate wasn’t the only thing that needed sorting out. There were emotions he hadn’t expected to feel, and answers he desperately wanted. What had really transpired at Bedevere in his absence? What had really happened to his brother? He would have to find time to see Alex soon, although the prospect was one he dreaded.

      A knock interrupted his thoughts and Melisande poked her head around the door. ‘There you are, Ashton.’ Only his aunties called him that. Not ‘Ashe’ like the ladies in London, who claimed he could burn them to cinders with one smouldering look of his green eyes.

      ‘You’ve been cooped up in here for hours.’ She clucked disapprovingly. ‘You should go for a ride. You never know when the weather will take a turn for a worse this time of year.’ She settled herself in a chair across from him at the desk. The chair was large and gave the impression of swallowing up his petite aunt. Old age had made her appear even smaller than he remembered, but no less sharp. She eyed the ledgers.

      ‘Are you making sense of it all?’ There was hope in the question. She wanted to hear that all would be well, that things would be better. She wanted to hear he’d found a hidden cache of money or a mistake in the ledger that suddenly rendered them wealthy again. He didn’t fault her for it. It was what he’d hoped, too, when he’d sat down with the books that morning, still in disbelief that the Bedevere largesse could all be gone.

      Ashe offered her a warm smile. ‘There were no miracles in the ledgers. But we’ll make our own miracles, I promise.’ He would find a way to keep this promise, never mind the string of broken, half-kept promises that littered his past. He had a lot to make up for. He was only just beginning to understand he wasn’t the only one who’d borne the consequences of his choices.

      ‘Genni will be our miracle, Ashton,’ Melisande said with a straightforward confidence that bore none of Ashe’s own cynicism on the subject.

      Ashe didn’t wish to argue with his aunt, neither did he know how much they knew regarding the will. Was this a comment she made because of their less-than-subtle matchmaking efforts, or because she knew ‘Genni’s’ business acumen would save the estate? Ashe merely shrugged.

      The non-committal shrug wasn’t enough for his aunt. Melisande leaned forwards and said with force, ‘Genni. We all like her and your father thought highly of her. She’s the one we want.’ He’d never heard his delicate flower of an aunt sound so demanding. At least the outburst had confirmed her motives. She was strictly about matchmaking. She didn’t know about his father’s arrangement, only her own.

      ‘She might not want me,’ Ashe ventured.

      ‘She will. You can be irresistible when you choose, Ashton.’ That shamed him. Aunt Melisande meant it with all the goodness of her heart, remembering the pretty child and the handsome youth. She had no idea how ‘irresistible’ the man had become or how he’d bartered those charms for a price.

      Melisande pushed a soft package in brown wrapping paper across the desk at him. ‘Since you’re going for a ride, I thought you could take this to Seaton Hall. It can be your reason to visit and then you can apologise.’

      ‘Apologise for what, Aunt?’ Ashe drawled obtusely.

      ‘For whatever you did to her last night. She’s too much of a lady to say anything, but she left so quickly we knew something had happened. I hadn’t even had time to give this to her.’ A scolding and guilt all rolled into one.

      Melisande patted his hand. ‘A good apology is never wasted on a woman’s heart, Ashton. Your great-uncle could always turn my head with one. Women are capable of great forgiveness if men ask for it.’

      ‘And if we don’t?’ Ashe teased, taking the package.

      Melisande winked. ‘Then we’re capable of a great many other things.’ She rose and made to leave. ‘I’ll tell the groom you’ll want your horse brought around in twenty minutes.’

      She shut the door behind her and Ashe let out a laugh. He’d been thoroughly manoeuvred by his seventy-three-year-old aunt. So much for delicate and fragile.

      Twenty minutes later, Ashe swung up on Rex. Seaton Hall wouldn’t have been his destination of choice after last night. But, Ashe thought with a touch of mischief, it would be rather interesting to see how the stunning Mrs Ralston would follow up last night’s slap.

      He spurred Rex into a canter and gave the big horse his head through the meadows. He took a jump over a stone fence and revelled at the wind in his face. He took another and let loose a cry of pure enjoyment. There weren’t fences like this in London. Anyone could ride in London as long as they could walk a horse through Hyde Park, but this kind of riding across open fields took an accomplished rider.

      Ashe came to the road leading to Seaton Hall and reined Rex to a walk. No one in London thought of him as a country gentleman. It had been a long time since he’d thought of himself that way, but, buried and ignored, that was the stifled truth. Behind the fancy clothes and elegant manners, he was a product of the quiet rural lands of Staffordshire. Like himself, Staffordshire often struck him as a place of contradictions. The land was riddled with mining and industry, yet a large part of the land had also maintained its rural nature with fields for farming, and its proclivity for beautiful gardens; a proclivity Bedevere had apparently let slide in the last few years, but one that Seaton Hall had embraced with success from the look of things. Roles had been reversed. Under Genevra Ralston’s money and careful eye, Seaton Hall had emerged as the belle of the county while the once-elegant Bedevere strangled in weeds.

      Ashe turned up the drive, noting with an appreciative eye the trimmed grass of the parkland, the organised flower beds showing early shoots of spring flowers poking through the soil. In a few months, those beds would be vivid with colours. Bedevere had looked like that once. Jealousy stabbed. He wanted Bedevere to look like that again. But that was foolishness, at least this year. One did not waste efforts on pretty gardens when there were bills to pay and mouths to feed. Perhaps if he could get a loan. Right now, everything hinged on money, even his own potential marriage. On his own, with no funds to speak of, what he could do was extremely limited. Once married to Mrs Ralston, an infinity of possibilities lay open to him—one more reason to sell himself in this marriage of his father’s choosing.

      Ashe sighed. The reasons for marriage were mounting. His desire for freedom, to make his own choice when the time came were starting to look petty and stubborn next to the gains the marriage would give him.

      At the door he was told Mrs Ralston was in the back gardens and was shown to a brightly done sitting room at the front of the house where he could wait. If the room was indicative of Seaton Hall’s recent fortunes, the American was doing very well for herself indeed. The creamy-yellow paint was fresh, the white-plaster moldings newly painted. Dusky-blue curtains framed the long windows СКАЧАТЬ