How to Win a Wallflower by Samara Parish EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Author: Samara Parish
- Language: English
- Formats: PDF / EPUB
- Status: Available for Download
- Series: None
- Price: Free
- File Size: 2 MB
London, April 1825
Well, this is a damned mess.”
John winced as Edward, Duke of Wildeforde, dropped the stack of papers
he’d been reviewing onto the duke’s orderly desk.
It was a damned mess. Every aspect of Walter’s passing had been a
nightmare—from his drunken plunge over the edge of the king’s pleasure
barge into the filthy Thames to the discovery of his cast-aside account books
that showed that he, Viscount Harrow, had run the estates into the ground.
“I’m glad to have you home, finally,” Wilde continued. “But I’m sorry it’s
under these circumstances.”
John didn’t share his friend’s sentiment. He was not glad to be home. Had
his brother not died, leaving John with the title and estates, he’d have been
perfectly happy in his tiny shack on the edge of the American wilderness. He
would never have returned into the jaws of London society if he’d been given
a choice.
He ran his hand through his hair, tugging at the ends of it. The extent of
his brother’s folly became more and more apparent each day. “I can’t
understand it. They kept lending him money. What p-p-possessed them?”
John winced at the stumble of his words. Thinking of Walter made his chest
tighten and tongue trip over itself so that he once again felt like a scrawny,
stuttering outcast about to be ridiculed.
Wilde showed no sign that he noticed John’s faltering. “Your brother hid
his situation well. There was not a whisper of money troubles amongst our
circle.”
“Of course not.” John shouldn’t be surprised. Walter had always been the
charming brother. He’d used his good looks and silver tongue to maneuver
every situation to his benefit. No doubt each person he owed money to
assumed they were the only person to whom he was in debt, and that it was a
one-off—a loan made in an exceptional circumstance that was no fault of
Walter’s at all.
The accounts were clear. Walter had lived as though he were flush, yet
he’d not spent a cent on anything he should have.
For the past three months, John had been traveling from one estate to
another, fulfilling his blasted duties. He beheld the same sight over and over:
farmers’ cottages in terrible states of disrepair, fields unsown, wages unpaid,
and the viscount’s houses stripped of artwork, furniture, and silver tea sets.
The books presented to him by haggard estate managers were in equally poor
condition, so full of red ink they resembled a slaughterhouse.
Walter had completely bankrupted the Harrow estates and then died,
leaving John to manage the fallout.
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