The Wayward Son Read online

  The Wayward Son

  The Ashmead Heirs, Book One

  Caroline Warfield

  © Copyright 2021 by Caroline Warfield

  Text by Caroline Warfield

  Cover by Dar Albert

  Dragonblade Publishing, Inc. is an imprint of Kathryn Le Veque Novels, Inc.

  P.O. Box 7968

  La Verne CA 91750

  [email protected]

  Produced in the United States of America

  First Edition July 2021

  Kindle Edition

  Reproduction of any kind except where it pertains to short quotes in relation to advertising or promotion is strictly prohibited.

  All Rights Reserved.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  License Notes:

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook, once purchased, may not be re-sold. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it or borrow it, or it was not purchased for you and given as a gift for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. If this book was purchased on an unauthorized platform, then it is a pirated and/or unauthorized copy and violators will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Do not purchase or accept pirated copies. Thank you for respecting the author’s hard work. For subsidiary rights, contact Dragonblade Publishing, Inc.

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  Dearest Reader;

  Thank you for your support of a small press. At Dragonblade Publishing, we strive to bring you the highest quality Historical Romance from the some of the best authors in the business. Without your support, there is no ‘us’, so we sincerely hope you adore these stories and find some new favorite authors along the way.

  Happy Reading!

  CEO, Dragonblade Publishing

  Dedication

  To fathers and sons, no matter what sort of bond brings them together and makes them family.

  It is not flesh and blood, but heart which makes us fathers and sons.

  (Johann Friedrich Von Schiller)

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Publisher’s Note

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Excerpt from The Defiant Daughter

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  The Midlands, 1817

  Lucy knew the heir would come eventually. The old earl’s bastard owned Willowbrook now and would take it from her someday. Not today. Today a man with carroty-colored hair stood in front of the manor and shouted at her housekeeper. Another damned imposter.

  Coming up from the fields, she pushed aside fears for her future and studied the miscreant attempting to bamboozle her. This wasn’t the one. She’d been told the heir had the look of a Caulfield, and Caulfields ran to dark auburn.

  Scurrying behind the lilac bushes toward the back of the manor, she meant to retrieve her musket and confront him on the steps, but a loud yelp brought her to an abrupt stop. Another screech put a grin on her face. Agnes had the matter well in hand. Lucy trotted along the warm stone walls toward the front to watch her housekeeper whack the intruder with a broom.

  “I told you to be gone.”

  The man tried to fend off the barrage, waving hands over his head. “But I demand—”

  Agnes didn’t pause her attack, striking at the man while he danced to avoid the broom, sputtering about his rights.

  “Demand nothin’, you cur,” Agnes shouted. “Take it up with Spangler in Nottingham if you have aught to prove what ya say. Don’t come round here bothering Miss Whitaker with yer nonsense.”

  The man slunk back a distance of ten or more feet, out of Agnes’s reach, whining, “But the earl…”

  “The earl nothin’!” Agnes roared back.

  Lucy hurried up the steps to stand at her housekeeper’s side. “If you actually spoke to the Earl of Clarion, he would have known you for the lying weasel you are and shown you the door,” she said. My brother-in-law may be distracted, but he’s no fool. “I suggest you crawl back into the hole you crawled out of before I add a sharper weapon to this good wife’s broom.”

  “You can’t threaten me,” he called, backing away. “I’ll be back. I’m the true heir. I was going to let you stay on, but I’ll bring the magistrate to toss you out on the street for taking a man’s place.”

  Lucy turned to Agnes. “Kindly keep this man in his place while I fetch the musket,” she said, enunciating each word.

  “Be right quick. This one deserves a few holes in his worthless hide,” the older woman replied, broom held high, never taking her eyes from the intruder.

  He took off then, running for his horse, a sad specimen with a sagging back, a mount so pathetic Lucy knew he didn’t hire it at the livery in Ashmead. Ellis Corbin wouldn’t have such an animal in his care, no matter how bad business had gotten.

  “True heir, my arse,” Agnes muttered, forcing Lucy to smile. What her housekeeper lacked in refinement, she more than made up in loyalty.

  “At least this one actually had red hair,” Lucy replied. Some of the others sported garish dyed locks. “No imposter is going to take my land, not as long as the two of us can make a stand.”

  The women went through the door to find Cilla, their maid of all work, staring wide-eyed at the rapidly disappearing intruder. “Do you think he really spoke to the earl?” she whispered.

  “Don’t be a ninny.” Agnes didn’t suffer fools.

  Cilla paid her no mind. “That ’un said he’d be back ’n put us out, Miss Whitaker. What’f Spangler—him what is the earl’s man—believes him? Do you think he’s the real one? The one what’s coming?”

  “That one? No. He hasn’t the look, and he isn’t bright enough.” At least I hope not. Lucy kept her fears to herself. It had been more than three years since the will was read, and the owner had yet to turn up. On goo
d days, she believed he never would, that she would be left in peace to care for Willowbrook and its tenants. Other days, like this one…

  “You be about cleaning the hearths in the bedrooms, Missy,” Agnes ordered Cilla, “And stop your fussing about things above your station.” She turned a worried face to Lucy. “Today makes two this month. They’re coming faster,” she said.

  There had been an imposter the year the will was read, trying to claim he was the missing heir, easily disproved. Another turned up months later with a pock-marked face he claimed altered his appearance. That fool, so small in stature he didn’t even come up to Lucy’s shoulder, had also been put to route. The owner, she’d been told, would be a big man.

  She let out her breath and sighed deeply. “Sooner or later, an interloper will come who is the actual heir. What will we do then, Agnes?”

  A few hours later, Lucy tapped one finger on the desk and added the column of figures in her head a second time. Correct! A tidy ledger always gave her satisfaction. She turned from the household accounts to the first of the tenant pages with a frown and began to enter the few transactions that month. She had enough put by to see to Philpot’s roof, she thought with satisfaction.

  “Oh, Miss!” The door slammed against the wall, and Cilla bobbed in on a wave of nerves.

  “I hope this is life or death Cilla because you’ve been told never to—”

  “Oh, it is, Miss. There’s another one, and Agnes is in the attics.”

  “Another what?”

  Cilla rattled on, ignoring the question. “I saw him stop at the end of the lane, but he’s coming, I just know it. One o’em will kill us in our beds some time. I know it. I just know it.”

  Him. One of them. Another imposter.

  Lucy rose to her feet, walked calmly to the foyer, and parted the curtains to see a stranger riding up to the house. She removed her musket from behind the potted palm at the foot of the stairs before returning to her surveillance out the window. “Cilla, kindly inform Agnes that we have another unwanted visitor,” she said without turning. The girl bounded up the stairs.

  The rider paused in front of the steps and peered up at the house, examining it slowly from right to left as if counting the windows.

  This one’s a cut above the rest of them. Arrogant, though. He probably wants to come in and count the silver.

  She opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch, musket resting in the crook of her left arm. “May I help you?”

  The rider jerked upright, brows rising, eyes riveted on the weapon she carried. The color struck her first; his deep green eyes hit a chord deep inside. The intelligence in them and the sense that he weighed her and found her wanting pushed all other thoughts aside.

  He likely expected a butler or a footman. She had neither, and she knew how she appeared, a plainly-dressed woman, past the first bloom of youth, straight-backed if tiny, standing her ground to address a total stranger. With a musket. Don’t forget the gun. He could make what he wanted of that.

  She watched him steadily and judged his mount a first-rate animal. The man himself projected strength with a military bearing and an air of confidence. Yes, a cut above, this one.

  “Is the gentleman of the house in?”

  That’s a first. They usually know better.

  His deep voice rumbled through her, and an unfamiliar feminine awareness uncurled deep inside. She shook it off.

  “He is otherwise engaged,” she answered, wise enough not to advertise that she lived alone. “Kindly state your business,” she added curtly, taking courage from the sound of Agnes coming out behind her. The rider looked from one to the other, and Lucy studied his eyes. Eyes the color of David’s. Caulfield eyes. Her heart sank.

  He removed his hat, watching the musket warily. Auburn. Dear God, he has Caulfield hair!

  “I’m sorry if I disturbed you, ma’am. I once lived near here, and I thought…” He tapped the hat against one muscular thigh.

  This one is too damned attractive for my peace of mind, Lucy thought absently.

  The man spoke again. “Perhaps I should introduce myself. I’m Major Sir Robert Benson, formerly of Ashmead on Afon, currently residing in London. I meant no harm.”

  All hope fled. The heir had come to claim her home.

  *

  Rob leaned forward in the saddle studying the woman. Tiny in stature, she still projected surprising strength and amusing cheek. She hadn’t acknowledged his title nor offered a name, though her face fell when he introduced himself. Even a mere baronet deserved more respect than that. She studied him steadily.

  He tossed about for a polite way to ask her name and found none. He ought to be on his way. It had been a long journey from London, and he’d deliberately lengthened it with the impulse to look in at Willowbrook. Old man Westerfeld had let boys from the village and Caulfield Hall alike run tame through the Willowbrook woods a few glorious summers long ago. The memory had brought a smile to Rob’s lips, as little in this journey had.

  Still, something about this situation seemed off. Rob nodded at the musket over the woman’s arm and asked, “Have you reason to fear intruders? Might I be of assistance?”

  “We manage perfectly well, thank you,” she replied, never budging or taking her eyes from him. She had backbone; he’d give her that.

  “Does Mr. Westerfeld still live at Willowbrook? I knew him once.”

  “Westerfeld? I don’t know the name.” The woman offered no further information.

  After fifteen years, Rob wasn’t surprised to hear the old man had gone. He puzzled over what to say next. To the best of his recollection, the estate, rented as it was, belonged to the Earl of Clarion.

  “Does the earl permit women here alone?”

  “What makes you think we’re alone?” The old woman who had come out behind the termagant with the gun spoke up. Every bit as defiant—and rude—as her mistress, he thought.

  “Perhaps I should speak to him,” he said instead, addressing the first one, the one who assumed authority in ways he’d never seen a woman do.

  “Do speak to him,” the woman replied. “He’ll be in London. You did say you reside there.”

  Rob’s lips twitched in amusement. “I may just do that,” he replied, though he devoutly hoped never to see the Earl of Clarion again in his lifetime.

  When she said no more, he planted his hat firmly on his head. “I’ll be on my way then.”

  *

  Lucy watched the man ride away until he was out of sight before she let her shoulders sag in relief. She turned to Agnes and saw all her questions reflected there.

  Agnes closed the door behind them and locked it for good measure. “Benson. Same name as the innkeeper. They said he took the king’s shilling, but Sir! Think it’s him?”

  “You saw him. More Caulfield than Benson, top to bottom. He must be the heir come at last.”

  “He didn’t say. He acted like he didn’t know. Why would he do that?”

  “Perhaps he doesn’t know. He’s been gone a long time. Maybe word never reached him.”

  “Someone will tell him soon enough,” Agnes muttered.

  Lucy stalked back toward her study. “I have a letter to write,” she said over her shoulder to Agnes, who followed closely behind. “David will want to hear about this one.” She closed the door and changed her mind about the letter. Lucy would cope on her own.

  Chapter Two

  Deep in thought, Rob’s abundant and often inconvenient curiosity took over; questions crowded in. He took his time riding on toward his destination, puzzled by the women at Willowbrook.

  Who are they? Who holds the lease on Willowbrook these days? Perhaps old Clarion has his latest light skirt tucked away there, he thought, though the woman doesn’t look like one. The feisty woman looked like she’d make a tidy armful, though, if she weren’t as prickly as a hedgehog and carrying firearms. Her dress had been plain, but the breeze wrapped the soft muslin around some exciting curves.

  Rob
admired the way she stood her ground to a stranger, too, and yet her demeanor ate at him. He well knew the look of fear on the faces of brave men taking danger straight on. He recognized it in both women. No question. They were afraid of something. Secrets lurked at Willowbrook, and Rob hated secrets more than anything. Getting to the bottom of them had become his profession. I’ll ferret this one out, if not here, then in London.

  Satisfied with his decision, he rode on, only to pause at the turn in the road just before it descended to a bridge, reluctant to continue. He gazed down at the swift-flowing Afon River, spring lining it with a riot of glorious foliage and the village beyond. Nothing had changed—the spire of Saint Morwenna still pointed skyward at the far end of a village arrayed along the river as it had been for centuries. The coaching road meandered through the houses and businesses that constituted Ashmead on Afon as it had for almost as long.

  At the near end—just across the bridge and close enough that he could see comings and goings from where he paused—the inn dominated the approach to town. It also appeared little changed. Two great willow trees still towered above the roof between the inn and the river. Warm brick still glowed in the sun.

  He couldn’t see the Tudor half-timbers and multi-paned windows, but he knew they still stretched along the road like welcoming arms. Too many battlefields lay behind him, however, and neither the inn nor the village beyond it promised him rest.

  With a clear view of the stable yard, he watched passengers scurry into a massive mail coach, a hostler slam the door shut, and the vehicle lumber out of the inn yard and on down the road. The sight had an eerie familiarity that called to him, even though he hadn’t witnessed it in fifteen years.

  The major lingered a few moments longer. If he rode on down, all the years and the honors they brought him would fall away. To the people in this place, he would be naught but Wee Robbie, the innkeeper’s wayward son. Except he wasn’t and never had been.

  The urge to turn around and go back where he came from warred with the need to ride down. He had commitments to keep. His sister Emma’s letters told him they had troubles and begged him to come. She reminded him he promised long ago that he would come when she needed him. The time is now, her last letter said.