Jane Lark - The Dangerous Love of a Rogue

JANE LARK

A division of HarperCollins Publishers

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Harper Impulse an imprint of

HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Harper Impulse 2015

Copyright © Jane Lark 2015

Cover images © Shutterstock.com

Cover layout design © HarperColl‌insPublishers Ltd 2015

Cover design by Zoe Jackson

Jane Lark asserts the moral right

to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is

available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are

the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to

actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is

entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International

and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

By payment of the required fees, you have been granted

the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access

and read the text of this e-book on screen.

No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted,

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 HarperCollins.

Digital eFirst: Automatically produced by Atomik ePublisher from Easypress.

Ebook Edition © January 2015 ISBN: 9780007594665

Version 2015-01-13

“Jane Lark has an incredible talent to draw the reader in from the first page onwards.”

Cosmochicklitan Book Reviews

"Any description that I give you would not only spoil the story but could not give this book a tenth of the justice that it deserves. Wonderful!"

Candy Coated Book Blog

"This book held me captive after the first 2 pages. If I could crawl inside and live in there with the characters I would."

A Reading Nurse Blogspot

“The book swings from truly swoon-worthy, tense and heart wrenching, highly erotic and everything else in between.”

BestChickLit.com

“I love Ms. Lark's style—beautifully descriptive, emotional and can I say, just plain delicious reading? This is the kind of mixer upper I've been looking for in romance lately.”

Devastating Reads BlogSpot

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise for Jane Lark

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Epilogue

Author Note

Also by Jane Lark…

Jane Lark

About HarperImpulse

About the Publisher

It was a renowned truth, that any world-worn rogue, without a feather to fly with, must be on the hunt for a wife, or rather her dowry. As the parody of Miss Austen’s verse, from her charming little novel about country life, ran through Drew’s head, a sound of mocking humour rumbled through his chest and he leaned a shoulder against the false pillar in the Earl of Derwent’s ballroom watching town life.

The pillar was wooden, painted to look like marble. Like everyone in this damned room, it was a farce. A shallow image. A performance… Nothing here was what it seemed. Society lived a damned lie and he had lived it for a lifetime.

He was a bastard, sold by his mother to her husband as worth the risk of giving her naturally born son his family’s name to keep up the façade and to save the reputation of the Framlington title.

Damn the title…Damn the bloody name… Drew had no interest in either.

He was bored of this. Bored of pretence. Bored of the games these people and he played. Bored of the face he displayed to the world and bored of the man who suffered all this behind a closed door.

He wished to escape it. He had a plan. Of course plans required money. But his plan covered that. He was seeking a well-dowered young woman to take as his wife, and therefore earn himself an instant fortune. A fortune which he would use to pack up his bags and retire to a quiet life, away from town, away from this… Perhaps he would experience life then just as Miss Austen wrote it. Or was ‘Country Life’ an equal façade? Never mind wherever he went, he would not live behind a façade. He’d had his fill of charades.

“Have you seen Marlow’s daughter?” Mark leaned to Drew’s ear. “She would be a prize.”

Drew looked at his friend and lifted his shoulder away from the pillar, straightening up. “I have.”

“She looks remarkable.”

“She does indeed.” He’d been watching her. She was on his list of potential wives.

“Are you intending to try her?”

“I would be a fool if I did not. Look at her…” Yet the she in question, Miss Mary Marlow, was as far above his reach as the sun. The step-sister of a duke – with a bastard… It was not a match that would be desired by the sweet young miss’s mama and papa.

Yet Miss Marlow was the most appealing to the eye and Drew had been awaiting his moment to explore his opportunity with her. The time had come. He’d not been standing here for his pleasure. He’d been standing here waiting for Miss Marlow to complete her dance.

“Then what are you waiting on.” Mark laughed, spotting the same opportunity.

Not a thing. Drew glanced over his shoulder and gave his friend a wicked smile before turning to walk about the edge of the room.

Miss Marlow was in a set close to him and the dance was drawing to its conclusion. Drew positioned himself so that when it ended her back was turned him. She stood three feet away; he could feel her exuberance even though he could not see her face or her smile. Yet he knew she was smiling, she’d smiled throughout every dance tonight.

Mary Marlow was in her first season, newly launched upon the marriage market, and he was here to trade. But what his friends did not know was that as much as he desired her money, he desired innocence. His heart and mind were jaded and bitter. He longed for the refreshing invigoration of innocence. God knew, he’d never been given the blessing of innocence in his life; he’d been born into the world of sin. Born of sin and raised in sin.

Miss Marlow’s partner lifted her hand to his lips and bowed.

Drew stepped forward. “Miss Marlow.” He said her name as though they’d been introduced and he had a right to use it, speaking before the man had chance to offer to lead her back to her mother.

She looked at him, her expression confused, but then she smiled, and it was as though the sun rose in the room which was already illuminated by several hundred candles in the chandeliers.