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Daiven every advantage that his parents could afford A year later, Sebastian cae, he was able to share inthe heir to an earldoiven the childhood ood chance of becoh Soon after, Julianna, Christina, and Ariana arrived in rapid succession, and as it was apparent at a very young age that all three would becoeous es could do much to fill the family coffers

A few years later a stillborn boy arrived No one was particularly happy about the loss, but then again, no one grieved overent children seemed an abundance of riches, and truth be told, another baby would have been simply another nificent old house, but it was a trial each month just to pay the bills And it certainly never occurred to the earl to try to earn a living

But then tragedy struck, and the earl was killed when his carriage overturned in a rainstore of ten, Damien found himself with a title The family scarcely had tih discovered that she was once again with child And in the spring of 1787, she produced one last baby The effort was exhausting, and she never quite regained her strength And so, tired and irritable, not to mention more than a little worried about the fahed, and said, "I suppose we'll just call hi better"

And after that somewhat inauspicious entry into the world, John was-for the lack of a better word-forgotten

His family had little patience with him, and he spent far more time in the company of tutors than relations He was sent off to Eton and Oxford, not out of any great concern for his schooling, but rather because that hat good faest ones ere irrelevant to dynastic lineages

In 1808, however, when John was in his final year at Oxford, an opportunity arose England found herself entangled in political and military affairs on the Iberian peninsula, andto join the arhtof hireed, seeing it as a way to honorably get his brother off his hands, and he bought a co came easily He was an excellent rider and quite handy with both swords and firearms He took some risks that he knew he should have avoided, but amidst the horrors of war, it became apparent that there was no way he could possibly survive the carnage And if by soh the conflict with his body intact, he knew that his soul would not be so lucky

Four years passed, and still Johndeath And then he took a bullet in his knee and found hiland It so healed, but truth be told, he remembered very little of his recuperation He spent ht of being a cripple

Then, much to his surprise, he was made a baron for his valor, ironic after all those years of his faentle point for hi substantial to pass on to a future generation With a renewed sense of purpose, he decided to get his life in order

Four years after that he was still li on his own land The end of the war for him had come a little sooner than expected, and he'd taken the price of his co His choices proved extreh money to purchase a small country estate

He had finally taken it on himself to walk the perimeter of his property the day before when he'd run into Lady Arabella Blydon He had been thinking about his encounter with her for quite soize to her for his rude behavior Lord knew she wouldn't come over to Bletchford Manor after the way he'd treated her

John winced He was definitely going to have to come up with a new name for the place

It was a nice house Comfortable Gracious but not palatial, and easily served by a small staff, which was fortunate, as he couldn't afford to employ a fleet of servants

So there he was He had a home-one that was his alone, not so to the existence of five elder siblings He had a nice incoht a house, but he was fairly confident of his financial abilities after his earlier successes

John checked his pocket watch It was half past two in the afternoon, a good time to exa He wanted to make the soon-to-be-renalance out thetold him that there wouldn't be a repeat of the previous day's downpour and he left his study, heading upstairs to fetch his hat

He didn't get very far before Buxton, the aged butler who'd come with the house, stopped him

"You have a caller, my lord," he intoned

Surprised, John halted in his tracks "Who is it, Buxton?"

"The Duke of Ashbourne,him the blue salon"

John broke into a smile "Ashbourne's here Splendid" He hadn't realized that his old arht Bletchford Manor, but it was an added bonus He turned around and headed back down the stairs before coroaned "Which one is the blue salon?"