ANNIE BURROWS - Regency Rogues - Outrageous Scandal - In Bed with the Duke / A Mistress for Major Bartlett

Regency Rogues

August 2019

Outrageous Scandal

September 2019

Rakes’ Redemption

October 2019

Wicked Seduction

November 2019

A Winter’s Night

December 2019

Unlacing the Forbidden

January 2020

Stolen Sins

February 2020

Candlelight Confessions

March 2020

Rescued by Temptation

April 2020

Wives Wanted

May 2020

Disgraceful Secrets

June 2020

Talk of the Ton

July 2020

Exotic Affairs

About the Authors

ANNIE BURROWS’ love of stories meant that when she was old enough to go to university, she chose English literature. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to do beyond that, but one day, she began to wonder if all those daydreams that kept her mind occupied whilst carrying out mundane chores, would provide similar pleasure to other women. She was right…and Annie hasn’t looked back since.

Readers can sign up to Annie’s newsletter at www.annie-burrows.co.uk

Regency Rogues: Outrageous Scandal

In Bed with the Duke

A Mistress for Major Bartlett

Annie Burrows

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09709-3

REGENCY ROGUES: OUTRAGEOUS SCANDAL

In Bed with the Duke © 2016 Annie Burrows A Mistress for Major Bartlett © 2015 Annie Burrows

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.

® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

About the Authors

Title Page

Copyright

In Bed with the Duke

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

A Mistress for Major Bartlett

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

About the Publisher

In Bed with the Duke

Annie Burrows

Once again, my thanks to the Novelistas

for constant support, brainstorming when

necessary, and cake.

Chapter One

‘Vile seducer of women!’

Gregory winced and pulled the quilt up over his ears. What kind of inn was this? Surely even travellers to such a Godforsaken backwater shouldn’t have to put up with deranged females bursting into their rooms and screeching at them before breakfast?

‘Oh! What wickedness!’

Pulling the quilt up round his ears clearly wasn’t a strong enough hint that deranged females weren’t welcome in his room. For the voice was definitely getting louder. Coming closer.

‘What is the world coming to?’

Just what he’d like to know, he thought resentfully, dragging his eyelids open and seeing the owner of the strident voice standing right over him, jabbing a bony finger at his face.

‘How could you?’ the bony-fingered, screeching woman shouted into his face. Right into his face.

Enough was enough. He knew that public inns were of necessity frequented by...well, by the public. But surely even here a man was entitled to some privacy? At least in his own bedchamber?

‘Who,’ he said, in the arctic tone that normally caused minions to shake in their shoes, ‘let you into my room?’

‘Who let me into your room? Why, I let myself in, of course.’ She smote her breast theatrically. ‘Never have I been so shocked!’

‘Well, if you will invade a man’s chamber what can you expect?’

‘Oh!’ the woman cried again, this time laying the back of one hand across her brow. ‘Was ever there such a villain? Truly, your soul must be stained black with depravity if you can treat the seduction of innocence with such levity!’

Seduction of innocence? The woman must be fifty if she was a day. And she’d invaded his room. Nothing innocent about that.

‘And as for you!’ The screeching woman’s finger moved to a point somewhere to his left side. ‘You...you trollop!’

Trollop? There was a trollop in his bed as well as a hysterical woman standing next to it?

A brief foray with his left foot confirmed that, yes, indeed there was another pair of legs in his bed. A slender pair of legs. Belonging, he had to suppose, to the trollop in question.

He frowned. He wasn’t in the habit of taking trollops to his bed. Nor any other kind of woman. He always, but always, visited theirs. So that he could retire once he’d reduced them to a state of boneless satiation and get a peaceful night’s sleep at home. In his own bed. Where he heartily wished he was now. For there wouldn’t be a strange woman in his bed if he’d stayed at home. Nor, which was more to the point, would anybody be daring to stand over him screeching.

‘How could you repay me by behaving like this?’ The hysterical woman was still ranting. ‘After all I have done for you? All the sacrifices I have made?’

Her voice was rising higher and higher. And getting louder and louder. But even so there seemed to be a sort of fog shrouding his brain. He couldn’t for the life of him pierce through that fog to work out why there was a woman in his bed. He couldn’t believe he’d hired her. Because he had never needed to hire a woman. So how did she come to be here?