“I’ve been asked to,” she whispered. “What kind of person would I be to coldly turn my back?”
He nodded, but with that assent, with that understanding, something shifted in him. His arm muscles relaxed, and his hands slid to his lap, but tightness lingered in his jaw and shoulders. The tension remained, but its nature had changed.
“What if you had another offer?” He pronounced the words quietly and carefully.
“What do you mean?” she asked just as carefully, while that blossom of hope inside her opened to full bloom.
“You don’t have to marry your cousin to advise him.”
“That is true, but I think Papa believes he’ll be more likely to listen to a wife than…well, a girl he grew up with.”
“I know all sorts of creative ways to make a man listen to reason.”
An incongruous laugh burst from her throat. “I don’t think Snowley’s planning on making you an offer.”
“Lizzie.” He reached for her hand again, his fingers slipping over her skin to entwine with hers. “After all that’s happened between us, a gentleman would offer.”
Unable to peel her gaze away from the knot their hands formed, she caught her breath. “You’ve insisted to me over and over you’re no gentleman.”
“At times like these, common decency is what dictates gentlemanly behavior.”
She met his eyes. In their dark depths burned a fire of strong emotion. “If I wanted to accept a proposal made out of obligation, I’d take Snowley’s.”
“That’s not the reason I’m proposing.”
“Go on.” Good heavens, was that her voice, all high and breathy like that? She sounded like some green chit, and she didn’t care in the least.
His grip tightened. “What we have between us, I’ve never felt anything like it before. I never thought it possible. I want more, for the rest of my life. I know I’m not worthy of you, but I can’t let you ruin your future by marrying some idiot. Not when there’s another way.”
“You…you would have to rejoin society.”
“I can leave Bow Street.”
Another sacrifice there, only he’d be the one making it. He’d never said as much, but she knew his life as a Bow Street Runner had to give him a sense of purpose over and above whatever role he’d played as an earl’s son. If he hadn’t derived something from his current standing, he’d have returned to society when Sally died.
And society was much more forgiving of a man who flouted its dictates. He would have been accepted back.
“I’ve no right to ask that of you.”
“You’ve every right.” He raised their joined hands and pressed his lips to her knuckles. “I assure you, it’s no sacrifice on my part. Not when I’ve fallen in love with you.”
A simple speech, but she would never expect a flowery declaration from this man. Her heart bursting, she reached for him, touching her fingertips to the stubble on his cheeks, reveling in the prickly texture, so like the man himself.
His palm against her nape, he drew her close for a lingering kiss. Whatever emotion he was unable to express in words poured into her through his lips and tongue, stealing the air from her lungs, and making her eyes burn. When he broke away, she was panting.
“I await your reply. I trust you won’t consider overly long.”
There were a hundred details yet to discuss and work out, but for once, she pushed all that tedium aside. “I accept, fully, unconditionally, wholeheartedly. The same way that I love you. But you will have to convince Papa.”
Epilogue
SHERRINGTON MANOR, ONE MONTH LATER
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a daughter of a duke is raised to believe she can do as she dashed well pleases, which may lead her into all manner of difficulty.
Lizzie laid aside her pen and admired her opening line, but her mind wasn’t really on her latest attempt at writing a novel. She was far more curious about the doings in Papa’s study, where Dysart and her father were discussing not only her marriage settlement, but whether Papa would approve the match at all.
The click of the door handle set her heart racing. She looked across the small sitting room where Dysart had first shown her the depths of her passion. He entered, his countenance betraying nothing. Blast the man.
“Well?” she prompted.
A grin broke out over his face, an expression she’d seen often of late. “It’s done.”
“He’s agreed?” She stood, almost overturning her chair in her haste to rush to him.
“To everything.”
Everything included Sally’s son coming to stay as Dysart’s ward during the school holidays. Lizzie wasn’t sure how she felt having an eleven-year-old boy about the place. He’d doubtless be interested in the same sort of disagreeable things Snowley liked at that age, but Caro had insisted she could divert his attention to the horses.
It also included the sale of the unentailed property Papa had set aside for her on her marriage. She would inject those proceeds back into the Sherrington estate to help make up for the funds Barrows had stolen.
Dysart placed his hands at her waist, fingers squeezing in affection. “Do you want to hear his conditions?”
She laced her fingers at the nape of his neck. “Go on.”
“He wishes you to oversee the estate, at least until Snowley inherits.”
“No shock there.”
“Indeed.” Dysart leaned close to press a kiss beneath her ear. “I suppose I shall have to allow you time in your day to see to those matters.”
She laughed, low and throaty, a sound she only seemed to make in his presence. “I’m sure Riggs will keep you busy enough.”
“As long as his assignments don’t take me away from you for long periods of time.” He drew her earlobe between his teeth, biting gently. “Your father would also like you to interview candidates to take over Barrows’s position. I think I’d like to help with that.”
“Surely you’re not afraid one of them will steal me away from you.”
His expression grew serious for a moment. “I’m more concerned about hiring another man who plans to rob the estate blind. That’s where my experience will come in handy.”
“Most definitely.”
“Lastly, he’d like you to choose Snowley’s wife for him personally.”
Lizzie’s stomach dropped along with her jaw. “Good Lord, has he learned nothing?”
“Clearly not. You’re to pick a young lady with as much sense as you possess.” He pulled her against his chest, and she rested her head on his shoulder, relishing the comfort of his full embrace.
“You realize, don’t you, that a young lady with sense will not wish to marry Snowley. His most redeeming feature is the fact he’s Papa’s heir, which means all the chits with their eyes on a title will be after him.”
“I’ve every confidence in your ability.”
“That is more than I have.” A sigh escaped her lips. “I expected to at least have a child or two before someone accused me of being a matchmaking mama.”
He chuckled, the sound wicked and enticing. “We can get started on that whenever you like.”
She pulled away to look at him. “You also realize we’ll be returning to Town for the Season to oversee all this.”
“The thought had crossed my mind.”
“I’ll wager one thing hasn’t crossed your mind.” She held his gaze, letting her feeling of mischief sparkle in her eyes.
“What?”
“Once we’re married, to society I’ll become Lady Gustave Childress.”
“Thank God you haven’t seen the rest of the names on my baptismal certificate.” He winced but recovered in an instant. “But you’ll still call me Dysart.”
“Oh, no. Now you have to tell me. It can’t be worse than Snowley.”
“It can.” He brushed his lips over hers. “And I’m not about to tell you.”
She smiled. Broadly. “If I recall correctly, you still owe me a forfeit as a result of a ce
rtain game at a house party. I demand you tell me.”
“Just as soon as I’m finished kissing you. And since I never intend to stop, that will be a long, long time.” And with that, he set about proving his words.
To my sisters in the Secret Curtsey Society. You planted the seed for this entire series, but most especially this first book. Thank you for your support and inspiration.
Acknowledgments
Dear readers,
The first acknowledgment belongs to you. Thank you so much for reading Dysart and Lizzie’s story. I hope you enjoyed it.
To find out what I have coming up next, please subscribe to my newsletter. A sign-up link, along with other social media links, is available on my website: ashlynmacnamara.net.
Want to help an author out? Reviews, both the positive and the negative, are one way a reader can get involved. Please consider taking a few minutes to post your thoughts on this book.
And now I hope you’ll bear with me while I send out a few thank-yous.
As always, to my wonderful agent, Sara Megibow for being there and believing. To my amazing editor Junessa Viloria for the same.
To Caryl, Lizzie, Clemence, Carina, Matan, and Paula, thank you for putting up with my kvetching and for nagging me to keep going. To Caryl and Lizzie, especially for yelling at me to keep writing.
To Secret Curtsey Society and the Lalala Sisterhood for their moral support.
To my husband and daughters for putting up with the amount of time I spend living in my own little dreamworld.
Until next time!
Cheers!
Ashlyn Macnamara
xoxoxo
BY ASHLYN MACNAMARA
The Duke-Defying Daughters Trilogy
To Lure a Proper Lady
The Eton Boys Trilogy
What a Lady Craves
What a Lady Demands
What a Lady Requires
A Most Series
A Most Scandalous Proposal
A Most Devilish Rogue
PHOTO: NICOLE MORISCO
ASHLYN MACNAMARA is the author of What a Lady Requires, What a Lady Demands, What a Lady Craves, A Most Devilish Rogue, and A Most Scandalous Proposal. She lives in the wilds of suburbia outside of Montreal with her husband and two teenage daughters. When not writing, she looks for other excuses to neglect the housework, among them knitting, reading, and wasting time on the Internet in the guise of doing research.
ashlynmacnamara.net
Facebook.com/AuthorAshlynMacnamara
@ashlyn_mac
The Editor’s Corner
March into romance this month with Loveswept—snuggle up with your e-reader and our new books to escape the chill of those cold winter nights.
Who doesn’t love naked men? In Christi Barth’s Risking It All, friends bonded by tragedy fight for their future with strong and sassy women. In New York Times bestselling author Tracy Wolff’s Lovegame, a damaged starlet bares her soul—and falls for the one man who cares enough to listen. Speaking of games, New York Times bestselling author Violet Duke kicks off her sizzling-hot new Fourth Down series with a friends-to-lovers romance between a no-strings-attached sports analyst and the hottest damn tomboy he’s ever met in Jackson’s Trust. As Sawyer Bennett’s New York Times bestselling Cold Fury series continues with Hawke, the league’s most notorious party animal gets blindsided by the one that got away. The world of extreme sports just got a little steamier in Zoe Dawson’s Ramping Up. Second chances are sweeter than ever for a reformed bully who’s more than just a jock in Charlotte Stein’s next installment of the steamy Dark Obsession series, Never Sweeter. And Shana Gray’s provocative new novel features a resilient fighter going round for tantalizing round with the one that got away in After the Hurt.
For history fans, the Highland Knights series continues with a tight-knit band of Scottish mercenaries in USA Today bestselling author Jennifer Haymore’s Highland Awakening. Don’t miss the first book in USA Today bestselling author Ashlyn Macnamara’s charming new regency romance trilogy, To Lure a Proper Lady.
And for those contemporary romance fans, there’s a new voice in romance you won’t want to miss—A. M. Madden—who cleans up the city streets in the first book in her new True Heroes series, Stone Walls, featuring hot alpha men on the NYPD force. New York Times bestselling author Marquita Valentine ratchets up the tension as new beginnings lead to undeniable passion in After We Fall. And in Resist, a sizzling novel from New York Times bestselling author Missy Johnson, a young journalist goes undercover in a world of desire.
I’m sad to say it’s over…but it’s not over over, as there is a bouquet of beautiful romances awaiting you in April!
Until next month—Happy Romance!
Gina Wachtel
Associate Publisher
Read on for a sneak peek of the next book in the Duke-Defying Daughters series
To Tame a Wild Lady
by Ashlyn Macnamara
Coming soon from Loveswept
Chapter 1
SHERRINGTON MANOR, SUFFOLK, AUGUST 1822
All things considered, the morning’s ride had been a very bad idea.
Lady Caroline Wilde, the second daughter of the Duke of Sherrington, reined in her mare and peered at the waterlogged landscape. The rain falling in a steady gray curtain over the rolling fields posed little more than a nuisance, if a cold one. But if Caro wished to ride to hounds with the most prestigious hunt in England, she couldn’t let a small thing like inclement weather stop her.
In point of fact, her gender posed a far greater obstacle, but she might even overcome that barrier if she could prove herself worthy.
Today, however, her troubles assumed a much different form—perhaps five feet and six stone of grubby boy.
“Hang it all, where is that child?”
Her only reply was the steady drumming of rain. The path at her mare’s feet was fast becoming a river of mud. She’d have to take care on her way back to the stables, but first she must find her quarry.
The task shouldn’t be difficult since the little imp had commandeered a mount of his own when he’d decided to trail after her. A quick survey of her surroundings proved that notion wrong. Not a single trace of another horse or rider presented itself.
Cold droplets dripped from the brim of her hat to soak through her jacket and shirt. Boudicca snorted and pawed the ground. Caro patted the mare. “Ho there. I’ll get you back to the stables just as soon as I can.”
The wet slap of hooves against packed earth cut through the rain’s constant beat. Behind her—the wrong direction—coming closer.
With a press of her thigh, she turned Boudicca. Saddle empty, another horse pounded up the path toward the stables, shoving past in a spatter of mud. Caro sucked in a breath and wheeled her mount once more.
Thrown. The boy had been thrown, but where?
She spurred Boudicca away from home and back along the trail that led into the woods. She trotted through the trees, scanning constantly for a sign. Nothing. Nothing but branches and bushes and rain and mud.
Soon she emerged onto cultivated land that belonged to the estate, bounded on one side by the road to London. Good heavens, had the lad taken it into his head to run off? But that made no sense. Since his arrival at Sherrington Manor at the end of the school term, he’d spent every waking moment in the stables dogging Caro.
Begging for riding lessons.
“I want t’ jump them big hedges the way you do,” he’d told her on more than one occasion. Of course he wanted to jump. At eleven, he possessed more bollocks than brains.
“You have to develop a steady seat and strong legs first,” she’d replied. “Not to mention your confidence. A horse can tell when you’re scared.”
That had brought his back up. “Ain’t no one can call me scared,” he’d blustered, showing all the bravado of his father, the former Bow Street Runner who had married Caro’s sister.
Jumps and enough mule-headedness to try it alone. Right. But beyo
nd the low wall lining the road, there were no hedges on this side of the estate. Only fields, and the barley crop that had already been harvested, leaving the land bare but for a low stubble.
“Gus!” The wind tore her cry from her lips.
No answer, but she hardly expected one.
A few hundred yards ahead ran an irrigation ditch, churning with foamy, brown water. Her heart pounded harder. That, too, might provide an obstacle, not high like a hedge, but wide enough.
She dug her heels into Boudicca’s sides. There. In the next instant, she saw him, no more than a pile of muddy clothes on the opposite side of the ditch. And that pile lay as still as stone.
Damnation.
At the edge of the water, she reined in Boudicca, not about to attempt the leap on uncertain footing. The mare’s hooves slid to a halt in the mud. Caro swung from the saddle and stared at the rising flood. Nothing for it but to venture across if she wanted to see to Gus’s injuries.
With the first step, the bottom grabbed greedily at her booted foot. She yanked herself free, but the wild current snatched at her, its grip surprisingly strong. In the next instant, cold water closed over her head and stole her breath. With a splash, she righted herself, shivering as her breeches clung to her thighs and her hair came unpinned to flop into her eyes in a sheet of filthy muck.
She flipped the offending tresses from her face. Her hat bobbed on the crest of the torrent out of reach. She gritted her teeth and waded across to the boy. “Gus?”
Even this close, his inert form gave no response. A rapid examination showed no blood, no limbs bent at odd angles. Only an eerie stillness hovering about him that seemed to muffle the rain and the rushing of the ditch. Such silence had no business with an active eleven-year-old.
Gently she rolled him over. His face was chalk white, his lips tinged with blue.
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