How to Ruin a Reputation. Bronwyn Scott

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      The dim interior of the sickroom bristled with contentious silence. ‘The will must be changed.’ The old earl fairly shook in his chair with the force of his statement.

      ‘I heard you the first time,’ Markham Marsbury, solicitor to the Earl of Audley over the past ten years, responded with a patience born of long practice. The earl wasn’t his first client who’d had last-minute doubts about his final arrangements. But the earl’s requests might be the most irregular.

      ‘You disagree with my decision,’ the earl challenged, sounding more like his usual irascible self than he had in months. Perhaps it was a good sign, Marsbury thought hopefully. Perhaps the old man would get better one more time. Goodness knew the earldom could ill afford to lose him now. On the other hand, he knew better. Anyone who had been around lingering death knew the signs: a sudden rally, a brief explosion of energy that might last a day or two—then nothing.

      ‘Yes, I disagree, Richard.’ They’d become friends over his decade in Audley. ‘I can understand wanting to make the inheritance into a regency, a trusteeship of sorts. After what happened to Alex, it’s a logical course.’ Marsbury shook his head. ‘But to divide the governance into shares and leave fifty-one per cent to her makes no sense. You have two viable male heirs hanging on the family tree, one of them your second son. For goodness’ sake, Richard, she’s not even British. She’s American.’

      ‘She’s what the estate needs. She’s already proven it in the year she’s been here,’ the earl broke in with vigour, unwilling to hear his position maligned. ‘Some American thinking will rejuvenate the place and she’s become the daughter I never had.’

      And maybe even a substitute for the son who had not come home in ten years. ‘Ashe will come home,’ Marsbury put in. But he got out his papers and his ink and began to write. He recognised the signs of early intractability. There would be no dissuading the earl.

      ‘Not while I’m alive,’ the earl said matter of factly. ‘We quarrelled and he made his position very clear.’

      Then the son was a lot like his father, Marsbury thought privately as he finished the codicil and brought the paper to the earl. He held the older man’s hand steady as he signed. The earl hadn’t been able to write on his own for some time. Even with help, the signature was a barely legible scrawl.

      Marsbury sanded the document and carefully placed it with the other papers. He reached out to shake his friend’s hand. ‘Perhaps there will be no need for this, after all. You look better today.’ He offered a smile.

      The smile was not returned. ‘There is every need for it,’ the earl barked. ‘I’ve done what needs doing to bring my son home. I know my son. What he wouldn’t do for me, he’ll do for Bedevere. He loves Bedevere and he will come for that reason alone.’

      Marsbury nodded, thinking of the other two names on the codicil, the other two ‘shareholders’ named in the trusteeship. His father’s death would bring the errant son home, but knowing Bedevere was surrounded by enemies who had been positioned to snatch it up should he falter, might be enough to make him stay.

      ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’ Marsbury snapped his writing case shut.

      The earl gave him a wan smile, looking more tired than he had a few minutes prior. ‘I rather doubt that. If you mean to say goodbye to me, I would suggest you say it now.’

      ‘You are far too stubborn for such maudlin talk,’ Marsbury joked, clasping the old man’s hand one last time.

      Stubborn as the fourth Earl of Audley was, Death was ultimately more so. It was with no surprise that Markham Marsbury received word over his morning coffee the next day that the earl had passed away shortly before sunrise surrounded by family and one Genevra Ralston, the American in whose hands the fate of Bedevere now resided. Markham called for his writing things and dispatched a note to London, hoping it would find Ashe Bedevere and bring him home with all possible haste.

      Chapter One