Reckless Viscount by Amy Sandas Page B

“Quite the contrary, boy. I leave it all to you willingly. It is exactly what the son of a whore deserves. Dunwood Park is a wasteland,” he gasped. “Nothing can grow there. The land is barren. The tenants who haven’t fled are wretched and useless. The castle is a pile of falling rock.” He paused to cough harshly, and when he was able to speak again, his voice was raspy and weak, but it had not lost any of the raw hatred. “And the coffers, my boy, have been drained dry long ago. All you’ll inherit from me is a mountain of rubble and insurmountable debt. I only regret your dear mother is not around to see the fruits of her faithless betrayal.”
    The viscount started laughing then. The ugly cackling scratched over Leif’s nerves and caused the hair to stand up on the back of his neck.
    He had expected nothing less from his father. And now that it was finally stated, he felt relieved. At least, it would finally be his. The Neville legacy could be restored. It had to be. It was what Leif had been working toward with relentless focus for the last twelve years.
    Leif met his father’s glassy eyes and saw only a wasted human being allowing hatred to consume the last hours of his life. He tried very hard in that moment to feel some pity for him and the tragic state to which he had reduced himself. But no matter how deeply he searched, there was no compassion left in him for the man who had done nothing but spit poisoned words at him his entire life.
    The viscount took a gasping breath, the pain caused by the effort twisted his features even more and his body became taut and drawn with the physical exertion. But he was determined to say one more thing.
    “I have rued…the day of your birth, boy. And now…you will too.”
    Leif laughed. It was a dry sound and the action caused a raw ache in the muscles of his throat. He shook his head. “You are too late. I lament the facts of my existence every day I breathe. Becoming master of Dunwood Park will be my saving grace.”
    The viscount glared with evil intent. “Ha! May the curse bring to you all the destruction it wrought on me.”
    “The curse is nothing more than an excuse created by men unwilling to take responsibility for their failures. You brought destruction upon yourself.”
    The viscount’s laugh was mixed with raw hacking gasps. “And you’ll do the same, boy. The curse is real…and it’ll drag you through hell for the rest of your rotten life.” His words tumbled into a severe fit of coughing that eventually brought Charles charging into the room. He went directly to the old man’s side and wrapped an arm around his shoulders to offer support as the coughs wracked his frail frame.
    Leif turned and left.
    As the sun rose the next morning, a messenger arrived at Leif’s townhouse. He answered the door himself. He had not gone to bed, but had spent the night sprawled in a chair, slowly nursing a bottle of Irish whisky. When the knock sounded just as the gray light of dawn started to dispel the heavy darkness he had surrounded himself with, Leif experienced the wave of triumph he had been waiting for.
    Finally, it all belonged to him.

Chapter Ten
    “Lord Neville, you have absolutely nothing.” The old solicitor’s sagging face was expressionless.
    Leif’s was not.
    He could feel the hopeless frustration in every twitch of the muscles in his jaw and every furious furrow of his brow. His eyes ached from three hours of pouring over ledgers and account books and deeds, trying to see something that wasn’t there.
    “Let me correct that,” the solicitor said as he pushed a final book across the desk toward Leif. “You have exactly 500 acres of ruined soil in northern Sussex, all that was safely entailed by long-ago ancestors who understood the duty of preserving a legacy such as what your family once honored.”
    Leif curled his lips and nearly growled at the insinuated judgment, though he couldn’t disagree. He knew how wretchedly his recent