Chantelle Shaw: Postcards From Madrid: Married by Arrangement / Valdez's Bartered Bride / The Spanish Duke's Virgin Bride

About the Authors

LYNNE GRAHAMwas born in Northern Ireland and has been a keen romance reader since her teens. She is very happily married to an understanding husband who has learned to cook since she started to write! Her five children keep her on her toes. She has a very large dog, who knocks everything over, a very small terrier, who barks a lot, and two cats. When time allows, Lynne is a keen gardener.

RACHAEL THOMAShas always loved reading romance, and is thrilled to be a Mills & Boon author. She lives and works on a farm in Wales—a far cry from the glamour of a Mills & Boon Modern Romance story—but that makes slipping into her characters’ worlds all the more appealing. When she’s not writing, or working on the farm, she enjoys photography and visiting historical castles and grand houses. Visit her at rachaelthomas.co.uk.

CHANTELLE SHAWlives on the Kent coast and thinks up her stories while walking on the beach. She has been married for over thirty years and has six children. Her love affair with reading and writing Mills & Boon stories began as a teenager, and her first book was published in 2006. She likes strong-willed, slightly unusual characters. Chantelle also loves gardening, walking and wine.

Postcards from Madrid

Married by Arrangement

Lynne Graham

Valdez’s Bartered Bride

Rachael Thomas

The Spanish Duke’s Virgin Bride

Chantelle Shaw

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09510-5

POSTCARDS FROM MADRID

Married by Arrangement © 2005 Lynne Graham Valdez’s Bartered Bride © 2017 Rachael Thomas The Spanish Duke’s Virgin Bride © 2007 Chantelle Shaw

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

Table of Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

Married by Arrangement

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Valdez’s Bartered Bride

Back Cover Text

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

EPILOGUE

The Spanish Duke’s Virgin Bride

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EPILOGUE

About the Publisher

Married by Arrangement

Lynne Graham

‘BUT why didn’t Belinda tell us last year that she had given birth to Pablo’s child?’ Antonio Rocha, Marqués de Salazar, demanded of his grandmother, lingering astonishment etched in the hard set of his sculpted cheekbones, his lean, darkly handsome face grim.

‘We barely got to know Belinda while your brother was alive.’ Doña Ernesta’s fine-boned features reflected her regret over that state of affairs. ‘How could we expect her to turn to us for help after he had abandoned her?’

‘I tried several times to set up a meeting with Belinda. She always made excuses,’ Antonio reminded the older woman. ‘Finally, she insisted that she didn’t need our help and she made it clear that she no longer regarded us as being related to her.’

‘Her pride may have spoken for her. I imagine Pablo left her with little else. Now that we know that he must have deserted her when she was pregnant, my heart is even heavier,’ Doña Ernesta confessed. ‘Yet when he married her, I truly believed that he might finally settle down.’

Being an incurable cynic, Antonio had had no such hopes. After all, his younger brother had broken the heart of his own family long before he had graduated to wreaking havoc beyond that select circle. Although born with every advantage into the most élite stratum of Spanish high society, Pablo had started getting in trouble at an early age.

His parents had found it impossible to control him. By the time Pablo had reached his early twenties, he had dissipated a substantial inheritance and defrauded several relatives and friends of large amounts of money. Throughout those troubled years, countless people had made repeated efforts to understand, correct and solve Pablo’s problems. All such attempts had been unsuccessful, not least, Antonio believed, because his brother had got a huge kick out of breaking the law and swindling the foolish.

It was three years since Pablo had come home to mend fences and announce his intention of marrying his beautiful English girlfriend. Overjoyed by his return, Doña Ernesta had insisted on throwing the wedding for the happy couple while at the same time making them a very generous gift of money. The marriage, however, had failed and Pablo had returned to Spain twelve months ago. Soon afterwards, the younger man had lost his life in a drunken car crash.

‘It astonishes me that Pablo could have kept such a secret from us,’ Doña Ernesta lamented. ‘It is even more sad that Belinda could not trust us enough to share her child with us.’

‘I’ve made arrangements to fly over to London tomorrow morning,’ Antonio told her, frowning when the elderly woman seated by the elegant marble fireplace continued to look deeply troubled. ‘Try not to dwell on your sorrow. As a family, we did all that we could and we will now do our very best for Pablo’s daughter.’