Jenni Fletcher - Miss Amelia's Mistletoe Marquess

The virtuous Miss Fairclough…

…now faces ruin!

Part of Secrets of a Victorian Household. When Amelia Fairclough had sought refuge in a blizzard, a brooding stranger had given her warmth and shelter. She’d even tried to soothe him of his demons in return. But as she scurried home at dawn, she was spotted! Now he’s in the parlor, offering to do the honorable thing. Surely she’d be a fool to turn down the new Marquess of Falconmore!

JENNI FLETCHERwas born in the north of Scotland and now lives in Yorkshire, with her husband and two children. She wanted to be a writer as a child, but got distracted by reading instead, finally getting past her first paragraph thirty years later. She’s had more jobs than she can remember, but has finally found one she loves. She can be contacted on Twitter @jenniAuthoror via her Facebook author page.

Also by Jenni Fletcher

The Warrior’s Bride Prize

Reclaimed by Her Rebel Knight

Whitby Weddings miniseries

The Convenient Felstone Marriage

Captain Amberton’s Inherited Bride

The Viscount’s Veiled Lady

Secrets of a Victorian Household collection

Miss Lottie’s Christmas Protector by Sophia James

Miss Amelia’s Mistletoe Marquess by Jenni Fletcher

And look out for the next books

Mr Fairclough’s Inherited Bride by Georgie Lee

Lilian and the Irresistible Duke by Virginia Heath

Coming soon

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Miss Amelia’s Mistletoe Marquess

Jenni Fletcher

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08959-3

MISS AMELIA’S MISTLETOE MARQUESS

© 2019 Harlequin Books S.A.

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

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To Andy, my best chum.

Also thanks and love to my other partners

in fictional crime, Therese, Rachael and Jeev.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Dedication

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

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Extract

About the Publisher

Forty-five minutes!

Millie Fairclough stared at the enamelled bronze carriage clock above the fireplace in astonishment.She would never have imagined such a feat of verbosity were possible, but apparently it was. Lady Fentree and her five middle-aged companions really had been talking about bonnets for forty-five minutes. Not to mention fifteen before that on hemlines and almost a full hour on sleeves!

‘Personally…’ Lady Fentree intoned with the air of a woman about to make some momentous pronouncement ‘…I favour a wide peak. Poke bonnets are far too restrictive. I tried on one of Vanessa’s the other day and I could barely turn my head!’

‘Oh, I agree completely.’ The woman on Millie’s left nodded her head so vigorously that her lace cap flopped forward over one eye. ‘But you know young girls like to follow the latest fashions and your Vanessa would look charming in anything.’

‘True…’ Lady Fentree smiled complacently ‘…and I suppose we were the same once. Only one learns to appreciate practicality over appearance at our age.’

Millie looked down at her hands as half-a-dozen ladies laughed, somewhat surprised and faintly chagrined to be included in the latter category. She could only presume that their hostess had forgotten she was there, given that she hadn’t uttered more than a few murmurs of agreement for the past hour and a half.

It wasn’t that she didn’t like bonnets, or hemlines or sleeves for that matter. On the contrary, she had a keen and, she was afraid, somewhat sinful interest in fashion. It was her guilty pleasure. She couldn’t afford to buy new clothes very often, no more than a pair of new gloves or a few ribbons anyway, but she could still look at and appreciate the sartorial choices of others.

Truth be told, she knew a quite shameful amount about bonnets. Straw bonnets, cottage bonnets, spoon bonnets, drawn bonnets… She had an opinion on each and every one of them—maybe not forty-five minutes’ worth—but still, more than she cared to admit. There were certainly things she might have contributed to the conversation, but the whole subject seemed far too shallow compared to her everyday life at the Fairclough Foundation, the institute for down-on-their-luck women her parents had founded more than twenty years before. Now, no matter how hard she tried to relax and enjoy the evening party, she found herself unable to indulge in a little light-hearted discussion. She was a serious person with a serious reputation to uphold and serious matters to consider. Whatever would people say if they discovered that the dutiful, virtuous and, above all, self-sacrificing Miss Amelia Fairclough had opinions on bonnets?