Elizabeth Beacon - Captain Langthorne's Proposal

Glimmers of the wild young girl she had once been, up for any mischief on offer, must still lie under Countess Serena’s sober facade after all. She reminded herself reckless actions led to uncomfortable consequences and managed to crush her inner hoyden for the time being.

‘Good luck then, Sir Adam,’ she managed to say cheerfully enough, and offered him her hand in farewell as she opened the front gate.

He bowed over it like a beau from a previous age and kissed it lightly. Fire shot through her, as if he had touched his lips to bare flesh instead of her supple leather glove. She snatched her hand back and looked about her.

‘Shall we say half an hour, my lady?’

Captain Langthorne’s Proposal

Harlequin ®Historical

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The idea for Adam and Serena’s story came to me whilst I was wondering if a Regency heroine whose ideal match had proved the exact opposite, leaving her an older, wiser and more cynical widow, could fall in love again and this time forever. Surely it would take an exceptional hero to convince her to take another chance on love? And he would need to be even more stubborn than she was herself if he stood any chance of persuading her to actually marry him.

That hero turned out to be Captain Sir Adam Langthorne, and I have to admit to finding him rather exceptional myself. But Serena was never going to be such a pushover and fought her feelings for the handsome baronet every inch of the way. I hope you enjoy their story and their company as they clash, test each other’s passions and love, while also becoming entangled in a series of perilous adventures that threaten to bring their story to an untimely end.

TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID

PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

To the two Di’s: Diana Russell and Diana Singelton,

the best friends any author could wish for.

lives in the beautiful English West Country, and is finally putting her insatiable curiosity about the past to good use. Over the years Elizabeth has worked in her family’s horticultural business, became a mature student, qualified as an English teacher, worked as a secretary and, briefly, tried to be a civil servant. She is now happily ensconced behind her computer, when not trying to exhaust her bouncy rescue dog with as many walks as the Inexhaustible Lurcher can finagle. Elizabeth can’t bring herself to call researching the wonderfully diverse, scandalous Regency period and creating charismatic heroes and feisty heroines “work,” and she is waiting for someone to find out how much fun she is having and tell her to stop it.

An Innocent Courtesan #221

Housemaid Heiress #230

A Less Than Perfect Lady #247

Captain Langthorne’s Proposal #255

#935 KIDNAPPED: HIS INNOCENT MISTRESS—Nicola Cornick

Plain-Jane orphan Catriona Balfour has never met anyone as infuriating—or as handsome—as devilish rake Neil Sinclair. Soon her resistance crumbles and, stranded together, the inevitable happens….

#936 HIS CAVALRY LADY—Joanna Maitland

Alex instantly fell for Dominic Aikenhead, Duke of Calder, certain he would never notice her. To him, she was brave hussar Captain Alexei Alexandrov! Alex longed to be with her English duke as the passionate woman she truly was. But what if Dominic ever found out the truth…?

First in The Aikenhead Honors trilogy.

Three gentlemen spies; bound by duty, undone by women!

#937 QUESTIONS OF HONOR—Kate Welsh

When Abby Sullivan became pregnant with Josh Wheaton’s son, circumstances intervened, tearing apart her dreams for their blissful future together…. But years later, though Abby and Josh have now changed, the spark of attraction between them still burns—and there is nobody in town who can stop Josh claiming his woman….

#938 CONQUERING KNIGHT, CAPTIVE LADY—Anne O’Brien

Lady Rosamund de Longspey has not escaped an arranged marriage only to be conquered by a rogue. But Lord Gervase Fitz Osbern will fight for what rightfully belongs to him. A warrior to his fingertips, he’ll claim his castle—and just maybe a bride!

#256 THE DEFIANT DEBUTANTE—Helen Dickson

Eligible, attractive Alex Montgomery, Earl of Arlington, has always done just as he pleases. Society ladies adore him, and a string of mistresses warm his bed. He’s yet to meet the woman who could refuse him…. Then he’s introduced to the strikingly unconventional Miss Angelina Hamilton.

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

Epilogue

Countesses didn’t hide in damp woods from handsome baronets, Serena Cambray told herself sternly. Once she had been too proud to hide from anyone—how her current cowardice would have been reviled. Well, people changed, and the widowed Lady Summerton perhaps more than most, Serena informed herself stoutly, and tried to sit as still and cool as an ice-sculpture on her slightly damp tree stump. Even as she tried to tell herself she was quite calm, her thoughts drifted to the man she was avoiding so assiduously. If only she had seen beneath his youthful arrogance and that annoying air of omnipotence to the man he would one day become, how different her life might have been.

The first time she had met Adam Langthorne he had threatened to tan her hide and send her home to her father, with a message informing him that his daughter would never be permitted contact with his sister again.

‘Only my grandfather’s sense of chivalry prevents me from packing you off right now, even if you have to travel all night,’ he had told her, and looked down his nose at her from the superiority of his lanky height and his new commission in His Majesty’s army.

Serena had glared back at him and refused to admit she had anything to apologise for—even if she and Rachel Langthorne had been within a whisker of causing a scandal and had put themselves in deadly peril. To be labelled ungovernable hoydens given to outrageous pranks like dressing up as coachman and postilion and stealing his grandfather’s carriage to go to a mill would have blighted their reputations for life, even though they had only been fourteen at the time, but how she had hated him that day, she recalled with a wry smile. Probably all the more so because she had known he was right. It struck her that if he had published her infamy to the world, George Cambray would never have tainted his great name with such a hoydenish wife. Only think of the danger of passing on such bad blood to the docile and dutiful daughters he had expected her to bear him as the inevitable side effect of breeding his heirs.