knowing, a wealthy man over a failure.
‘I do not know what else to say to you,’ Covendale said.
Leo barely heard him.
He thought about losing his horses, his stable. Losing Mariel was a thousand times worse. The pain was so intense he had to fight to remain upright. It was as if his insides were consumed by flames and what was left was ashes, a void that never could be refilled.
Respectability be damned. Stud farm be damned.
What had all his conscientious behaviour and hard work brought him? A pile of cinders.
Being jilted by Mariel.
He forced himself to rise to his full height.
‘You are correct, sir. There is nothing more to say.’ He nodded to Covendale. ‘Good day.’
Leo turned and strode out of Covendale’s library, out of the town house, into the grey afternoon drizzle.
And the emptiness that was now his life.
Chapter One
June, 1828—two years later
Loud pounding forced Leo from a dead sleep.
He opened his eyes and was stabbed by a sliver of sunlight, harbinger of a fine spring London day. He clapped his hands to his head.
Too much brandy. Now he was paying the price.
More pounding. A caller at his door.
Why the devil did Walker not send them away?
Walker was Leo’s valet, but likely not out of bed himself. He and Leo had engaged in a bout of celebratory drinking after Leo returned from the card tables the previous night.
Walker might act as Leo’s valet, but he looked nothing like a gentleman’s gentleman. He’d been a ruffian from the Rookerie, caught by circumstance in Paris and hungry for a new life. Leo encountered him by accident and they had become more than gentleman and gentleman’s man. They’d become friends … and now business partners.
The pounding resumed and Leo could just make out the voice of a man demanding to be admitted.
He groaned and roused himself from the bed, searching around the room for the clothes he’d shed the night before. The sound stopped and he sat back on the bed. Excellent. Walker would deal with it. Send the caller away.
Once, Leo would have been up and out to his stables at dawn. He’d have done a half day’s work by this hour. He rubbed his face. That had been an age ago. A different lifetime. Being in London brought back the memory, but he’d carved out a new life for himself—from very rough rock, he might add—but it was a life that suited him surprisingly well.
Walker knocked and entered his bedchamber. ‘Your family calls.’
His family? ‘Which ones?’
‘All of them.’
All six? His brothers and his sisters? ‘What the devil do they want?’
‘They would not tell me,’ Walker replied.
Leo ran his hand through his hair. ‘Why didn’t you make some excuse? Say I was out?’ It did Leo no credit that he’d avoided them for the fortnight he’d been in town, but he’d been busy. Besides, they’d never understand the direction his life had taken while he’d been away.
Walker cocked an eyebrow. ‘I thought it unwise to engage in fisticuffs with a duke, an earl and one tiny, growling dog.’
Good God. His sister Charlotte brought one of her pugs.
‘Very well. I will see them.’ He pulled his shirt over his head. Walker brushed off his coat with his hand.
Leo’s siblings had, no doubt, come with help to offer and would scold him for his behaviour, which had taken a downward path since last he’d been in London, although he trusted they’d never know the half of it. Let them believe the stories about him, that Leo was as much a libertine as his father had once been, but they would not know that Leo had faced situations their father would never have imagined facing.
He shoved his arms into the sleeves of the coat and pulled on his boots. ‘I have the feeling I will not enjoy this.’
He left the bedchamber and entered the sitting room.
His brothers and sisters immediately turned to him. They stood in a circle. In fact, they’d even rearranged his seating into a circle.
‘Leo!’ Nicholas spoke first. As duke, he was head of the family. ‘Good morning.’
Charlotte’s pug yapped from under her arm.
Justine rushed over to him, clasping both his hands. ‘Leo, how good it is to see you. You look dreadful.’ She touched his cheek and spoke with some surprise.
‘Indeed.’ Brenner joined her.
He must look a sight. Unshaven. Rumpled clothes. Bloodshot eyes.
Brenner searched his face. ‘Are you unwell?’
‘Not at all,’ Leo replied. ‘Late night.’
Brenner and Justine comprised the most complex of his unusual sibling relations. She was his half-sister by his father, and Brenner, now Lord Linwall, was his half-brother by his mother. They were married to each other. Their love affair happened right after Leo’s parents died.
Brenner flashed him one more worried look before wrapping his arms around Leo in a brotherly hug. The others swarmed around him. Charlotte burst into tears and wept against his chest. Nicholas and Stephen slapped him on the back. Even the pug raced around his feet and tried to jump up his legs. Only Annalise held back, but that was typical of her. She was observing the scene and would probably make a painting of it and call it The Return of the Prodigal Son.
Only he had no intention of returning to the well-meaning bosom of his family. He was just passing through, literally waiting for his ship to come in.
‘What are you doing here?’ he managed to ask.
Nicholas clapped his hands. ‘Come. Let us all sit and we will tell you.’
One of the chairs was set just a little inside the circle. That was the one they left for him.
Nicholas leaned forwards. ‘We are here out of concern for you.’
Of course they were. ‘Concern?’ They intended to fix things for him. Take care of him as they’d always done.
‘We are so afraid for you, Leo!’ Ever the dramatist, Charlotte punctuated this with a sob. ‘What will become of you?’ Her dog jumped onto her lap and licked her face.
This was all nonsense. ‘What the devil are you talking about?’
Nicholas spoke.
