Ann Lethbridge - The Gamekeeper's Lady

Robert closed his eyes as if in pain. ‘Innocent, gently bred females do not go around running their hands over naked men.’ He cursed. ‘Any men. What do you think your family would say?’

‘I’m no innocent. And I don’t care what Uncle Mortimer thinks.’ Frederica had tried for years to make him think well of her, to no avail. And now he was going to marry her off.

‘Not innocent?’ he scoffed.

With a mother like hers, how could she be innocent? She certainly wasn’t ignorant.

‘W-would you like to find out?’ Her words came out in a breathy rush, too eager, too desperate.

‘No,’ he said.

‘Because you don’t find me attractive?’

He half groaned, half laughed. ‘Not that. Definitely not that. I don’t want to lose my job.’

‘I would never tell anyone.’

‘You are a naughty little puss. Do you know that? A temptress.’ His lips brushed her ear, her throat, her collarbone, sending shivers down her spine. ‘Leave now, before I take you at your word.’

www.millsandboon.co.uk

When I started the story of THE GAMEKEEPER’S LADY my husband and I were doing a lot of driving back and forth to my daughter’s university. I would use the long journeys to write. One evening, we were coming home quite late and I suggested that I would read what I had written earlier that day. My husband, who is game for anything, agreed. So by the dim reading light I read out the beginning of the story. After quite a while of me reading and him driving, we stopped at a light and I paused to look up. He stared at me and said, ‘I have no idea where we are.’ He’d become so absorbed in the opening scenes he’d missed his turn-off. It took us quite a while to find the right road. Needless to say I never did that again! I do hope you find Robert and Frederica’s story just as absorbing as he did that night.

ANN LETHBRIDGEhas been reading Regency novels for as long as she can remember. She always imagined herself as Lizzie Bennet, or one of Georgette Heyer’s heroines, and would often recreate the stories in her head with different outcomes or scenes. When she sat down to write her own novel, it was no wonder that she returned to her first love: the Regency.

Ann grew up roaming England with her military father. Her family lived in many towns and villages across the country, from the Outer Hebrides to Hampshire. She spent memorable family holidays in the West Country and in Dover, where her father was born. She now lives in Canada, with her husband, two beautiful daughters, and a Maltese terrier named Teaser, who spends his days on a chair beside the computer, making sure she doesn’t slack off.

Ann visits Britain every year, to undertake research and also to visit family members who are very understanding about her need to poke around old buildings and visit every antiquity within a hundred miles. If you would like to know more about Ann and her research, or to contact her, visit her website at www.annlethbridge.com. She loves to hear from readers.

Previous novels by this author:

THE RAKE’S INHERITED COURTESAN WICKED RAKE, DEFIANT MISTRESS CAPTURED FOR THE CAPTAIN’S PLEASURE THE GOVERNESS AND THE EARL (part of Mills & Boon New Voices… anthology)

and in Mills & Boon® Historical Undone eBooks:

THE RAKE’S INTIMATE ENCOUNTER

This book is dedicated to my husband, and my hero, Keith.

London—1816

Lord Robert Deveril Mountford propped himself up on his elbow in his bed. He brushed aside Maggie, Lady Caldwell’s waterfall of chestnut curls and kissed her creamy shoulder. ‘Two weeks from now?’

Dark eyes sparkling, she cast him a dazzling smile. ‘Evil one. Can’t you fit me in any sooner?’

‘Sorry. I’m going out of town for a few days. Hunting.’

‘Furred, feathered or female?’ She stood up, slipped her chemise over her head and reached for her stays.

He slapped her plump little bottom. ‘Whatever comes along, naturally.’ Pleasantly sated, he yawned and stretched.

Maggie sighed. ‘It is time you settled down, you know.’

Robert tensed. ‘Not you, too.’ He leaned across to lace her stays, then pulled the silky stockings off the blue canopy over the bed and tossed them at her.

She sat to pull them over her shapely legs. ‘Why not? There are all kinds of nice young things available. Take my niece. She has a reasonable dowry and her family is good quality.’

A sense of foreboding gathered like a snowball rolling downhill, larger and colder with each passing moment. It wasn’t the first time one of his women had tried to inveigle herself or a member of her family into the ducal tribe, but he hadn’t expected it from this one. He had thought he and Maggie were having too much fun to let familial obligations intrude.

He didn’t want a wife cramping his lifestyle, even if the ducal allowance provided enough for two, which it didn’t.

Dress on, Maggie went to the mirror and patted her unruly curls. ‘Just look at this mess. Caldwell will never believe I was at Lady Jeffries’s for tea.’ She gathered the scattered pins from the floor and tried to bring some order to her tresses.

Naked, he rose to his feet and stood behind her. Her eyes widened in the glass, the heat of desire returning.

He picked up the hairbrush, all at once disturbingly anxious for her to be gone. ‘Let me.’ With a few firm strokes, he tamed the luxuriant brown mane, twisted it into a neat knot at the back of her head, pinned it and teased out a few curls around her face. ‘Will that do?’

A lovely lush woman still in her prime and wasted on her old husband, she turned and laughed up at him. ‘My maid doesn’t arrange it half as well. If you ever need a position as a lady’s maid, I will be pleased to provide a recommendation.’

He gazed at her beautiful face, then brushed her lips with his mouth. ‘Thank you. For everything.’

He liked Maggie. Too bad she had to bring up the subject of marriage. He bent to retrieve her shoes and she sat on the stool. As he put them on her small feet, he caressed her calf one last time. A faint sense of regret washed through him. Too faint.

She sighed and ran her fingers through his hair.

The clock in the hall struck four.

‘Oh, botheration,’ she said, jumping to her feet. She took another quick peek in the glass. ‘I think I will pass muster.’ Her trill of laughter rang around the room.

He stood up with a wry smile. Maggie always maintained such good spirits. She never indulged in tantrums or fits of jealousy about his other women. She’d been the perfect liaison. Until now.

He’d send a token tomorrow, a discreet little diamond pin with a carefully worded message. No fool, Maggie. She’d understand.

She reached up and cupped his cheek with her palm. ‘One of these days some beautiful young thing is going to capture that wicked heart of yours and you’ll be lost to me and all the other naughty ladies of the ton, mark my words.’

Too bad she couldn’t leave well enough alone. He caught her fingers and pressed them to his lips. ‘What? Be tied to just one woman when there are so many to enjoy?’

‘You are a bad man,’ she said. And I adore you.’

She whirled around in a rustle of skirts, a cloud of rose perfume and sex. She opened the door and dashed down the stairs to her waiting carriage.