Catherine Tinley - The Makings Of A Lady

Be calm, she thought. Be gracious. Be twenty-two.

Lady Olivia Fanton is eager to prove she’s no longer a child. However, just as she thinks she’s found a suitable match in suave Mr. Manning, charismatic Captain Jem Ford walks back into her life, bringing with him all the embarrassment of her infatuation four years before!

She’s determined to appear mature, distant, friendly . But dare she hope he’ll notice her as the lady she’s become?

The Chadcombe Marriages miniseries

Book 1— Waltzing with the Earl

Book 2— The Captain’s Disgraced Lady

Book 3— The Makings of a Lady

“I love this book and that I cannot recommend this enough, this is a must read... Outstanding!”

— RT Book Reviews on The Captain’s Disgraced Lady

“Cannot express how highly I can recommend this book...a must read.”

— Goodreads on The Captain’s Disgraced Lady

CATHERINE TINLEYhas loved reading and writing since childhood, and has a particular fondness for love, romance and happy endings. She lives in Ireland with her husband, children, dog and kitten, and can be reached at catherinetinley.com, as well as through Facebook and @CatherineTinleyon Twitter.

Also by Catherine Tinley

The Chadcombe Marriages miniseries

Waltzing with the Earl

The Captain’s Disgraced Lady

The Makings of a Lady

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

The Makings of a Lady

Catherine Tinley

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07412-4

THE MAKINGS OF A LADY

© 2018 Catherine Tinley

Published in Great Britain 2018

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

For all my McCoy, Talbot, Sloan, Ferris, Tinnelly and

Hemingway relatives—it’s a privilege to be part of

this big, warm, supportive, close family. Love you all.

And for all midwives—co-mothers, wise women,

mothers of light. You who protect the gateway to life,

hold two lives in your hands, and stand or sit or kneel

With Women. We mothers salute you.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

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

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Extract

About the Publisher

‘Will you marry me?’

Olivia said the words aloud, thrilled by the way they flowed. She tried it a different way. ‘Lady Olivia, will you marry me?’

Oh, that sounds wonderful! She grinned at herself in the bedroom mirror, glad no one was present to witness her giddy foolishness.

Perhaps he would kiss her instead. She dearly hoped so. Thoughts of kissing him had been uppermost in her mind for many weeks. Her heart skipped as she imagined the sensation of his strong, handsome face approaching hers, his lips on her lips, his arms wrapped around her. She closed her eyes, savouring the image. Oh, how wonderful it would be! Could it happen? Perhaps all this time he had been developing warm feelings for her, too. He might say ‘Lady Olivia, I love you. Ardently, truly, deeply. Will you marry me?’

And she would reply Yes . Of course she would. She wanted nothing more than to be his wife. Now, should she offer a shy yes, or an enthusiastic one, or perhaps a coquettish one?

Honestly, at this point, she cared not. The important thing was that she adored him and he had said it was important that he speak with her. He had said so, in that solemn way of his, and so she had agreed to meet him in the garden after nuncheon.

Quite when she had fallen in love with Jem Ford, she was not certain. Was it the first time she had seen his crooked smile, the day they had met? He had been carried into the Fanton townhouse by two of the footmen, the leg injury he had sustained at Waterloo still healing. Having made the long and tiring journey from France, he had then faced the entire Fanton family who were waiting to greet him, including the Earl of Shalford, Olivia’s eldest brother—an ordeal for any stranger. But how much harder must it have been for him? Olivia reflected. Unable to walk, exhausted and clearly feeling uncomfortable about the number of people waiting to receive him, he had nevertheless behaved impeccably. He had thanked his commanding officer, Olivia’s other brother Harry, for the invitation, but insisted he would remove to a hotel on the morrow.

Harry, of course, was having none of it. ‘Having resigned from the Army, I am your Captain no longer,’ he had said, ‘and so I cannot command you. But I do hope you will stay with us until you are recovered.’ They had agreed to discuss the matter later, but even then—having known him for all of two minutes—Olivia had been conscious of a strong wish within herself for him to stay.

She had looked at him closely, noting the dust of travel on his clothes and the lines of pain and tiredness etched on his face, yet her thought had been, ‘My! How handsome he is!’ Surely the beginnings of love had sprung into life in that moment? Like a trickle of water on a hillside in spring, it had begun almost silently. But, during the months of his convalescence, as she had spent more and more time with him, the trickle had grown slowly and steadily, until now a flood of love for him consumed her. He was her first thought in the morning and her last at night. She lived for the times they spent together, especially the precious moments when they were occasionally alone.