Janice Preston - Christmas With His Wallflower Wife

A convenient bride

Can he be the groom she deserves?

Part of The Beauchamp Heirs. Lord Alexander Beauchamp has protected Lady Jane Colebrooke since childhood. So seeing she’s about to be forced to wed, he steps in with a proposal of his own! But Alex underestimated the closeness that taking Jane as his bride demands—something he expected never to give. As Christmas approaches, he knows he must confront the dark secrets that shadow their marriage…

JANICE PRESTONgrew up in Wembley, North London, with a love of reading, writing stories and animals. In the past she has worked as a farmer, a police call-handler and a university administrator. She now lives in the West Midlands, with her husband and two cats, and has a part-time job as a weight management counsellor—vainly trying to control her own weight despite her love of chocolate!

Also by Janice Preston

His Convenient Highland Wedding

The Beauchamp Betrothals miniseries

Cinderella and the Duke

Scandal and Miss Markham

Lady Cecily and the Mysterious Mr Gray

The Beauchamp Heirs miniseries

Lady Olivia and the Infamous Rake

Daring to Love the Duke’s Heir

Christmas with His Wallflower Wife

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Christmas with His Wallflower Wife

Janice Preston

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08960-9

CHRISTMAS WITH HIS WALLFLOWER WIFE

© 2019 Janice Preston

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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To all the readers and reviewers who have

taken the Beauchamp family to their hearts.

Thank you for all your support and enthusiasm—

I’m eternally grateful. xxx

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

Epilogue

Extract

About the Publisher

Try as she might, Lady Jane Colebrooke couldn’t quite suppress her quiver of excitement as her father’s carriage passed through the gates of Cheriton Abbey, the Devonshire seat of their neighbour, the powerful Duke of Cheriton. It was Olivia, the Duke’s daughter and Jane’s childhood friend, who had told Jane that her brother, Lord Alexander Beauchamp, would be home for the first time in over four years and Jane’s heart had twitched with the longing to see him again.

Not that him being there would make any difference. She’d long ago accepted he would never return her feelings. They’d last met in London in the spring. He’d even danced with her. And still he never seemed to notice her as a female, let alone a lady worthy of courting. No. To him, she was—as she had always been—good old Janey. She turned from the window and her heart shrivelled at seeing her stepmother’s sharp gaze on her.

‘Why the sour expression, Jane? You are going to a garden party, not a funeral.’

Jane bit the inside of her cheek, determined not to retaliate. Defying her stepmother had never borne fruit and life, she had learned, was more tolerable if she allowed Lady Stowford’s jibes to pass over her head.

‘I hope you will at least be civil to Sir Denzil when you meet him,’ Stepmama continued. ‘He has been invited… I made a particular point of asking when I saw him at church last Sunday.’

Jane swallowed. Stepmama had been doing her utmost to pair Jane and Sir Denzil Pikeford ever since the man—another neighbour—had begun to show an interest in her. The fact Jane actively disliked the baronet made no difference—Stepmama was so eager to get her just-turned-twenty-three-year-old stepdaughter off her hands she had even persuaded Papa to add an extra one thousand pounds to her dowry.

One thing Jane knew for certain: if she ever did marry, she would not meekly accept whatever her husband decreed, as she accepted Stepmama’s demands. She would stand up for herself. Right from the start. But it was hard to change the habits of a lifetime with the stepmother who had raised her from a baby and who ruled their household like an empress.

‘You do not accuse me of incivility, I hope, ma’am?’

Papa stirred at her words. ‘Jane is never rude to people, my dear.’ Bless him for one of his sporadic attempts to support the daughter of his first marriage, no matter how unkind Stepmama might be. Jane couldn’t blame him for intervening so rarely. Not when she, too, often chose to remain silent rather than setting the household on its ears for days on end.

‘You know very well she needs to be more than polite, Stowford, if I am to bring Sir Denzil to the point. Really…have you forgotten our dear Miranda is to come out next year? How shameful if her older sister is still unwed!’