Amanda McCabe - Miss Fortescue's Protector In Paris

Second chance...

With the scoundrel spy!

A Debutantes in Paris story. Running her father’s mercantile empire and campaigning for women’s rights means unconventional Emily Fortescue has no time for romance. But when her politics land her in trouble, old friend Christopher Blakely comes to her rescue. They grew up arguing, sparring...even kissing, until he withdrew into his mysterious work. Now she’s torn between safeguarding her bruised heart, and the lure of their spark reigniting...

AMANDA MCCABEwrote her first romance at the age of sixteen—a vast epic, starring all her friends as the characters, written secretly during algebra class. She’s never since used algebra, but her books have been nominated for many awards, including the RITA®, the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award, the Booksellers’ Best, the National Readers’ Choice Award and the Holt Medallion. She lives in Oklahoma with her husband, one dog and one cat.

Also by Amanda McCabe

Betrayed by His Kiss

The Demure Miss Manning

The Queen’s Christmas Summons

Bancrofts of Barton Park miniseries

The Runaway Countess

Running from Scandal

Running into Temptation

The Wallflower’s Mistletoe Wedding

Debutantes in Paris miniseries

Secrets of a Wallflower

The Governess’s Convenient Marriage

Miss Fortescue’s Protector in Paris

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Miss Fortescue’s Protector in Paris

Amanda McCabe

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08898-5

MISS FORTESCUE’S PROTECTOR IN PARIS

© 2019 Amanda McCabe

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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Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

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

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Epilogue

Author Note

Extract

About the Publisher

It seemed like an ordinary day. Not completely ordinary, of course—it was the day families came to visit at Miss Grantley’s School for Young Ladies. Lessons were suspended and games of tennis and croquet were played on the wide green lawns, tea served in shady groves, while teachers were dispatched to answer parents’ anxious questions about their daughters’ progress.

The red-brick Georgian mansion that housed the school gleamed in the bright spring sunshine, as if the weather was specially ordered for the day, and girls streamed in and out in their fluttering white dresses. Laughter was light and musical on the warm breeze.

Emily Fortescue twirled her tennis racket as she took in the whole pretty scene. It was her last spring at Miss Grantley’s. In only a few weeks, she and her friends would graduate and scatter out into the world to find their destinies. She knew what surely awaited her best chums, Lady Alexandra Mannerly and Diana Martin—marriage to a suitable gentleman, a place in society. For Alex, the daughter of a duke and the goddaughter of the Princess of Wales herself, a high place indeed was expected, despite her shy reservations. She was beautiful and connected. Diana, too, came from a respectable family, with her father retired from the India station, and could be expected to find someone of similar stature, a life helping her husband in his career, even though she truly wanted to be a writer.

But what lay ahead for Emily?

She held up her hand to shade her eyes from the sun. She studied the families who were gathered around the tea tables, who strolled the garden paths, mothers arm in arm with daughters, fathers peppering the teachers with questions. But her own father, her only family, was not there. He seldom was.

Not that she blamed him, she thought with a sigh. Albert Fortescue had a business to run, a business that grew larger and more complex every year. Ever since Emily’s mother died when Emily was only a toddler, her father had been determined to give his only daughter a good life. He had expanded a small wine distribution and import-export company into a very lucrative concern, with many different departments and accounts all over Europe.

His hard work had given them a large house on Cadogan Square, Emily’s education at Miss Grantley’s, travels abroad and lovely clothes. And she had far more freedom than most of her friends. She was not hemmed in by chaperons, except for those dictated by the school, and had few expectations heaped upon her beyond doing well in her studies. Her father talked of her helping him in the company and that would surely suit her well. Being a delicate, retiring fine lady would be suffocating.

But, just once in a while, she wished her father could just—be with her. Come to a families’ day at Miss Grantley’s, look at her schoolwork, sit with her in the shade. Or, even more achingly, she wished her mother could be there, elegant in a fashionable feathered hat and pearls, comfortingly rose-scented like the other mothers, taking Emily’s arm as they strolled through the gardens. Smiling, giving her advice, listening to Emily’s doubts about the future.