Starting Again at Crofton Hall (Modern Crofton Book 5) by Rebecca Cohen

Author:Rebecca Cohen [Cohen, Rebecca]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-02-01T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 22

Ben had dropped Robin off outside the Flint Knightsbridge apartment. Even without stepping a foot inside it was a stark reminder of the difference in their family fortunes. The Redbourns were not a family of limited means. He might have almost lost the hall but he was hardly on his uppers. The Flints were a different breed. They had real money, Robin didn’t have an allowance, he just had access to family accounts, and he had a trust fund he’d once alluded was way more than Dorian’s Hollywood earnings.

It took him a little longer than he expected but he pulled up outside Lily’s house in Notting Hill. Lily was Marchent’s little sister, so was born Lady Lily Winters being the daughter of a duke, and the house was one of many in the family’s portfolio; that coupled with her husband’s financier’s salary, meant only the best for Lily. As much as he liked this part of the city, he didn’t think he could bring himself to live in the metropolis. Occasionally he had a pang of regret about selling the apartment on The Strand, but he had needed to keep the bank from repossessing Crofton Hall, and that was far more important. He was shown into a sitting room by a woman he thought might be the au pair—she seemed a little young to be a housekeeper.

Lily arrived a few minutes later, her hair in its usual fly-away state and the remnants of paint under her fingernails. “Ben, so lovely to see you.”

“Well, I couldn’t not come, not after your cryptic message.” He kissed her on either cheek. “We’re not in our super-secret spy gang anymore.”

“That was you and Marcus. Me and Kitty were just trying to get through the summer holidays without annoying brothers barging in all over the place. But at least you keep your clothes on—which is more than we can say about Harry.”

“Having heard some of the stories of his adventures in LA, I don’t think he’s any better at not stripping off.”

She let out a cackle, a quintessentially Lily noise. “None of the Redbourns are good at that. It took Ashley to tame you.”

He’d known her for as long as he could remember, and as Marchent’s sister she’d been on the periphery of so many games when they were growing up. “You should be grateful that your mother decided in the end that she didn’t want to marry you off to me. I definitely recall a conversation about reuniting the Redbourn and Winters’ bloodlines as was once the case for the 1st Earl of Crofton.”

“Oh Lord, we’d have killed each other. And Marcus would have broken your pretty ickle face for trying to seduce his baby sister.”

Ben grimaced. “I have never tried to seduce you. It would’ve been like dating Catlin.”

“Then we should be grateful that the whole arranged marriage thing went out of fashion—at least for our families.”

He stole what he knew to be her favourite type of biscuit off the plate on the table in front of them and ate it, grinning.

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