Claire Thornton - The Defiant Mistress

“There is a solution to your unfortunate situation,” Gabriel said blandly.

“What?”

“You could become my mistress in fact as well as reputation.”

She stared at him, her lips parted in shock. Then the color drained out of her face. Her mouth worked for a few seconds before she managed to utter a word.

“How could you?” she whispered. “I was good enough to be your wife. But now… No! Never!” She sprang to her feet, knocking over the stool. “Is this your idea of revenge? Because I will never let you humiliate me like that!”

“It’s my price for providing you with safe passage back to England,” he said. “That is what you want from me, isn’t it?”

Raven’s Honor

“Claire Thornton has written an exciting historical unlike anything I’ve read this past year. She hooked me within the first few pages and kept me hanging on the edge throughout the rest of this beautifully written love story…. I highly recommend this intoxicating love story.”

—Romance Junkies

Gifford’s Lady

“Claire Thornton is truly gifted in creating stories that are so unusual—with charismatic characters, intriguing plots and subtle humor. Her hero steps off the page and into your heart with his bravery and sensibilities.”

—Romance Junkies

“Thornton offers an inventive plotline and paints a vivid picture with her descriptions.”

—Romantic Times BOOKclub

“[Abigail] and Gif share a wonderfully tender and intimate love scene that’s one of the best I have read this year…. It’s a standout.”

—All About Romance

www.millsandboon.co.uk

The stories in the CITY OF FLAMES trilogy take place in Europe during the reign of Charles II. This was an era of great color, drama and variety. The king scandalized some of his subjects with his many mistresses, but his reign also saw the emergence of modern banking among the London goldsmiths. Actresses appeared for the first time in London theaters, while members of the Royal Society met every week to witness scientific experiments.

Athena Fairchild, Colonel Jakob Balston and the Duke of Kilverdale are cousins, but they’ve led very different lives. Athena grew up in England, Jakob in Sweden, and Kilverdale spent his childhood exiled in France as a result of the war between Charles I and Parliament.

The cousins’ romances take place in various locations, but London is at the heart of the CITY OF FLAMES trilogy. The cousins all meet the one they love in the city—although Athena’s happiness is destroyed almost before it begins.

Athena’s story, The Defiant Mistress, begins in May 1666 in Venice and the events span the rest of the summer. Jakob’s story, The Abducted Heiress, and Kilverdale’s story, The Vagabond Duchess, both begin in London at the start of September 1666. In the early hours of the morning of 2 September a fire in Pudding Lane will burn out of control….

While I was writing these books I fell in love with the characters and their world. I hope you enjoy reading their stories as much as I enjoyed writing them.

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

London, June 1658

T onight a maid…tomorrow a bride.

Athena’s heart sang with expectation. Her mood was as sunny as the afternoon as she stepped lightly along Cheapside, slipping with practised ease through the crowds that thronged one of London’s grandest thoroughfares. Her route took her past some of the City’s most renowned silk mercers’ and goldsmiths’ shops, but she didn’t spare them a second glance. She had finished her own less exalted shopping and she was on her way home.

Tomorrow she would be Gabriel’s wife.

She experienced a brief frisson of tension as she contemplated her wedding night—she could not help but feel a little nervous at what some of her wifely duties would entail—but she loved and trusted Gabriel. Whenever he held her in his arms or kissed her he always tempered his male passion with exquisite tenderness for her innocence. In fact—she skipped out of the path of a sedan chair carried by two sweating porters—in fact, sometimes Gabriel was a little too tender. One of the chairmen turned his head to look appreciatively after her, but she was used to men’s admiring glances and she didn’t pay any attention. Her thoughts were too full of her coming wedding night. A quiver of illicit anticipation stirred deep inside her as she imagined how much more passionately Gabriel would kiss her when he no longer had to keep such a tight rein upon his desire. Tomorrow night she would find out.

She turned off the broad expanse of Cheapside into a narrower side street. Here, even in the summer, the houses with their projecting upper floors were too close together to allow the mid-afternoon sun to penetrate all the way to the ground. The shade provided a respite from the glare of bright sunlight, but only an illusion of coolness. The air was hot and still. Athena’s skin felt gritty with the grime of the city.

She pushed a strand of damp blonde hair away from her face and turned her thoughts to the supper she meant to prepare for her aunt. It was the last night she would spend under Aunt Kitty’s roof and Athena wanted to show her appreciation for the older woman’s generosity and kindness. She had already bought most of the ingredients she needed early that morning. This second shopping trip had been to fetch the few items she’d originally forgotten because her mind had been too full of Gabriel.

Well, for the rest of the afternoon and evening she would not let so much as one stray thought of Gabriel cross her mind. She would concentrate only on preparing the most splendid supper imaginable for Aunt Kitty—and her reward…her reward would be to lie in bed and think of Gabriel all night! Athena couldn’t suppress the saucy smile that tugged at her lips at the prospect. Her whole body hummed with happiness as she stepped into the passage that led to the small courtyard in front of her aunt’s lodgings.

‘Hello, Athena.’ A man’s voice spoke suddenly from the shadows.

She jumped, her stomach lurching with surprise, but at first she was startled rather than afraid.

‘You naughty girl,’ he said, chiding her in a repellently indulgent tone. ‘What a tease you are.’

Samuel?

Horrified disbelief held Athena immobile for several seconds. She recognised that hateful voice, but she’d hoped never to hear it again. Samuel didn’t belong in London. He had no place in her new life. How had he found her?

He moved into the light, his glittering eyes roaming greedily over her body. Her skin crawled at his lascivious interest.

‘Such a tease,’ he said thickly. ‘Have you been getting impatient for me to find you, sweetling?’

He reached towards her.

She jerked backwards, bumping her basket against the wall. The impact jolted her into action. She spun around, driven by a panic-stricken need to run as far and as fast as possible.

Samuel lunged forward. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her close to him.

‘Don’t run,’ he said, his breath scalding her cheek. ‘I’ve been patient, but now it’s time you came to heel.’