The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen

Book 1: The Doomsday Books

by KJ Charles

Genres: LGBT Gay; Regency Romance; Historical Fiction; Historical Mysteries

Synopsis

Abandoned by his father, Gareth Inglis grew up lonely, prickly, and used to disappointment. Still, he longs for a connection. When he meets a charming stranger, he falls head over heels?until everything goes wrong and he's left alone again. Then Gareth's father dies, turning the shabby London clerk into Sir Gareth, with a grand house on the remote Romney Marsh and a family he doesn't know. The Marsh is another world, a strange, empty place notorious for its ruthless gangs of smugglers. And one of them is dangerously familiar… Joss Doomsday has run the Doomsday smuggling clan since he was a boy. When the new baronet?his old lover?agrees to testify against Joss's sister, Joss acts fast to stop him. Their reunion is anything but happy, yet after the dust settles, neither can stay away. Soon, all Joss and Gareth want is the chance to be together. But the bleak, bare Marsh holds deadly secrets. And when Gareth finds himself threatened from every side, the gentleman and the smuggler must trust one another not just with their hearts but also with their lives.

Release date: March 7, 2023

Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca

Print pages: 353

Sample

One

February 1810

Kent was still there.

Gareth had tumbled into the Three Ducks with his lungs burning from walking too fast in the cold night air, his face instantly reddening as the warm fug of the taproom assailed him. He didn’t even know why he’d hurried: he was over two hours late and he’d told himself the whole way that Kent would have left already. If the situation were reversed, Gareth would have decided his lover for the night wasn’t coming and left cursing the man’s name. He’d fully expected Kent to do the same or, even more likely, find another warm body to go upstairs with.

He’d come anyway because…well, because, that was all. Because it was rude to miss an appointment, because he had nowhere else he wanted to go, because he hoped against hope that just this one thing might not be taken from him today.

And there Kent was, unmissable, the only man in a room crowded with men. He was sitting with a mug of ale and his feet up on a stool, chatting to the landlord without a care in the world. Then he looked round at the door and smiled, and the sight of him took Gareth’s remaining breath.

The landlord slouched away as Gareth came to the table. “I’m so sorry I’m late.”

“Watcher, London.” What cheer, Gareth had worked out that phrase meant: Kent’s version of good evening. Gareth would have been furious in his place, but the smile in Kent’s warm golden-brown eyes looked entirely real. “Thought you weren’t coming.”

“I didn’t mean to keep you waiting so long.” Thank you for staying, Gareth wanted to say.

Kent waved a hand before he could go on, dismissing his failure to appear as though it didn’t matter at all. “You look fraped. Everything all right?”

Gareth didn’t know what fraped meant, but he had no doubt he looked it. “Not really. No. It’s been rather a bad day. Terrible, really.”

“Here, sit down. I’ll get you a drink and you can tell me about it.” He rose from his seat.

“No, don’t.” Gareth regretted the words as he spoke them. He would have liked very much to have a drink with Kent, to pour out what had happened and the bewildering uncertainty that now surrounded him. Except that if he tried to explain anything he’d have to explain everything, and he didn’t want to do that. To present himself as a pitiable object, an unwanted thing, to easily confident Kent who didn’t look like he’d been rejected in his life, then to watch him be repelled by the stench of failure, as people always were—No.

Anyway, Gareth had better ideas of how to spend the evening than brooding about his dismal situation. He had the rest of his life for that. “It doesn’t matter. Could we go upstairs?”

Kent’s thick brows angled. “In a hurry?”

“It’s late. And I was looking forward to seeing you.”

Kent frowned, just a little. Gareth probably didn’t seem a particularly desirable prospect, sweaty and flustered as he was. Fraped, even. He reached for Kent’s mug of ale, watching those glowing brown eyes watching him, and took a long, deliberate swallow.

“Thirsty?”

“In need,” Gareth agreed, and dragged the back of his hand over his mouth in a meaningful fashion.

Kent’s lips curved. “Better?”

“Getting there.”

“Suppose we might as well go up, en.”

The Three Ducks made the back room and the dark covered courtyard available for illicit fumbling and spending. Gareth knew the spaces well, having come here many times over the years. He’d always assumed the upstairs room was private, but Kent, who he’d never seen in here prior to this week, apparently had the privilege of using it. Perhaps he was an old friend of the landlord. Or perhaps it was just that smile of his, that wide, irresistible grin that sluiced you in happy anticipation and confidence and sheer joy of living. Gareth had gone down poleaxed at the first flash of that smile. He

wasn’t surprised the Ducks’ taciturn landlord couldn’t resist it either.

They crashed into the upstairs room together, already kissing wildly. Kent was strong, with broad shoulders and taut muscle, several inches under Gareth’s height but a lot more solid, and he moved with all the confidence of his smile. He planted a hand on Gareth’s arse, pulling him close, and Gareth sank into the sensation with a flood of relief.

Fingers grasping, lips and tongues locking, the press of thigh against thigh—Gareth got both hands into Kent’s long, loose curls, the strands so thick and strong by comparison to his own flyaway hair. He held on hard as Kent kissed him, and felt Kent’s smile against his mouth.

“London,” Kent murmured. “I want you bare.”

Gareth let go with a touch of reluctance: he liked Kent’s hair. But Kent liked him undressed, so he stood as Kent pulled first coat then waistcoat off his shoulders; raised his arms obediently as Kent tugged his shirt over his head.

He’d worn trousers and shoes partly because the Three Ducks was not a place to dress well, partly because Kent dressed like a working man, and mostly because they came off easily. He kicked off his shoes, inhaled as Kent unfastened the buttons at his waist, and bent to peel off his stockings.

And there he was, exposed to Kent’s gaze in the golden lamplight.

It had felt very odd the first time he’d stood naked like this under Kent’s scrutiny. He’d never been fully bare with a lover before Kent. Surreptitious fumblings in dark corners didn’t come with the luxury of time, or of more undressing than necessary. And he had no idea why Kent liked to look at him so much. Gareth was nothing special: tall but thin, pale and uninteresting. He wouldn’t have noticed himself in a crowd, whereas a man could look at Kent’s firm, fit body and that outrageous smile for hours.

Yet there was no mistaking the heat in Kent’s eyes when he stood back and examined Gareth, and the frank appreciation tingled like a touch on his skin.

“Hearts alive, you’re a pretty one,” Kent said, voice a little deeper than usual. “Ah, London.”

Gareth breathed the feeling in: naked, exposed, offering every inch of himself up and waiting for Kent’s touch. His prick was stiff at the thought. “Christ,” he said. “I love it when you look at me.”

“Makes two of us.”

Kent moved forward, slid his hand over Gareth’s chest. It was narrower and far less impressive than Kent’s own broad muscles, but Kent didn’t seem to mind. His fingertips were light. Gareth quivered under the feathery touch as it roamed his skin, and couldn’t help a gasp as Kent’s hand finally closed around his jutting prick.

“Eager,” Kent murmured. “You ready for me, London?”

“Whenever you are.” Kent was still fully clad. “If you’re joining me, that is.”

“Oh, I’ll be doing that.”

Kent was smiling. Gareth smiled back, and his heart was pounding every bit as hard as the blood in his groin.

He’d only come into the Ducks last week for a drink with like-minded company. Of course he’d have taken a bit of pleasure if any offer came his way,

but he’d have been perfectly happy with a mug of ale and a chance to breathe out from another day. He’d looked around to see who he knew—and then he’d seen him.

A working man, by his dress, in a long dark leather coat. Tawny brown skin; thick, wavy black hair loose to his shoulders; a faint shadow of black beard; a generous mouth. He was talking to a pretty youth of very similar colouring, and as Gareth watched, he had thrown his head back and laughed.

Yes, Gareth had watched. Stared, even. Very well, he’d gaped like a hopeless fool, but one didn’t see a man, a smile, like that every day. He’d still been looking when, unexpectedly, the man had glanced over, and their eyes met.

Gareth had looked away at once, embarrassed and annoyed at himself for the needy display. He’d carefully stared into the opposite corner of the room to mark his lack of interest, until a throat was cleared close to him, and he realised someone was standing by his chair. Not just someone. Him.

“Watcher,” he’d said. Gareth’s cheeks instantly flamed because he’d unquestionably been watching, but the man went on without a pause, “Wondered if you might be wanting company.”

That was bewildering. Was he being mocked for gawping so obviously?

The man gave him a quizzical look. “Did I startle you? You look like a sighted hare.”

Gareth had no idea what that meant and it sounded oddly bucolic for a London alehouse, especially in that country accent, with broad vowels and a roll to the ‘r’. It didn’t matter, because the man, this man, was talking to him.

He managed a smile that he hoped didn’t look too idiotish. “I beg your pardon, I was in a brown study. I’d love company, if you’d like to join me.”

The man took a stool. “I will, en. What’s your name?”

Gareth winced. “Uh. Um, I don’t usually, here—for discretion, you know—”

“No names? Got you, beg pardon. I’m Kentish.”

“Well, hello, Kentish,” Gareth said, pure instinct. At least part of his brain was still working.

The man’s eyes crinkled responsively. “From Kent. I meant, we’re friendlier down there.”

“I don’t know. Londoners can be quite friendly, in the right circumstances.”

“I bet you can.” He smiled, and the dazzling force of it close up rocked Gareth in his seat. “You’re London, then? Nice to meet you, London.”

Gareth smiled back, hopelessly enthralled. “You too, Kent.”

They’d left the question of names there; they’d had better things to do. Kent had obtained the luxury of the upstairs room—private, comfortable, no unexpected puddles of stale beer, drain-water, or worse—in about five minutes, and Gareth had been naked for him two minutes after that. Naked and delighting in it, as though Kent’s physical confidence and frank enjoyment were contagious.

They were contagious. He rejoiced in his own body and in Gareth’s. He laughed, he set out to please them both without shame, or fear, or second thoughts, and Gareth, who was usually consumed by shame and fear and second thoughts, all but forgot them in Kent’s company. They’d met every night since and it had been the most joyous week of his life, this unexpected, gleeful, frank pleasure. Kent’s admiring looks, his capable fingers and strong a

rms. His smile.

Gareth stood now, bare and erect, as Kent stroked and kissed him till his prick was leaking and his knees were weak. He undressed Kent with shaking fingers, in awe of the magnificent solid muscle, loving the rich look of Kent’s warm brown skin against his own city pallor. He went to his knees on the bed, and cried aloud as Kent held his shoulder and fucked him with little urgent whispers—“You’re lovely, London, so lovely”—and when it was over he buried his face in the rough mattress to hide his sudden urge to weep.

Kent’s arm came over his waist. “You all right?”

“Yes. It’s—I’m very well.”

Kent stroked Gareth’s spine. “You’ve a nice back. Nice arse, come to that.”

“Well, you certainly came to it.”

Kent chuckled. “So I did.”

Gareth stretched luxuriously. Kent’s breath came hot against his back in an exhalation. “London?”

“Mmm?”

“I’ve got to go.”

Gareth’s stomach plunged. “Already?” he said, and hated the plaintive note he heard in his own voice. “Sorry. Of course. It was my fault for being late.”

Kent gave him a little squeeze. “Not right now. I meant I’m going home.”

Gareth’s eyes snapped open. He stared at the wall. The heat of rutting was fading from his skin and he felt quite suddenly sore, and sticky, and stupid. “To Kent?”

“To Kent. I’ve finished my business here, and I’ve a lot to do there that won’t wait.”

Of course he did. Of course he was going back. Gareth could feel his cheeks heating, not so much at Kent’s words as at his own foolishness in not anticipating this. He’d lived in a continuous present of see you tomorrow without thinking about when it would end—how had he not thought about when it would end?—and of course that wouldn’t carry on. Of course Kent had been planning to walk away all along.

“Yes, of course you must. Have a safe journey. It was good to know you.”

The words were well enough, but the tone sounded horribly false in his own ears. Kent, lying against his back, went still, and then took hold of Gareth’s shoulder and tugged until he was forced to roll over and face him. “Good to know me? What’s that mean?”

“Well…goodbye? Isn’t that what you were saying?”

“I was saying I’ve got to get home. Doesn’t mean I can’t come back. I have business here, regular-like. I’ll be back in April, reckon.” He brushed a finger over Gareth’s cheek. “Wondered if you’d care to meet again.”

Gareth’s chest clenched tight. “Meet? What do you mean? How?”

“The usual way? You tell me your name and how I reach you. I write you a note and say I’ll be here on such-and-such a day. You turn up. I turn up. Maybe we make a bit more time for a drink and a talk first. Have a bite to eat.” He cocked an eyebrow, lips half smiling, eyes full of easy confidence: a man who absolutely expected his week-long lover to be waiting for him in two- or three-months’ time.

The enraging thing was, Gareth wanted to. He could already imagine the heady anticipation as April approached, the thrill of unfolding a note with shaking fingers and walking into the Ducks to the greeting of “Watcher, London”…

That was easy to imagine. Fantasies always were. But he could also imagine the slow-dawning realisation as April ticked into May and no note came, or ever would, because Gareth might have amused Kent for a week but that meant nothing. He wouldn’t write; he wouldn’t come, and Gareth didn’t wait for anyone any more.

“I don’t wait,” he said aloud.

Kent blinked. “I didn’t mean you should save yourself for me. Just, if you wanted to meet again, I’d like to see you.”

“Why?”

“Acause we get on? Or I thought we did till about two minutes ago. There something wrong?”

There was everything wrong. Gareth could feel it building in his gut. He knew this dance, being constantly put off by assurances of a future that would never be fulfilled, where he’d plead and cajole for scraps, crumbs, any attention at all, and it would never, ever come.

He was being pushed away with promises again, told to wait for a little while that meant forever, again, and his stomach knotted on the thought.

“I don’t think so.” The words came out hard and clipped, but not needy. He wasn’t needy. He didn’t need this.

“Don’t think—?”

“I don’t think we should meet again. This was all very enjoyable but we both have things to do.” He sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed, turning away.

The mattress shifted under him as Kent moved too. “Enjoyable? London—”

“That’s not my name.”

“You didn’t want to tell me your name,” Kent pointed out. “I asked.”

“Yes, well, perhaps you should take that as a hint.” The roiling in his gut was getting worse, and he needed to leave. Leave, not be left. He rose and reached for his clothing. “I didn’t tell you my name then and I don’t intend to now. I doubt we’ll be crossing paths again, so thank you for a very pleasant week’s diversion. Let’s leave it at that.”

“Hold on. Wait. You mind telling me what’s got you in a twitter?”

A twitter. The word sounded belittling, as if Gareth was making a fuss about nothing. “I am not—whatever that means.”

“You seem middling upset to me. What’s wrong?”

He sounded as if he meant it. As if he didn’t understand what he’d done and wanted to make things right, as if Gareth could sit back down on the bed and explain it all, and give him his name and tell him about today—

No. Absolutely not.

“I’m not upset,” Gareth said. “Why would I be upset? I’m leaving, and so are you, so there’s nothing more to be said.”

“Is this acause I said I had to go back? London, if I’ve put you in a dobbin—”

The betraying blood rushed to Gareth’s cheeks, bringing anger with it. How dare Kent assume his leaving would upset Gareth? Who the devil did he think he was, the cocky swine? And if he thought that, could he not have the decency to keep it to himself instead of piling on added humiliation by making a great fuss about it? “I have no idea what that word signifies, and it might be easier if you spoke the King’s English. I am leaving, since you ask, because your proposal of exchanging names—rather, my trusting you with my identity—isn’t terribly appealing and I consider matters are best left here. I’m trying to do this without causing offence,” he added, in the coldest tone he could manage, “so I’d prefer not to spell it out further.”

He heard the thump of Kent’s feet hitting the floor. “If that’s you trying not to cause offence, I don’t want to see you pluck a crow. What the blazes do you mean, trusting me with your identity?”

Gareth pulled his trousers up with a jerk and fastened them with shaking fingers. “All I want is to leave without any more trouble.”

“Who’s making trouble?”

“Well, I’m not.” Gareth dragged his shirt over his head. Putting clothing back on was a lot more troublesome and less enjoyable than taking it off. “So if you’re not, there’s no more to be said, is there? I hope you have a pleasant journey back.”

“You said that already. Are you always this maggotty and you were just keeping it quiet before?”

“There’s no need to be rude.”

Kent made a choking noise. No, Gareth told himself, not ‘Kent’. That wasn’t his name. Nobody was called Kent, any more than they were called Somerset or Hertfordshire or Devon. It was a false name, a falsehood, a lie like the whole of the last week had been, and he’d been a fool to name a man whose whole purpose was to be anonymous. No wonder Gareth had let himself care a little bit, giving him a name. That had been his mistake, and he was putting it right. He told himself that furiously, pulling his shoes on with jerky movements, not looking round. Absolutely not blinking anything away.

Hat. Coat. He had all his things and he looked more or less acceptable, if not precisely well turned out, so he could go. “Goodbye,” he managed, because he wasn’t going to be ill-mannered even if other people chose to be unreasonable.

“You’re just going like that,” the man said. “Right. As you please.”

Some people couldn’t part with decency. Gareth straightened his shoulders and left the room. He didn’t look back, not even at the last, muttered, angry word he heard as he opened the door. It sounded a lot like, “Arsehole.”

***

Two days later the letter arrived, and everything changed.

 

Two

Gareth arrived on Romney Marsh four days after that. It was bleak beyond words.

The stage stopped at a coaching inn, the Walnut Tree, high on a ridge. The land stretched out before them, grey-green, blotched with black scrubby trees, and cut with silvery lines that looked for all the world like streams except that many were unnervingly straight. He couldn’t see much in the way of houses on the flat land below, or of anything except the sea beyond. An icy wind whipped up the ridge. He shivered.

He’d taken the Kent coach from Haxells, on the Strand, with buildings all around and above him, a bustle of shouting and curses, rattling wheels, men and horses and vehicles jostling for space. That was London and he hated it. He didn’t like the crowds and the shouting; he’d always wanted peace, and greenery, and a bit of space. And now here he was, looking over acre upon acre of absolutely nothing except greenery and space, and he was desperate to go home.

No. He was coming home. The fact he’d never been here in his life was neither here nor there.

The road from the ridge took a steep descent to the unfathomably flat land of the Marsh. There were a lot of sheep, Gareth noticed. And there was a lot of water, because the straight lines were indeed streams, except they had to be man-made. Canals? The channels looked steel grey as he passed, like blades cutting through scrubby grass, and scrubby trees, and scrub.

Why had his father wanted to live here? Why would anyone?

The coach traversed a wearisome six miles through nothing, emptiness dotted with sheep and the occasional flurry of cottages huddled against the wind. At last it came to a halt at Dymchurch, his destination. This was a town, though only just, with a squat Norman church and a long high street. The stage passed an alehouse called the Ship and then stopped at a public house halfway down, one that was adorned with a ship’s figurehead on its wall but was called the City of London. Someone should have thought harder about that, in Gareth’s opinion.

He got out, stretched his aching legs, and looked around. It didn’t take long: there wasn’t much to see.

He was used to bustling crowds, dotted with bright bonnets and smart coats. Here there was just a handful of drably clad people who looked like they had hunched up against the weather at birth and never quite uncurled again. Farmers and shopkeepers, he vaguely supposed. An elderly gentleman wearing an old-fashioned periwig was speaking to a pretty young woman in a brown skirt and mannish black coat. Gareth noted her thick black hair and light brown skin and found himself thinking again of his week-long lover with a tiresomely familiar stab of guilt.

He’d been an arsehole. He knew it all too well, and wished he hadn’t. Kent hadn’t deserved his anger, as he’d known deep down at the time. But then, he hadn’t been angry with Kent. He’d been angry with his father, his uncle, his day, his life, so he’d struck back in revenge for a hurt Kent hadn’t meant to inflict and spoiled a perfectly lovely thing for no good reason. He’d been kicking himself since the next morning, for all the good that did.

At least he wasn’t kicking himself for missing out on future meetings. They wouldn’t have had those anyway, not after the letter. And if Gareth had agreed to meet again and then failed to appear, it would have meant Kent sitting alone and wondering why he’d been left. Gareth didn’t ever want to do that to anyone, so really, it was for the best. Or if it wasn’t, there was nothing he could do about it unless they bumped into each other, both being in the same county now. But Romney Marsh was hardly Kent; it was hardly anywhere at all. The population of the whole place looked to be about thirty, plus sheep. No, the odds were that he would never see Kent again, so Gareth’s penance for his behaviour would be feeling terrible about it for the next couple of years, while the man he’d insulted had probably forgotten the whole thing already.

“Sir Gareth Inglis?”

He looked around, not a little relieved at being jolted out of his thoughts. A short, wizened man was examining him with a resigned expression that suggested he was disappointed, if unsurprised. He moved a hand in an a

bbreviated salute that imitated, but didn’t convey, respect.

“John Groom, from Tench House, sir. Here to take you home.”

***

Tench House was perhaps a mile outside Dymchurch. It was a fair size, a recent construction of red brick, with a front garden that was mostly damp brown stems. That might be the natural state of any garden in February, but it wasn’t cheering.

A woman greeted him. She was perhaps in her mid-forties, wearing a plain black dress, brown hair greying, and a tired look to her eyes and mouth. He wasn’t sure what to call her.

“Good afternoon,” he said. “I’m Gareth. Gareth Inglis.”

“I’m Catherine Inglis.” She blinked, as if the sound of the name unsettled her. “I mean, Catherine Bull. I’m usually called Inglis, but you might not… Please, come in.”

The drawing room was pleasant enough, if dark. A young lady stood in the middle of it, and she didn’t look pleasant at all.

“This is Cecilia, my niece,” Mrs. Inglis said. “Your half-sister. Cecilia, this is Sir Gareth.”

Cecilia, a round-faced brunette, looked to be seventeen or so, and was also in dull, unrelieved black. Colour was supplied by her eyes, red from weeping, and her cheeks, also unflatteringly red. Gareth sympathised. He blushed easily himself and hated the way it betrayed him.

“Good afternoon, Cecilia,” he said, and was forced by manners to add, stilted, “I’m very pleased to meet you.”

She attempted to say something. Her mouth worked, but nothing came out. Then she gave a single, heaving sob and fled the room. Gareth turned to look after her and heard a wail from the stairs. It could have been unbearable grief, but he couldn’t help thinking it sounded a lot like fury.

“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Inglis said. “She’s upset. Too many bad shocks. Will you have some tea?”

They sat down with tea and a plate of little cakes they both ignored, going through the formalities of enquiry: his journey, the weather, if he’d had a good luncheon. Mrs. Inglis was well spoken, without the broad vowels of Kent. She looked calm, but when she wasn’t holding her cup, her hands twisted together in a way that looked painful.

“So,” Gareth said at last. “We should probably—”

“Yes,” Mrs. Inglis said. “I don’t quite know where to begin.”

That grated. She ought to know. She was the one who’d lived here, while Gareth had been alone and excluded, and now found himself dropped into this household. It was his life that had been upended, twice, and he didn’t care to pretend otherwise, and if she wanted him to lay out the situation, she could have that.

“I’ll begin,” he said. “After my mother’s death, my father sent me to stay with my uncle in London while he sold our house and moved here. I was six. He said he would fetch me when he was settled. But a month later he married Elizabeth Bull. He said it was best I didn’t attend the wedding, for his wife’s sake. A year after that, he wrote to my uncle to say he had a daughter. I never saw him again.”

The hostility was audible even in his own ears. Mrs. Inglis swallowed. Gareth watched her face. “I wrote—so many times—to ask to come back. He replied twice and then stopped. I dare say his new family required all his attention.”

“Lizzy wasn’t like that.”

“Oh, please,” Gareth said. “There’s no point in pretending, is there? She’s dead, my father is dead. You might as well be honest. She wanted me gone.”

“She didn’t,” Mrs. Inglis said. “Not at all. Your father decided that. He thought it was for the best.”

“Best? Whose best?” Gareth demanded savagely.

“You were settled. Sir Hugo thought it would be wrong to change that. His brother and wife had taken you as their own—”

“Let me assure you, they did not.”

Her fingers were tightly knotted together. “Sir Hugo said they loved you dearly, and you them, and it would have been cruel to take you away from your new home. He said his brother would have been sorry to lose you.”

“My uncle took me in because my father paid him to,” Gareth said. “He mentioned that many times over the years. I begged my father to let me come back.”

The little colour in her face was all gone. “I—but—It’s what he told us,” she insisted. “Lizzy said we could give you a home here, and he said you had one already. I promise you, Sir Gareth, she was a kind, good woman and if he had wanted you—”

She cut that off sharply, hand flying to her mouth, but it was too late. The words were out, and the look in her eyes at what she’d said just made it worse.

Because she didn’t look triumphant, as though she’d scored off him. She looked horrified, in the way one did when one had blurted out something that should have stayed silent.

“If he had wanted me, Lady Elizabeth wouldn’t have objected to him sending for me?” Gareth managed. “How very kind of her, to offer to let me share my father’s house.” It sounded desperately hollow, even to himself. He felt hollow.

“It was his choice,” Mrs. Inglis said quietly. “I’m very sorry, but it was. She would have welcomed you, truly. And you must see it was not her choice to keep you away from your father, because he didn’t send for you once she died and there was nobody to object.”

“You. You could have refused, or Cecilia—”

“I was—his housekeeper,” she said, voice flat. “I had no rights here. Cecy was two when Lizzy died. What kept you from your father was his own will.”

Gareth hadn’t wanted to believe that. He’d told himself otherwise as hard as he could and held onto the idea of a wicked stepmother, although it had become very threadbare over time, worn away by unmet promises, unanswered letters, silence. He wished he could believe it now, because the truth was acid in his throat.

It was your father. You always knew, really.

“If he had wanted me,” he said again. “But he didn’t want me, and he didn’t send. He lied to you rather than send?” "

I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I truly am.”

“My uncle didn’t ask for me: he never wanted me at all. My father foisted me on his household, and never troubled to think of me again.” His jaw ached, saying the words. “He thought only of his new family—”

“Did he?” Mrs. Inglis said. “Did he think of Cecy? Can you say that?” Her knuckles were white on the cup. “He left you everything and made no provision for his daughter. No marriage portion, no settlement, not a single penny or a line in the will, nothing. She had his presence in life, for what that was worth, but now everything goes to you, everything, and we are left paupers!”

Her voice rang off the walls. They stared at one another.

“Look, he must have made another will,” Gareth said after a moment. “Surely.”

She shook her head. “He used the same solicitor for all our time here, and there is only one in Dymchurch. He didn’t make a new will.”

“But when he married Lady Elizabeth, the settlement—”

She made an impatient gesture. “She was just eighteen when they married, and our father was dead. What did she know of settlements? She trusted him to do right by her. I trusted him that far, even after twenty years of knowing him. The more fool I.”

Gareth hadn’t believed the lawyer’s letter when he’d opened it. He’d assumed his father would leave his new family everything but the title, and that would only come to Gareth because it couldn’t be given elsewhere. He hadn’t expected to find himself a man of substance, and certainly not at his half-sister’s expense.

“Fifty pounds, long spent. Cecilia has nothing at all.” The anger rang through her quiet voice. “She is seventeen, she has her future to consider, and he didn’t think to provide for her. In all that time, he never once thought!”

“He didn’t think of me, either,” Gareth said. “That will was made before I was born.”

The late Sir Hugo Inglis had made a very brief testament on the occasion of his first marriage, spelling out the provisions for his then wife, and leaving everything else to his eldest son, with no indication of what should happen if he had other children, or none. It was the kind of careless document that a few years in articles had taught Gareth to despise. The idea that Sir Hugo hadn’t updated it on his second marriage, let alone the birth of a daughter, was appalling.

“He never cared to be troubled,” Mrs. Inglis said. “A grieving boy who had lost his mother must have been troublesome, so he sent you away. To introduce you to a stepmother would be troublesome too, so he didn’t bring you back. And drawing up a new will for Cecy’s sake? Far too much trouble. He preferred not to be inconvenienced.” She bit the last word out.

“It sounds like he was a very poor husband,” Gareth said. “Or, uh—”

“Once I understood him, he was perfectly adequate.” Mrs. Inglis sounded quite unemotional. “I gave him his comforts and did as he asked. He pursued his interests and left me to my concerns. He sometimes read to Cecilia when he noticed her. He provided a home which I ran. I had no great complaints.”

He didn’t marry you, Gareth refrained from saying, and felt a brief regret he hadn’t known the man, if only to find out what sort of person could make his late wife’s sister his mistress. He had a decade’s experience in ascertaining whether men might like to indulge in immoral and illegal acts, but he couldn’t imagine how you’d go about suggesting that.

“He must have realised Cecilia would need a marriage portion,” he said instead.

“I dare say she would have had one if he had lived to see her married. He wasn’t a miser, he didn’t try to be cruel. He simply didn’t think about others. He only considered me and Cecilia when we were under his nose.”

“But he wanted Cecilia. He didn’t rid himself of her when her mother died.”

“Because I was here,” Mrs. Inglis said. “If he had sent Cecy away, I should have gone with her and he would have had to find a new housekeeper, and a new woman. If there had been a woman available when your mother died, he would probably have kept you.”

“I see,” Gareth said, through a throatful of broken china.

She gave a tight, entirely joyless smile. “It was never personal. Simply, his greatest requirement of women and children was that we should not be troublesome to him.”

“I don’t think I was very much trouble,” Gareth said, and heard the echoes of boyhood pleas.

“I’m sure you weren’t.” Her mouth twisted. “But once he’d sent you away, you would be none at all.”

“Did you like him?” Gareth hadn’t planned to ask that; the words just came out. “You needn’t answer that. I beg your pardon.”

“I’m not offended,” Mrs. Inglis said. “I can hardly be. I… My sister’s child was here. I wanted to be with her, I had no money of my own, and his

demands weren’t excessive.”

And this was the home Gareth had spent years longing for. Dear God.

“I think,” he said carefully, “I think someone should have given him a lot more trouble. A lot. I think it is a great pity you didn’t—I don’t know. Put frogs in his boots.”

She gave a startled splutter of laughter. “Frogs?”

Gareth felt himself flush. “I mean—”

“I know what you mean, but he liked frogs. Teasels in his sheets.”

“Cayenne pepper in his food.”

“Lots of it. And adders, they bite. I should have filled his study with adders while he sat there with his books and his letters and didn’t once—he didn’t—”

She put her hands over her face. Gareth sat in awkward silence for a moment, then fished out his handkerchief and passed it over.

“Thank you,” she said, muffled. “I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry for everything.”

“So am I,” Gareth said, and found he meant it.

After a few moments, she gathered her composure and wiped her eyes. “And now, where do we stand? Because this is your house, Sir Gareth, and we have nothing but whatever charity you might care to offer us. If you want us to leave, that is your right, but—but Cecilia is only seventeen, and none of this is her fault.”

“I don’t know where we stand,” Gareth said. “I’m entirely at a loose end at the moment. I was a clerk in my uncle’s practice, but we parted ways a couple of days before I learned of my father’s death. And in any case I can’t do that now. Not as a baronet.” The title still sounded absurd applied to himself. Sir Gareth Inglis. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with any of this—the inheritance, the title, the house.” Himself. “I need to see what all this means, and I don’t want to rush into any decision.”

“No. Do you—will you require us to leave the house immediately?” She managed that very levelly, almost matter-of-fact, but her hands were shaking again, as well they might. He’d be perfectly within his rights to tell them to fend for themselves, and think nothing further of the matter. He’d come here with that thought, if not determined, certainly in mind.

“I think we should all take a little time to come to terms with the situation before we make decisions about the future,” he said. “It’s been something of a shock for me and must be much worse for you both. His death wasn’t expected, was it?”

“No. It was quite out of the blue. His heart.” She hesitated. “Sir Gareth, you should be aware that Cecy didn’t know you existed. She thought she was his only child.”

“You aren’t serious.”

She made a helpless gesture. “He didn’t speak of you, so I didn’t either, and—well, the subject simply never came up. We, uh, we—”

“Forgot. You forgot about me.”

“Yes,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“And nobody mentioned me at all—”

“Until he died and left you everything.”

“So quite a shock for Cecilia, then.”

“Something of one, yes.” She grimaced. “She’s a lovely girl, usually. But it hasn’t been easy for her. So if you could grant us just a little time, I would be

very grateful. Or—or if you are prepared to maintain her but not me, I shall not make trouble.”

She’d been his father’s mistress, cared for his daughter, and was now facing penury because the man who’d used her hadn’t valued her enough to write a single line on a sheet of paper to protect her future. Gareth knew dependency all too well, and he saw it now: the ever-present fear of abandonment, the humiliation of being at another’s whim, the resentment that had to be stifled because to show it could be fatal.

“We will take as much time as we all need,” he said. “But let me say now that I will provide a portion for Cecilia and a sum for you. Nobody will be left penniless.”

She looked up sharply. “You—?”

“Of course I will. That was my father’s duty, and if I’ve inherited his wealth, I’ve inherited his responsibilities. I’m not going to throw you out, Mrs. Inglis.”

She set her shoulders, a tiny motion. “You know I was not his wife.”

“Then he did all the worse by you on that account. It seems to me that my father did not meet his obligations to any of us. I don’t think very much of that.”

“No,” Mrs. Inglis agreed. The word sounded flat, but Gareth suspected it covered the kind of emotion that others would express with breaking crockery. “No, nor do I. And you are far kinder than I could have hoped, Sir Gareth. Thank you. You’ll stay here while you decide?”

“If you’ve room. And if it wouldn’t bother Cecilia.”

“It’s your house,” she pointed out. “You’re the head of the family.”

He didn’t have a family, hadn’t since he was six. He wasn’t sure how to react. “It’s my house but it’s your and Cecilia’s home, Mrs. Inglis. I’m not going to forget that.”

“Thank you,” she said again, softly. “And my name is Catherine.”