Free A Conspiracy of Ravens by Gilbert Morris

it was very sweet of you to give this ball for Gervase, but you spoil her terribly.”
    “I know I do, but I can’t help it. She’s been like a daughter to us, hasn’t she?”
    When Heather did not answer, Edward understood he had touched on the one subject that could bring sadness into his wife’s fine eyes—their lack of children. Quickly he started to speak again, but she spoke first.
    “I’ve been a failure to you, Edward.”
    “Don’t say that.” He leaned over and, stooping down, kissed her cheek. “You’re enough for any man.”
    “We should have adopted a son, but I was so certain that God had promised us a son of our own.” This had been disturbing to Heather. She was an exemplary Christian, and she had told everyone that God had promised to give her and Edward a son. When only one child had lived, and that one for only two days, she had since suffered in thinking she had misread the will of God.
    “God’s ways are hard to understand. Any of us can mistake our way,” Edward said. He straightened up and shrugged slightly. “We always have St. John.”
    “I suppose so.” Heather’s response was slow and rather grudging. The thought of her nephew, Bramwell, as a son was not pleasing to her.
    “I suppose we’d better go down. Our guests from Trentwood will be arriving soon.”
    “Yes, I’ll be ready in just a moment.”

    Bramwell St. John knocked on his mother’s door, and at the sound of her voice he opened it and stepped inside. He was wearing a brown coat with dark green trousers, and his snowy white shirt set off his olive complexion. He was a handsome young man of twenty-eight, and as he stepped inside, there was some sort of dissatisfaction in his face. “Well, you look very nice, Mother. Another ball for us, eh?”
    “You look very nice, St. John, but before we go down, I have something to tell you.”
    “It sounds like a sermon coming up.”
    “Not a sermon, but just a warning. You’ve got to be more careful or you’ll lose Edward’s respect.”
    “I don’t think I ever had his respect.”
    “You could have had,” Leah said quickly. “They have no son of their own, and they would have welcomed you as one if you had learnt to behave.”
    “It doesn’t matter.” St. John shrugged his trim shoulders. “When my uncle dies, Rupert will be master of all, and he has no use for me nor ever has. We’ll be poor relations around here. I don’t much fancy that.”
    Leah St. John was taller than most women with very dark hair and dark eyes to match, almost black, indeed. She had thin lips, high cheekbones, and a rather sour disposition, the result of a stormy marriage. Her husband, Roger, had been a soldier, and Leah had loved him almost unreasonably. She was a proud woman, conscious of her aristocratic heritage. She looked at the young man before her, thinking how she had struggled to encourage him, but there was a streak of rebelliousness in him that she recognized as coming perhaps from her, perhaps from her dead husband.
    “Things change, St. John. Edward doesn’t love Rupert. They’re not very close brothers. I know he hates to think of Rupert being head of this family. He knows how cold and unfeeling he is.” She came forward and reached up to put her hand on his cheek. “If you would only learn to please your uncle, he might name you as his heir.”
    “That’s not very likely.”
    “Well, consider that Rupert might die.”
    St. John suddenly smiled. There was something unpleasant about this smile, however. He could be charming enough when he chose, but there was a sardonic streak in him that went against the grain for many people. “Wouldn’t it be convenient if a bolt of lightning would strike down both Rupert and Arthur, then he’d have no choice but to make me his heir.”
    “That’s no way to talk, St. John!”
    “Well, it would take something that startling to get my uncle to accept me as his heir. Poor Arthur is unfit to be head of the family. Edward