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  Kit had been quite enthralled with the castle as a child—the summer the family had visited Ireland. Kathryn had been working to document the flora and fauna of Ireland when Martin suggested they reside at Telamor Castle while she completed her work. They hadn’t realized it was Kit’s inheritance. But Martin had known.

  In retrospect, it all made sense. Martin had known that the estate and the castle belonged to Kit, and it was only right that his family make use of it. But at the time Martin’s ability to secure a castle and an estate for their use just when they needed it had seemed quite miraculous. A miracle none of them had thought to question. Kit, least of all.

  When Martin presented the packet to Kit a year ago, the deed to the castle and the estate had been enclosed with the letter from the earl of Kilgannon’s priest. The other letter had been addressed to Kit from George Ramsey. Drew knew there was another letter because Martin had told him it existed, but its contents remained a mystery. If Kit had read it, he had kept the information to himself and had never mentioned the letter to either of his parents.

  Kathryn was the only mother Kit had ever known, and he had grown up accepting Drew as his father, but Kit was actually Drew’s half brother and was eight and twenty years Drew’s junior.

  Drew hadn’t known he had a brother until after the death of their father when he journeyed to Swanslea Park and discovered Kathryn and Kit living quietly on the family estate. Drew had fallen in love with and married Kathryn and adopted Kit as his son. Kathryn had become the marchioness, and Drew had privately petitioned the Crown to amend the original letters patent that created the marquess of Templeston and the earl of Ramsey to allow Kit to become his legal heir.

  Drew sighed. He didn’t like the idea of Kit leaving Swanslea Park any more than Kathryn did, but it was time for Kit to be on his own. He’d seemed without purpose since completing his university studies. And he’d spent entirely too much time gaming and wenching with his friends in London. The Irish property would give him something to occupy his time. And Kit needed a challenge.

  “Swanslea Park came to us through my mother,” Drew reminded his wife. “You are Kit’s mother. There is no question about that. You are the woman who has loved and nursed him and molded him into the wonderful man he is today. Nothing will ever change the way Kit feels about you, but he carries the blood of the woman who gave birth to him in his veins. And this inheritance has come to him through her.” Drew paused, carefully considering his words. “He wasn’t granted the opportunity to know and love that woman, but he has a chance to know the place she called home. Shouldn’t we, the parents who love him the most in the world, give him the wings he needs to fly out of the cozy nest we’ve built for him? Isn’t it our duty to encourage him to use them?”

  Kathryn choked back a sob and nodded her head in agreement. “But I don’t want him to go. A lot of things can happen in a year. And I’ll miss him so much.”

  “I know you will,” Drew soothed. “So will I. But, my darling, we always knew this day would come some day.”

  “It’s come too soon, Drew,” she whispered. “I thought I would be ready, but it’s come much too soon.”

  “He won’t be gone forever, and we’ll still have each other and the girls. The time will pass faster than you think.” He planted a kiss against Kathryn’s forehead. “Remember that Iris has her London season coming up.”

  Drew took the opportunity to remind his wife that they had two other children—daughters, seventeen-year-old Iris, and twelve-year-old Kate—to think about. “And you have paintings to complete for the new exhibit at the museum. There will be lots of things to keep you busy. Before you know it, Kit will be back to visit.”

  “What if he doesn’t come back?” she asked, giving voice to her deepest fear. “We know your father had a mistress in Ireland. She must have had family other than her father and friends …”

  “Martin said she was an only child …”

  “Martin,” Kathryn growled his name. “I’m so angry at Martin. He’s known the truth all these years, and he didn’t see fit to tell us.”

  “He couldn’t tell us,” Drew said. “He was bound by his oath. You know that. He didn’t tell me about you, either,” he reminded her. “But he did what he could. He sent us to Ireland, and when I asked if he knew how Father could write me and speak of Kit’s illegitimacy in one breath and ask that I make him my heir when he knew adopted children could not inherit, Martin told me to seek an amendment to the letters patent and provided the Crown with the documentation proving Kit’s claim.”

  “And now we know that his other mother was connected with the earl of Kilgannon. What happens if he decides to remain in Ireland?”

  “Ah, my darling …” Drew leaned down to kiss Kathryn soundly and to chase away her tears. “If Kit decides to stay in Ireland, then we’ll visit as often as he will allow.”

  “Allow?” Kathryn wrinkled her brow and narrowed her gaze at the suggestion that Kit might not welcome them with open arms every time she felt the need to pay him a visit. “Why wouldn’t he allow his parents to visit?”

  Drew wanted to bite his tongue, but it was too late. Kathryn had latched on to his promise to visit with all the tenacity of a terrier on a rat. He had expected that. But he hadn’t expected her to balk at the idea that Kit might not appreciate long visits at regularly scheduled intervals. “What’s the point of setting up housekeeping and becoming lord of your own castle if you have to answer to your mother and father while doing it?” He reached out and tilted Kathryn’s chin up with the tip of his index finger so that she was forced to meet his gaze. “We have to let him go, Kathryn. We must let him become the man he’s meant to become. We need it and, more important, Kit needs it.”

  “You didn’t move to Ireland to escape your father’s realm of influence in order to become the man you were meant to become,” she said.

  “That’s true.” Drew’s voice took on a harder tone. “But only because I went to war. I joined Wellington and went to Belgium to fight Napoleon.” He caressed Kathryn’s cheek. “My character was refined by heartbreak, betrayal, and war. I became the man I am today because I survived the horrors of war. I would rather Kit build and refine his character in the relative safety of the Irish countryside as lord of Telamor Castle. Wouldn’t you?”

  “Of course I would!”

  “Then do your best to pretend to be excited and happy for him.” Drew grinned. “For heaven’s sake, Kathryn, the boy inherited a castle!”

  “A crumbling castle,” she retorted.

  “The tower may be crumbling, but the new castle, as you well know, is quite modern and comfortable. But Kit wouldn’t care if it weren’t. He wouldn’t care if the new castle were as tumbledown as the old one,” Drew said. “Because it’s his. Just as Lancelot was his pony. Remember?”

  Wren smiled in spite of herself. Lancelot was Kit’s first pony. A shaggy old Shetland with a white blaze on his face and black coat mottled with flecks of white and gray. Lancelot had been destined for the rendering pot when Drew bought him. Kit had loved him instantly, and the two had become constant companions. Even now, Kit refused to part with Lancelot. The ancient pony still held the place of honor among the thoroughbreds in Drew’s magnificent stables. “What should I do?”

  “Help him pack, wish him Godspeed, and don’t let him see you cry.”

  Kathryn lifted herself up on tiptoe and pressed her lips against Drew’s. “How did you get to be so wise?”

  He smiled. “My father was an excellent judge of character. I inherited the gift from him.”

  “Is that so?” she teased.

  “Yes, indeed,” he answered. “You see, I once fell in love with a woman thought to be the most notorious mistress in Northamptonshire.”

  “Was she?”

  Drew laughed. “Of course she was. That’s why I married her.”

  Chapter Two

  Good fellowship and friendship are lasting,

  rational, and manly pleasures.
br />   —WILLIAM WYCHERLEY, 1640–1716

  “I’m going to Ireland!” Kit Ramsey shouted above the racket of the ball rattling around the pockets of the roulette wheel and the noise of the crowd of gamblers placing bets. Kit and his two closest friends, the Honorable Dalton Mirrant and Ashford, the eighth marquess of Everleigh, were engaged in a night of gambling and drinking in their favorite gaming hell.

  Dalton Mirrant placed his bet with the keeper, then looked over at Kit and shouted back, “You’re going where?”

  “Ireland!” Kit repeated.

  “What?”

  “He said he’s going to Ireland!” Ash told him.

  “That’s what I thought he said.” Dalton shook his head, then took a step back, and shuddered in mock horror. “No one goes to Ireland these days except for the hunting, and you don’t hunt.”

  “Maybe not. But I’m going to Ireland,” Kit replied with a grin.

  “Whatever for?”

  “To find my destiny.”

  “Your destiny?” Dalton laughed. “You think you’re going to find your destiny in Ireland?”

  “If not my destiny, at least my inheritance.”

  “I’ve heard it reported that there are instances of blight in some of the potato crops there. Such talk makes the farmers and the tenants uneasy. And there’s always political unrest. The Irish hate the English, and the Catholics hate the Protestants. The poor hate the wealthy. Need I remind you that you’re a rich, Protestant, English lord and that you might do better to either forget about your Irish inheritance for a while or leave it alone entirely?” Ash asked.

  “Unless, of course, it’s a large inheritance,” Dalton added. “And if that’s the case, you’d do best to send someone to claim it for you.” Dalton’s wry tone of voice made it sound as if, political unrest or no political unrest, he was the man for the job.

  “Someone like you,” Kit suggested, tongue-in-cheek.

  “Why not?” Dalton asked. “I can go to Ireland, pick up whatever it is that you’ve inherited, and bring it back to London.”

  “My inheritance is a castle.” Kit couldn’t help but grin as Dalton’s blasé expression turned to one of surprise. “And a title.”

  “Another one?” Dalton grumbled, fighting to keep the pang of envy out of his voice. “You already have a title. You’re the earl of Ramsey.”

  “Yes, but my title, unlike Ash’s, is only borrowed. My father granted me the use of his lesser title of earl of Ramsey as a courtesy,” Kit explained. “But the title of the earl of Kilgannon is mine.”

  “From whom did you inherit an Irish title?” Ash’s voice held a note of undisguised curiosity.

  “The late earl of Kilgannon,” Kit replied. “It appears that I’m his closest male relation.”

  Ash was thoughtful. “You? Not your father?”

  Kit shook his head. “I’m the late earl’s relation through my mother’s side of the family.”

  “I see.” Ash studied Kit’s expression and decided not to shake the family tree any further. Everyone knew that Kit had been adopted by the sixteenth marquess of Templeston when Lord Templeston married Kit’s mother and that Lord Templeston had moved heaven and earth to have Kit recognized as his legal heir. But the debate still raged in some society drawing rooms as to whether Kit’s natural father had been the fifteenth marquess of Templeston or the sixteenth. Kit knew, of course, that George, the fifteenth marquess, had been his father. He didn’t discuss it except to say that his much older half brother had adopted him and raised him as his son, and he paid no heed to the gossip that still swirled about him. None of the gossip about his paternal family tree seemed to bother him. The current Lord and Lady Templeston were the only parents Kit had ever known, and he loved them unconditionally, but he was completely reticent when anyone, even his closest friends, began probing his maternal family tree. “So you’ve added an Irish title to your name.”

  “Yes,” Kit acknowledged. “An Irish title and property complete with a castle and a tidy fortune.”

  Dalton smiled. “I like the sound of that.”

  “You would,” Ash retorted.

  “And why not?” Dalton shot back. “Not all of us come equipped with titles and tidy fortunes. Some of us have the misfortune to be born younger sons, to have the breeding and the education necessary to move in aristocratic circles, but to lack the fortune needed to sustain the life we were born to.”

  “So it would seem,” Kit agreed, good-naturedly ignoring Dalton’s sarcasm. “But you are fortunate to have generous friends with titles and tidy fortunes.” Kit shoved a rack of gaming counters in Dalton’s direction.

  “And heaven forbid that they should ever call in all of my chits, for I would never be able to repay my debts to my generous friends.” Dalton elbowed Ash in the ribs to get his attention and to remind him that it was customary for the marquess of Everleigh to match the earl of Ramsey’s monetary gift to their always-pressed-for-cash friend. “Much less my tailor and gentleman’s gentleman. Still”—Dalton placed his bet and reached for his snifter of his brandy—“I admit that I would willingly give my eyeteeth for a title—even an Irish one.” He frowned at Kit. “We’ve been mates since we were in short trousers. Why haven’t we heard about this before?”

  “Because I only learned of it when I reached my majority.”

  “You reached your majority last year,” Ash reminded him.

  “And you neglected to mention your Irish inheritance to your two closest friends,” Dalton said. “You’ve never done that before.”

  He was absolutely correct. Dalton Mirrant and Ashford Everleigh were Kit’s closest friends. They’d met during their first term at Eton, and even though the three of them were as different in temperament as three boys could be, they’d instantly forged bonds of friendship that outlasted their years at Eton and had gone on to flourish during their university days and beyond. The three of them remained boon companions to this day.

  Dalton Mirrant was the youngest son of the fourth Viscount Mirrant. Although his father was only a viscount, the family was an old and distinguished one with a country home a day’s ride from Swanslea Park and a Mayfair town house two blocks from the marquess of Templeston’s London house. The Mirrant family fortune wasn’t quite as large as the Templestons, nor the holdings quite as diverse, but Dalton, like Kit, had grown up in the lap of luxury. But Dalton was not the Mirrant heir. Dalton had two older brothers, the eldest of whom would inherit the title and the fortune. His second brother, a graduate of Sandhurst, was expected to make his fortune in Her Majesty’s army. And although he had never exhibited a calling for it, Dalton, following family tradition, was destined for the clergy.

  Kit’s other schoolmate, Ashford Everleigh, had inherited the marquessate of Everleigh two years ago. The family surname of the earls of Lawrence and the marquesses of Everleigh was Ashford. Ash had been christened Edward Ashford, but because he held his father’s lesser title of earl of Lawrence until he had inherited the marquessate, he’d been known at school as Ashford Lawrence and always called Ash to distinguish him from the other Edwards and Lawrences.

  Most of his schoolmates would be surprised to learn that Ash had another name. His father had even taken to calling him Ash. Only his mother called him Edward. And Ash often joked that he was the only peer in England, other than the sovereign, who had given up his Christian name for the sake of a title.

  “Why Ireland?”

  “Because the earl who died and left me the title was Irish.”

  “Of course he was,” Dalton said. “But you can be the Irish earl of Kilgannon and the English earl of Ramsey in London. Why go there?”

  “Because it’s mine,” Kit told him. “And I want to see it.”

  “So, Kit, why did you wait an entire year to tell us?” Ash looked Kit in the eye.

  Kit held up his hand, waiting until the keeper spun the roulette wheel to a halt and announced the winning number.

  Dalton gave a little whoop of triumph and col
lected his winnings. Kit shook his head in wonder and motioned for his friends to follow him from the noisy gaming room to the relative peace and quiet of one of the private salons. Kit paid the attendant who stood guard at the door, then motioned his friends inside the room.

  Ash glanced around the opulent room, complete with silk-covered divan and modesty screen and commented wryly, “This is a first for me.”

  “You’ve frequented private salons on numerous occasions,” Dalton corrected.

  “I escorted women on those occasions,” Ash said. “This is the first time I’ve ever been escorted by rogues like you.”

  Kit laughed. “Your reputation can stand it.” He closed the door behind them, then crossed over to the drinks table. He offered drinks to his friends, waiting until they’d settled comfortably in their chairs before he helped himself to a brandy. He took a sip of his brandy. “I asked you in here because I owe you an explanation and an apology. We have been friends since we were in short trousers, and I’ve never kept secrets from either of you. Until this one.” He glanced at Dalton. “But there is a reason I didn’t tell you, and while I want to explain, I didn’t want to shout it over the noise of the roulette wheel.”

  “You’re the one who chose to announce his journey to Ireland in the middle of a gaming hell,” Dalton replied.

  Ash shot Dalton a warning look. “Give the man a chance to explain.”

  “All right.” Dalton folded his arms across his chest. “Explain.”