Gail Ranstrom - Unlacing Lilly

Lillian whirled around to find a man in shirtsleeves standing beneath the willow. A groundskeeper or stable master. She turned away without speaking.

A chuckle caused a chill to shiver up her spine. “Miss Lillian, is it not?”

“Miss O’Rourke,” she corrected.

The man came around the bench and gave her an impudent smile. She felt breathless and nervous. He’d been eavesdropping.

“Well, Miss O’Rourke, you are to become a duchess. What good fortune.”

She tilted her nose upward, feigning indifference.

“You can speak to me. I promise I do not bite.”

She glanced at him again and noted he had an expensive jacket slung over one arm. Not a gardener. But more unsettling than she’d thought. No, he did not look suitable at all. He looked like the sort of man who would ruin a woman….

Unlacing Lilly

Harlequin ®Historical

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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

Epilogue

London, July 27, 1821

This was not the first time Devlin Farrell had intruded on the grounds of Rutherford House to watch the people within. Far from it. He knew the residents almost as well as he knew himself. Knew what they liked and didn’t like, who they saw, where they went and what they wanted. And he knew, too, when events would be held at Rutherford House that would allow him to watch them and, occasionally, mingle. Like tonight. There was not much, in fact, that he did not know about Lord Rutherford and his brood.

Shrouded by the branches of a sheltering willow, he went unnoticed by strolling couples and the occasional straggler. He had little fear of being discovered. There were far too many guests to keep track of tonight. With the right enticement, he might even enter the ballroom and blend. No one would recognize him, and if they did, they certainly would not give him away lest they give themselves away. Devlin was not a man people would admit to knowing.

Gay paper lanterns lit the paths and the sound of an orchestra floated from the ballroom on a summer breeze as soft as a caress to his cheek. Laughter filled the air, along with the clink of glasses, and he knew the wine would be as free-flowing as the Thames.

Devlin shrugged out of his jacket and slung it over a branch to roll his shirtsleeves up. The night was uncommonly sultry and he was not in the least concerned about how a gentleman appeared in public. He was not a gentleman.

“Oh, Lord Olney! You are beyond diverting.”

Edward Manlay? Marquis of Olney and the Duke of Rutherford’s heir? Devlin turned toward the voice. Coming down the path toward the bench beneath the willow were the Rutherford heir—lean and lanky Olney—and a fairylike creature whose honeyed hair was silvered by the clear moonlight. She wore a deep blue gown, turned almost black by the depth of the night, and trimmed with embroidered white birds in flight. How very appropriate for one so ethereal.

He moved behind the tree trunk and leaned against it, watching between the branches, curious to see what Olney would do next. Given that this was the cub’s favorite bench for seductions, would he maul his companion as he’d done to other hapless females on countless occasions? Or yawn and make an excuse to return to the ballroom?

“Then say you’ll be mine and I shall spend the rest of my days diverting you.”

“Are you proposing marriage, sir, or something else?”

Olney preened, likely knowing full well a marquis, no matter his character, would be considered a good catch. “Marriage, Miss Lillian. I’ve never wanted anyone as desperately as I want you, m’dear. You’ve quite stolen my heart.”

The dazzling Miss Lillian sat on the bench and the duke’s heir perched beside her. “I hardly think your father would find me suitable, since I am neither titled nor the possessor of a magnificent dowry.”