How to Ruin a Reputation (Rakes Beyond Redemption) Read online

  He wasn’t ready to go inside yet. Ashe reached for a small piece of wood on the ground and pulled out his knife. He whittled while he sat, letting his thoughts wonder along whatever paths they preferred to take. Pride had done this. The real Bedevere legacy was the stubborn Bedevere pride. The same pride which had driven his great-grandfather to build an earldom was the pride which had driven Ashe from home at the age of twenty.

  No doubt it was the same pride which had perhaps persuaded his father at the last to gamble with Bedevere’s future. Unwilling to admit his prodigal son had not returned in time to make amends and unwilling to admit defeat in the face of economic disaster, his father had found a way to defy traditional law and push Bedevere towards the future, uncertain as it was. It had been an enormous gamble.

  His right hand began to ache from the knife work and Ashe flexed it out of old habit. The cold weather and the rough work outdoors this week, even with gloves, had aggravated it. He hadn’t done his hand any favors these past few days with letter writing and gardening and playing the piano. Usually, regular activity didn’t bother it, but regular activity in London was something of a subdued nature compared to the ‘rigours’ he’d encountered out here.

  Ashe held out his hand and slowly turned it over, palm side up. A thin, pale-white line bisected the palm, a mark nearly invisible after eight years, but not forgotten. Pride had done that too.

  Ashe huffed a sigh, his breath swirling like a mist in the cool air of late afternoon. His body was cooling, too. He shouldn’t stay out much longer in only a shirt. He brushed his hands against the thighs of his breeches and stood up. It was time to do what he’d put off doing since the moment he’d arrived. It was time to go inside and pay his respects.

  There was a certain finality to seeing a life etched in stone, chiselled into a three-line biography for descendents to linger over: name, title, date of lifespan.

  That finality was not lost on Ashe as he entered the marble-floored mausoleum and followed the dates to the most recent row. His father was there, of course, marked by a polished marble plaque containing the dates; February 7th, 1775– January 25th, 1834. Ashe raised his hand and traced the chiselled numbers, emotions rising. This was why he hadn’t come out earlier—not because he hadn’t cared, not even because he’d been busy with other important things to do for the estate and for the living. The dead could wait after all. They weren’t going anywhere—but because he knew once he got here, he’d break down.

  He was right.

  Ashe backed to the wall where a slab for sitting had been cut in marble blocks.

  He sat hard, feeling the hot sting of tears behind his eyes and then he gave himself permission to do what he hadn’t done in a decade.

  He wept.

  He wept for being too late to say goodbye. He wept for Alex, for a neglected home, for a ruined hand and a ruined dream, for all the things that might have been in a more perfect world where dreams and sons and fathers could co-exist.

  And when he was done, he would be ready to face again the imperfect world that was.

  *

  It was dusky-dark when Ashe stepped outside, one of his favourite times where night met day. Daylight hovered on the hem of the horizon while early stars poked their brilliant heads through the night fabric of the sky. He looked up at that sky and drew a revitalising breath and stiffened before he could exhale.

  Someone was here.

  With reflexes honed from too many years spent in the alleyways of gaming hells, Ashe bent swiftly to retrieve the knife in his boot. He palmed it and called out.

  ‘It’s me.’ A dark figure rose from the bench and stepped forwards, the clear shape of a woman becoming evident.

  ‘Neva.’ Ashe sighed and replaced the knife. ‘You startled me. I wasn’t expecting anyone to be here.’

  ‘Obviously.’ She shot a wry glance towards his boot where the knife was sheathed. ‘I brought you this.’ She held up his coat. ‘When you didn’t come back, I got to thinking you might be cold if you stayed out too much longer.’

  Ashe shrugged into the jacket, appreciating its warmth. ‘Thank you. How did you know where I’d be?’

  ‘It wasn’t hard to figure out,’ Genevra said softly, those grey eyes once again seeing more than he wanted to reveal.

  ‘Your father would have liked to have seen you again,’ Genevra offered quietly as they began the long walk back. Her arm was tucked through his for balance so she wouldn’t trip over the uneven ground in the growing dark.

  ‘I’m not sure I agree. I might have hastened his decline,’ Ashe said truthfully. ‘I think sometimes the living require absolution more than the dying.’

  ‘Absolution comes in many forms.’

  The words brought Ashe to a halt. It occurred to him in those moments that loss and forgiveness were things she would understand. The conflict fuelled by his father’s will had obscured her humanity. She was more than the physical embodiment of ‘fifty-one per cent’, more than someone to be manipulated.

  ‘Is that why you’re here? Is Staffordshire your absolution, Genevra?’ She was a young widow, a woman who had lost a husband not long after their marriage and most likely in sudden circumstances, so goodbyes had not been possible. He thought of her comment earlier about his need for atonement. Had she guessed because of her own?

  She turned away from him. ‘I suppose it is,’ she said quietly. ‘Seaton Hall is more than absolution, it is a redemption of sorts, a redemption for other women.’

  She paused here and Ashe waited for her to go on. ‘I haven’t told anyone yet, but I plan to make it a business and a home for women who have no place to go and no means to support themselves. Once the place is renovated, I’ll look for women to come. They can give tours, tend the garden, put on teas. I think it’s the perfect genteel business opportunity.’

  ‘Like my aunts selling handicrafts at the local fairs?’ Ashe murmured with a smile.

  ‘Yes,’ Genevra replied staunchly. ‘Everyone needs to have a purpose, to feel useful. No one wants to be a thing. No one wants to be helpless.’

  The statement spoke volumes, Ashe thought, although he could not imagine Genevra tolerating being minimised. ‘Did you love him? Your husband?’

  *

  Her husband. Philip Ralston. A handsome bounder who’d convinced a young girl he was desperately in love with her.

  Genevra looked down at the ground, studying her feet as they began walking again. She seldom spoke of Philip to anyone but perhaps Ashe would see now the kind of resistance he was up against. Philip had ruined her for marriage. She would not risk walking that path again. She was not that naïve. ‘I suppose I did in the beginning before I saw him for what he was.’

  ‘What was that?’ Ashe prompted softly.

  ‘A man who loved my money far more than he loved me, only I was too young to know it.’ Even after the distance of time, it was still hard to admit that awful truth. ‘My father tried to warn me, but I was too stubborn to listen.’ Genevra shrugged and gave a half-hearted laugh. ‘It sounds like a Gothic romance, doesn’t it? Rich girl falls victim to a fortune hunter. It’s hardly original.’ There was more to it, of course, but she wasn’t ready to share the sordid details. She didn’t want Ashe’s pity. It was time to move the conversation on to a different track. She’d reached the limit of what she wanted to disclose.

  ‘I have to confess there’s another reason I came out looking for you. Henry is staying for dinner. I thought you’d want to know in advance.’

  Just like that, the brief magic of the evening faded.

  Chapter Eleven

  It could have been worse; not the most stunning accolade to attach to a dinner, Genevra thought. But at least Ashe hadn’t thrown anything at Henry beyond words and vice versa. She’d been more than glad to make a hasty retreat to one of Bedevere’s quiet sitting rooms and spend the remainder of her evening with a book.

  She’d not planned to stay overnight, not after having so recently made a return to Seaton
Hall, but the weather had conspired against her. The moderate breeze that had accompanied her drive over this afternoon had become something rather more by nightfall. Why not stay? the aunts had argued. There was no one expecting her at Seaton, and no plans that demanded her immediate attention, so here she was, tucked away with a book and hoping for some peace, something that had been in short supply since the earl’s death and Mr Bedevere’s arrival.

  Genevra tucked her legs beneath her and opened the book, a posthumously published edition of Ann Radcliffe’s Gaston de Blondeville.

  ‘Genni, there you are. I’ve been looking all over for you.’ Henry’s convivial tones broke her concentration on page five. Genevra fought the urge to let her shoulders sag in disappointment.

  ‘Hello, Henry.’ She looked up and smiled, pushing back her more uncharitable thoughts. It wasn’t Henry’s fault, not specifically anyway. She’d come to Staffordshire to avoid male attention and here she was with a fifty-one per cent share in an estate and two cousins circling like vultures, waiting for her to decide what her role would be in all this.

  ‘I’m not interrupting, am I?’ Henry pushed off from the door jamb and sauntered over. She wondered what he’d do if she actually answered the question.

  ‘Of course not.’

  Henry took the chair next to the sofa and pulled it forwards. ‘I’ve been wanting to talk with you for ages, but I haven’t been able to catch you alone.’ He smiled boyishly, his golden hair falling across one eye. He brushed it back. ‘I even went into the village on your shopping day in the hope of catching you, but...’ his voice trailed off and he shrugged. ‘Seems my cousin had beaten me to it.’ He furrowed his brow. ‘Has my cousin beaten me to your affections, Genni? Have I erred by playing the gentleman too long?’

  She feared where this conversation was headed, but she’d known it would happen since the will had been read. ‘Your cousin has had more important matters on his mind than flirting with a neighbour,’ Genevra said lightly. It was almost true, except for that kiss in the conservatory, or the incident in Audley Village.

  Henry leaned forwards in a pose of earnest. ‘I must warn you about him, Genni. You don’t know him like I do.’ He paused. ‘I know you were with him that day in Audley Village. I saw you come out of the inn and he came out a few moments later.’

  ‘People can have tea together in a public setting, Henry,’ Genevra laughed it off.

  ‘It’s never just tea with him, Genni. Do you know what he’d spent the night doing? He spent it gambling on billiards.’

  That explained the stale smell of smoke and ale on him. Well, she shouldn’t be surprised. She’d thought as much, but the confirmation was still disappointing.

  ‘Genni, he’s been home for a handful of days, supposedly to mourn his father and take up some form of an active role in the estate. Instead he was gambling.

  He’s a rotter through and through, Genni.’ Henry sounded genuinely aghast, perhaps a bit too much. Genevra had the fleeting notion he would do well on Drury Lane with that expressive face of his.

  ‘Henry, I think you make too much of it,’ Genevra said softly, but she wasn’t convinced of that, or of Ashe being entirely a ‘rotter’. She’d had glimpses of a far nobler man beneath the roguish exterior. ‘I think, too, that you misjudge him.

  He’s beside himself over his father.’

  Henry snorted at this. ‘Don’t be misled, Genni. He could have come home sooner and maybe none of this would have happened. Now, he wants to waltz in here and claim all of the estate after the rest of us have propped it up in his absence.’

  Genevra heard the vehemence, the envy in Henry’s words. ‘What of you, Henry? What do you want to claim? I don’t believe Ashe is the only one with an agenda. You were upset the day the will was read. You expected more?’

  ‘I want you, Genni.’ Henry fixed her with a strong look. ‘I don’t care about estates. I want you and if I sound angry it is because I see you slipping away from me, slipping towards Ashe. I know I should wait a decent period before I ask, but I find I cannot risk it. If I wait any longer, I fear Ashe will steal you from me.’

  There was another of his dramatic pauses. She was starting to become truly annoyed by them.

  ‘He’s stolen a girl from me before, you see. There was a girl, the daughter of gentry. They’re no longer in the area. I was seventeen and I was in love. We walked out a few times together, did all the things that typify young love: strolled the summer fairs, sat together at local socials. But Ashe was home from Oxford, older, richer and he took a fancy to her.’ Henry shook his head. ‘How could I compete with an earl’s son, even a second son? I was just the nephew, visiting for the summer with a modest inheritance.

  ‘I would protect you, Genni, from being his next victim. I would not see you thrown aside when he was done with you.’

  ‘I don’t need protecting, Henry. I can take care of myself. But thank you for the concern.’ Genevra picked up her book, signalling she’d like to start reading again, a sure dismissal. But Henry would not be daunted by the subtle manoeuvre.

  ‘I am not asking to protect you, Genni. I am asking you to marry me. I meant it when I said I wanted you, only you. I’ve grown fond of you in our months together and I find that none other can compare. I’m twenty-seven and it’s time to be looking to my future. I want you in that future.’

  It was a pretty speech with all the requisite elements of a decent proposal—an expression of affection, of sincerity and an allusion to the acceptability of his prospects—although both of them knew she was the one with the prospects if they wanted to live beyond his mid-sized manor farm.

  ‘Forgive my surprise, Henry,’ Genevra began delicately while she searched for the right words. ‘I had not realised your affections had transmuted from those of friendship.’

  ‘I could make you happy, Genni. You’re far too young to be alone in this world for the rest of your life. Surely you cannot mean to remain a widow for ever.’

  ‘I am flattered, Henry, truly I am. But now is not the time for me to be thinking of marriage. I have Seaton Hall to finish at the very least,’ Genevra hedged.

  Henry smiled good-naturedly. ‘You sound like you’re not sure?’ He reached for her hand. ‘We can take things slowly. We can always announce our engagement and wait until you’re ready. We should wait, anyway, with the funeral having been so recent, so you needn’t feel awkward about it.’

  If she’d been a different kind of woman, a woman who craved the respectability and security marriage brought with it, she would have taken Henry’s offer. He was good looking, possessed of a certain charm. Some woman, somewhere, would be thrilled to marry Henry Bennington, but that woman wasn’t her, not at the present at least, although she doubted that would change.

  ‘Your offer is generous, I just can’t accept at present,’ Genevra said. Something stirred at the door and she looked past Henry to see Ashe in the doorway. He’d only just arrived, unlikely to have overheard the conversation, but the look on his face was thunderous. She could imagine how the situation appeared to him— Henry sitting close, her hand in his grasp, Henry looking earnest.

  ‘I was on my way to read some post.’ Ashe fixed her with a piercing stare.

  ‘Gardener informed me a letter of some importance arrived late this afternoon from London.’

  Was she supposed to have known about the letter? His look suggested he suspected she did. She had no energy left to play ‘divine the secret message in my gaze’. She’d had to work too hard with Henry. Genevra rose with her book. ‘I think I’ll retire. Goodnight, gentlemen.’ She felt Ashe’s hot eyes follow her out the room. As exits went it was of the same calibre as dinner—it could have been worse.

  *

  But that didn’t mean sleep came easily. The wind howled at her window and her thoughts rambled around in her head, conspiring to keep her awake well after midnight.

  What had the old earl meant by leaving her such a controlling influence in the estate? She wa
s happy enough to offer her ideas on boosting the estate’s productivity and happy enough to even offer a loan. She didn’t need fifty-one per cent to do that. Surely the earl had known she would have done all that anyway?

  But he’d given it to her none the less and now she had to honour that position by not letting Ashe Bedevere exclude her from estate business.

  Only it just wasn’t about the estate. She was drawn to Ashe Bedevere against her better instincts. It had been easy to refuse Henry. He had been a companion, but nothing more. He didn’t stir feelings to life in her that were hot and dangerous. She didn’t want his kisses, didn’t want to probe the depths of his mind.

  But Ashe had merely to enter into a room and all of her attentions were riveted on him, as he’d so aptly demonstrated tonight.

  She knew all too well how such a reaction could cloud her judgement. Ashe was most assuredly a rake, a character trait that would normally not earn him any points with her. But then there had been glimpses of a far deeper, far more decent man beneath that roguish exterior and the combination was potently compelling: the noble rogue. The woman in her wanted him unabashedly, but the business side counselled caution against such rash behaviour.

  Genevra threw aside her covers. This was the second sleepless night she could lay at Ashe Bedevere’s feet. She grabbed a dressing robe and belted it with determination. Mrs Radcliffe’s novel had not accomplished its purpose. Perhaps there was something more suited to her temperament in the library. She grabbed a candle and headed downstairs.