Кейси Майклс - What a Lady Needs

From USA TODAY bestselling author Kasey Michaels comes the second book in her captivating series about the Redgraves—four siblings celebrated for their legacy of scandal and seduction…

Lady Katherine Redgrave has one mission—to find her deceased father’s journals, which may hold the key to a traitorous conspiracy that puts Kate’s family in danger. Kate vows to let no obstacle stand in her way…but when she meets Simon Ravenbill, Marquis of Singleton, her attention is diverted as the sinfully handsome nobleman tempts her beyond reason.

Simon has a mission of his own: to uncover the truth about the secret society he believes murdered his brother. All he needs is to get to the Redgrave journals before Kate does. The solution is simple—he’ll romance the fiery beauty in hopes of distracting her from her quest, all while covertly searching for the diaries himself. Yet what begins as a charade soon becomes an all-consuming desire…one that could lead them down the most dangerous path of all.

Praise for USA TODAY bestselling author

“Kasey Michaels aims for the heart and never misses.”

—New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts

“Mistress of her craft Michaels uses her signature wit to introduce…[an] intricate story, engaging characters and wonderful writing.”

—RT Book Reviews on What an Earl Wants, 4 1/2 stars, Top Pick

“The historical elements…imbue the novel with powerful realism that will keep readers coming back.”

—Publishers Weekly on A Midsummer Night’s Sin

“A poignant and highly satisfying read…filled with simmering sensuality, subtle touches of repartee, a hero out for revenge and a heroine ripe for adventure. You’ll enjoy the ride.”

—RT Book Reviews on How to Tame a Lady

“Michaels’ new Regency miniseries is a joy.… You will laugh and even shed a tear over this touching romance.”

—RT Book Reviews on How to Tempt a Duke

“Michaels has done it again….Witty dialogue peppers a plot full of delectable details exposing the foibles and follies of the age.”

—Publishers Weekly on The Butler Did It (starred review)

“[A] hilarious spoof of society wedding rituals wrapped around a sensual romance filled with crackling dialogue reminiscent of The Philadelphia Story.”

—Publishers Weekly on Everything’s Coming Up Rosie

KASEY MICHAELS

What a Lady Needs

Kasey Michaels

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my readers.

Thanks for all the hours of pleasure you’ve given me!

Dear Reader,

In the first book of this series, What an Earl Wants, I introduced the Redgrave family—those scandalous Redgraves—whose family history includes whispers of hosting a salacious hellfire club known only as the Society.

Now the whispers are back, and it’s up to the Redgraves to find and destroy this new, treasonous incarnation of the Society before it not only destroys the family, but England as well.

The earl himself, Lord Gideon Redgrave, located the first clues. Now, to keep his sister, Lady Katherine, safe, he’s advised her to search for evidence of the original Society at Redgrave Manor. Evidence he’s certain isn’t there.

But never underestimate the determination of a beautiful, headstrong young lady, or the mischief that can unfold when an unsuspecting Simon Ravenbill, Marquis of Singleton, is sent to ride herd on her.

I think you’ll enjoy Kate and admire her courage, even as we all shake our heads at her methods. When Simon gives up on any notion of controlling her and realizes the inevitability of loving her, they set off for the adventure, and discovery, of a lifetime.

Enjoy! And please visit me online on Facebook or my website, to catch up on all my news.

Kasey

www.KaseyMichaels.com

Oh, what a tangled web we weave,

when first we practice to deceive.

—Sir Walter Scott

Contents

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

EPILOGUE

AUTHOR NOTE

PROLOGUE

1810

THE HISTORY OF the Redgraves could be traced to the days before the beheading of the House of Stuart’s Charles I in 1649. Meandering through the years, the family managed to stay on the good side of the Cromwell Roundheads. They then lightly danced through the return and second exit of the Stuarts, before managing to be favored with quite good seats for the Westminster Abbey coronation of the first monarch of the House of Hanover. All accomplished without ever forfeiting any of their lands or fortune and, more important, any of the family’s heads to the chopping block in the Tower of London.

There was one hanging, but that was the twelfth earl, and really didn’t count. He’d accomplished the deed himself in his study as the consequence of steep gambling debts and a genuine horror of his lady wife learning of them while he was still able to hear her screeching. After all, it was a matter of honor that before he kicked the chair out from beneath him, he had first settled said gambling debts by prying the major stones out of his wife’s jewelry and replacing them with paste. Not that women, who had no real notion of honor, understood such things.

But the thirteenth earl backed faster horses and could count trumps with the best of them, so that the Redgrave holdings once more increased. Their social status never wavered, and the paste gems were replaced thanks to the earl’s brilliant marriage to a lovely young thing whose father’s enormous fortune was a full generation away from the smell of the shop.

So much for the history of the Redgraves and the many earls of Saltwood.

The scandal of the Redgraves began in 1789, thanks to Barry Redgrave, the handsome, fashionable seventeenth Earl of Saltwood, who unexpectedly found himself quite dead one winter’s morning, facedown in an icy puddle on a makeshift dueling ground. How he came to this ignominious end, when even as he’d aimed his pistol he’d been planning his order for breakfast once his wife’s French lover was disposed of, has a simple answer. His lady wife, the fiery Spanish beauty, Lady Maribel, had shot Barry in the back. As noted earlier, women have no real notion of honor.

After all, not only did the countess coldly dispatch her own husband, but she and her lover had then fled to the Continent, leaving her four young and now fatherless children behind, motherless, as well.

Oh, the scandal! This was no nine-days wonder soon forgotten, especially when coupled with rumors Barry Redgrave had been the leader of some sort of debauched hellfire club, the group known only to its members, and then only as the Society.

Everyone knew such clubs were only excuses for otherwise respectable gentlemen to don cloaks and masks and behave badly with women from the lower orders, indulge in drunken orgies and dabble in other disgusting yet titillating experiments, such as opium eating. And, of course, it goes without saying there was also this business of sacrificing the odd billy goat here and there, just to keep their end up on the satanic-chanting, ritual-ridden hellfire side of things.

Except the rumors surrounding the late earl’s hellfire club after his death went deeper than that, all the way to political conspiracy and admiration of the French citizens bent on taking down their king. One side of the Channel or the other, the chopping off of heads still registered the ultimate in displeasure by both the masses and monarchies. So, naturally, having managed to outwit the headsman thus far in their history, the Redgraves were quick to deny Barry’s possible seditious leanings to George III—who had just come out of a year in a straight waistcoat, no longer foamed at the mouth and had been declared fit to rule once more—so it is anybody’s guess whether or not he understood.