It would be a cold day in hell before he took that option. Ashe shut the leatherbound ledger. The numbers in the columns didn’t add up and there were bills to pay. Surely the horses listed as sold last autumn hadn’t gone for so little. The value posted in the ledger was half their worth. His father had kept prime cattle and knew their value.
Ashe pushed back from the desk. The morning hadn’t been an entire waste. He’d done what he could with regard to bills, which had amounted to writing assurances to those who held Bedevere’s outstanding accounts telling them all would soon be remedied. He wasn’t sure how he would see it remedied, but they didn’t need to know that.
He’d also sent off letters to London. One was a private message to his closest friend, Jamie Burke, asking him to look into Genevra Ralston’s background on the off chance that someone had heard of the American. That much money surely wouldn’t go undetected by society no matter what its nationality. If he was required to marry her, he wanted to know who she was and if there was any detrimental scandal attached to her name. It wouldn’t have been hard to hide such a thing from his father, but Mrs Ralston would find he was a bit more worldly than his father.
The second was about money as well. He’d enquired about the potential of a loan, as futile as such an enquiry seemed. Ashe was under no illusions. If he could not prove he was the predominant regent, no bank would advance him any funds.
Why does it matter? ventured the devil on his shoulder. If you don’t get the estate, why do you care if it goes to rack and ruin? If Henry wants it, let Henry figure out a way. If Mrs Ralston wants it, let her buy your shares and be done with it.
Because it’s the right thing to do, regardless, answered the angel on the other.
Because it’s my home, Ashe thought. Because he’d spent his life proving his father wrong. He wanted to prove his father was wrong here, too. His father and he had had their differences. Those differences had driven him away years ago, but he could not believe his father hated him that much, believed in him that little, to wrest Bedevere from him. Then again, his father had not planned on losing Alex. There’d never been a need for his father to consider leaving Bedevere to him. If only he could talk to his father one more time, try to explain why he’d had to go.
The devil on his shoulder wasn’t satisfied. If you want to save Bedevere stop brooding over books you can’t make sense of and start wooing that 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