Prologue
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
Sex with Ashe Bedevere was one of the ‘Great Pleasures’ of the Season and not to be missed, which explained why Lady Hargrove was favouring him with a splendid pout and a peek-a-boo glimpse of her bosom beneath a carefully draped sheet in hopes of persuading him to stay.
‘Surely a few more minutes will not matter,’ she protested with a coy look, letting the sheet slip ever so provocatively over the curve of her hip.
Ashe shoved his arms through the sleeves of his shirt, dressing rapidly. Whatever he’d found appealing about Lady Hargrove’s feminine assets earlier in the evening had vanished in the wake of the note that had come for him. He pulled on his trousers and favoured her with a sinful smile designed to placate. ‘My dear, what I had in mind for us takes more than a few minutes.’
The promise of deferred pleasure was enough. Ashe eased out the door before she could argue, all his thoughts fixed on one goal: getting to Bedevere, the Earl of Audley’s family seat. Never mind that Bedevere was three days’ ride away. Never mind he hadn’t any idea of what to do once he got there. Never mind he could have answered numerous requests to return home in the past years and hadn’t. Never mind any of it. This time it was different. This time, the solicitor had written two desperate sentences. ‘Come home. Your father has died.’
Ashe sprinted the last few streets to his rooms on Jermyn Street, fuelled by a sense of urgency and impotence. He’d always thought he’d have more time.
Three days later
God and the devil in the details! Ashe swore none too softly and pulled his bay stallion to a jolting halt. This was Bedevere land? More to the point, this was his father’s land? He could hardly reconcile the weed-choked fields and broken stone fences lining the roadway with the once-fertile fields and immaculate roads of his youth. He’d seen plenty of the devil since he’d ridden on to Bedevere land and not much of God. How had it come to this?
A sharp pang of guilt stabbed at him deep and hard. He knew the answer.
It was his fault.
The current summons home wasn’t the first, but it would be the last. Ashe could have come home long before when the first bout of illness had settled in four years ago. He could have come home when his brother had gone round the bend two years ago for reasons still unclear to him. But he hadn’t and an extraordinary consequence had occurred as a result: the timeless fortitude of Bedevere had faltered, proven fallible at last. He’d waited too long and all this ruin could be laid at his feet.
It seemed an ironic twist of fate that he was now poised to be the curator of a place he’d so willingly fled in years past. The place had been perfect then, so unlike his imperfect self. It was less perfect now and he was still flawed—a broken king to rule a broken Camelot.
There was no use in putting it off. Ashe kicked his horse into a canter for the last ride home. His trunks would have arrived yesterday, signalling that he was not far behind. The aunts had probably been up since daybreak, anticipating his coming, and they would all be waiting.
All four of them. He was their protector now, a role he felt ill suited to play. He supposed that was part of the Bedevere legacy, too; the Bedevere women didn’t marry men who had the foresight to provide beyond the grave and the Bedevere males hadn’t much luck in living long enough to do it for them.
The rough-kept lands preceding the park were a blessing of sorts in that they prepared him for the sight of the manor. Ivy crawled rampant across the formerly pristine sandstone of the hall’s façade. A shutter hung loose from a second-storey window. Flowerbeds were overrun with plants that had long outgrown their intended shapes. Nature was having its way with the once-orderly