Praise for Jillian Hunter’s
Bridal Pleasures Series
The Duchess Diaries
“There is so much to love about this book. The witty dialogue and the fantastically paced writing, the characters who sparkle and come to life on every page . . . a romance tale at its finest.”
—Smexy Books Romance Reviews
“The reader will have a hard time putting it down.”
—Fresh Fiction
“Another completely captivating combination of wonderfully madcap plotting, wickedly humorous writing, and wildly hot passion.”
—Booklist
“Fast-paced, sexy, and hilarious. . . . Run, don’t walk, to get a copy.”
—Romantic Times
A Bride Unveiled
“Sizzling sexual chemistry and rapier wit . . . a thoroughly romantic literary treat.”
—Booklist
“Hunter draws the reader in with a compelling plot and engaging characters in this smoothly written tale of love lost and found.”
—Publishers Weekly
A Duke’s Temptation
“A sinfully sexy hero with a secret, a book-obsessed heroine in search of her own happy-ever-after ending, a delightfully clever plot that takes great fun in spoofing the literary world, and writing that sparkles with wicked wit and exquisite sensuality add up to an exceptionally entertaining read.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“With humor and charm, sensuality and wickedness, Hunter delights.”
—Romantic Times
“This is the first in what looks to be a very promising, and extremely seductive, new quartet. Few can resist a novel by Jillian Hunter!”
—Huntress Book Reviews
More Praise for the Novels
of Jillian Hunter
“One of the funniest, most delightful romances I’ve had the pleasure to read.”
—Teresa Medeiros
“An absolutely delightful tale that’s impossible to put down.”
—Booklist
“A sweet, romantic tale . . . full of humor, romance, and passion. Historical romance that is sure to please.”
—The Romance Readers Connection
“A lovely read.”
—Romance Reader at Heart
“Enchanting . . . a fabulous historical.”
—Midwest Book Review
“[It] bespells, beguiles, and bewitches. If romance, magic, great plots, and wonderful characters add spice to your reading life, don’t allow this one to escape.”
—Crescent Blues
“Romantic and sexy. . . . Read it—you’ll love it!”
—The Romance Reader
“Jillian Hunter’s ability to touch chords deep within readers’ hearts is what sets her apart and makes her and everything she writes a keeper.”
—Romantic Times
“Ms. Hunter pens unique, fascinating stories that draw the reader right in. Impossible to put down.”
—Rendezvous
“A master at wringing emotion from every page, Ms. Hunter explodes onto the scene with an extraordinary tale that combines brilliant writing with sizzling sexual tension.”
—The Speaking Tree
ALSO BY JILLIAN HUNTER
A Duke’s Temptation
A Bride Unveiled
The Duchess Diaries
* * *
A Boscastle Affairs Novel
* * *
A SIGNET SELECT BOOK
SIGNET SELECT
Published by the Penguin Group
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First published by Signet Select, an imprint of New American Library,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
ISBN: 978-1-101-60399-4
Copyright © Maria Hoag, 2013
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
SIGNET SELECT and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.
Contents
Praise
Also by
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
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
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Epilogue
Preview of The Countess Confessions
To my fabulous cousin Tracy.
I’m so happy we found each other after all these years.
I love you.
A woman who has led a flawless life is like a book filled with empty pages.
—Audrey Watson, celebrated nineteenth-century English courtesan
Chapter 1
1819
/> Southeast England
At first glance Miss Kate Walcott fancied that the shadow stretched out across the far garden wall was the estate’s gray tomcat waiting for a small creature to pass in the dark. It seemed to be hiding behind the branches of the sprawling birch tree in readiness to pounce. Kate shuffled her slippered feet through the grass, hoping to give the cat’s quarry a chance to escape.
“Go away,” she whispered at the leafy branches. “I don’t like to watch you catching things, or to hear you yowling for a mate. Cook feeds you so many table scraps that one day you’ll be caught by a dog. Why you behave so badly at night, I don’t understand. But I suppose on this estate, you aren’t the only one.”
Strange. Malvolio didn’t react to her voice. Maybe it wasn’t a cat at all. Maybe it was a badger. Whatever it was had been watching her since the moment she’d slipped from the manor house to meet her friend at the garden gates. Could one of the children be playing a prank on her? The young devils delighted in scaring a scream from their governess.
“Get off the wall,” she said again, staring uneasily at the gates.
Mr. Stanley Wilkes, who was the village apothecary’s assistant, and the young man she had an arrangement to meet, had not yet arrived. She grasped her ring of keys tightly in her palm. She counted Stanley as one in a dwindling population of villagers who defied convention to acknowledge Kate and her employer in public. Stanley treated her with respect and not the contempt she’d come to expect when she explained what she did for a living.
“Stanley?” she called uncertainly, even though she couldn’t see or hear him in the driveway that led to the gates. But that shadow upon the wall had stirred. And the sound of its movement indicated that it was much larger than a cat.
She wondered if something had prevented Stanley from meeting her. This was the third time he’d concocted a brew to ease the chest colds that often afflicted the two youngest children in Kate’s care. Stanley claimed it was a mercy that Kate hadn’t taken ill yet. She explained that she couldn’t afford the time to lie abed. Everyone depended on her. Moreover, Kate’s employer distrusted surgeons and would not allow one in the house.
But Kate and Stanley had not openly discussed her position. He seemed to understand that just because Kate had fallen on reduced circumstances and worked as a companion to a courtesan, as well as governess to her offspring, did not mean Kate practiced the world’s oldest profession herself. Often she feared it was a matter of time.
From the corner of her eye she glimpsed a long shadow on the grass. A shadow that appeared much longer and moved with more stealth than a cat or a child. Her heart missed several beats.
She listened to the night. She recognized the muted cries of male voices drifting from the stables on the edge of the estate. The stable boys and servants might be gambling or boxing again, which meant she’d be tending black eyes and bloody noses later on as well as two sick children. Splendid. There went any chance of sleep.
She stepped around the rose bower and called toward the stables, “Lovitt? Lovitt, if you and the others are fighting—”
She swung around, her ring of keys slipping to the grass. She heard footsteps, distant but definitely advancing. Lovitt was the manor house’s undergroom, who hoped to be promoted when the master returned. He was a cocksure young man, but she wouldn’t mind his company right now.
“Stanley!” she called in the direction of the gates. “Where are you?”
He didn’t answer. But all of a sudden the gates shuddered and groaned as if a demon were demanding entrance. She fell to the grass that bordered the path, searching frantically for the keys.
“Kate!” his wary voice called through the clanking echo of iron.
“Stanley, where are you?”
“I’m hiding beside the damned gates! You were supposed to leave them unlocked for me!”
“I’ve lost the keys here in the garden,” she answered in relief, glancing up from the lawn. She could see the pale glint of his hair. “I’ll only be a moment.”
“We don’t have a moment!” he cried. “You have to let me in now. A small crowd of drunks at the pub have decided to cause trouble for your mistress tonight.”
Kate turned her head, her spine prickling. It wasn’t her imagination. There had been a person hiding behind the birch branches that grew onto the garden wall. Was it one of the troublemakers from the village, or merely another of Madam’s would-be customers? Either way, he would not receive a warm welcome. It would have been helpful if she’d brought a lamp out to expose him.
It would have been even more helpful if her employer’s new protector had waited for the ink to dry on their contract before he rushed off to business in Southampton instead of leaving his concubine and her dependents unguarded in a backward hamlet where spitting on a Sunday was considered a mortal sin.
Then again, it would have been even better if Georgette had chosen a respectable means of support. Still, Kate was dedicated to her immoral mistress and devoted to her children. Georgette had redeemed Kate from ruin when society had branded her an outcast. If not for Georgette’s income, from her willingness to sleep with wealthy patrons, Kate would have landed in the poorhouse. The possibility still loomed in the future.
Still, at least in Georgette’s opinion, there was no need to worry. As Kate’s employer so often liked to misquote, “‘Hell hath no fury like a harlot scorned.’” Then she would continue, “We shall yet have our revenge, Kate, when my memoirs are published. We will become rich and retire in luxury. The children will attend the finest schools, and those who have attacked us on moral grounds will grovel at our feet.”
“And will we forgive them?” Kate would tease her. It was a game they played during lean times or low spirits—a game to motivate each other and reassert their independence from society.
“We shall have to review each gentleman on a case-by-case basis. After all, the world would be too boring without men to cause us woe.”
The metal ring gleamed at Kate’s foot; the keys lay tangled in a patch of clover. She reached down and froze in dead fear at the loud thump of something landing behind her.
A pleasantly deep voice whispered in her ear, “I’ve been waiting over a week to speak to you alone, my darling, and it seems I’m not a moment too late. You appear to have made as many enemies as you have admirers. May I come to your rescue, or will you come to mine?”
She rose slowly. She didn’t recognize the voice. “Who—”
A pair of strong arms closed around her waist and drew her back against a hard torso in a hold she doubted she could escape even if she regained the ability to move. “Kiss me before I silence that idiot at the gates and inform him that you’re not available to tryst tonight.”
Chapter 2
Sir Colin Boscastle had been away from England for thirteen years, pursuing the man he believed had murdered his father. He appreciated the irony that his search had brought him back to the first woman he had ever loved. It had always been his intention to make amends to Georgette for abandoning her. He hadn’t kept his promise, and so he should atone. He doubted she would appreciate his return, however, considering that Colin’s enemy and her protector were one and the same man, and that Colin meant to confront the man even if Georgette begged him to show mercy.
Then again, the woman Georgette had become might not care about her former lover. She didn’t appear to be overly concerned with the current one, either, or she wouldn’t be sneaking out for a secret assignation with yet another man while Mason Earling, her protector, was away on business.
It was quite unromantic, Colin thought, even if it rang of a certain poetic justice. A courtesan sneaking out for a rendezvous while her keeper was off reaping profits he’d made on a murdered man’s investments.
“Let me go right now,” she whispered, bending ineffectively over his arm. “I need those blessed keys, you bas—”
“Ssh. Temper, temper. Some things haven’t changed. Turn around. Do I look that different?�
��
She stiffened, refusing to budge. “All you drunken rascals look the same to me. You—” She broke off at the sound of running, shouting, a man cursing behind the garden wall.
“Rail at me all you like later,” Colin said, tightening his grasp. “Just be quiet for a moment. Your friend will have to come back another night. I’m not going to let you go. Look at me.”
She made a half turn, her face turned stubbornly to the side.
“That’s better. Now—”
She kicked the inside of his knee; the way she’d lowered her head made him think she’d intended to kick him in the nutmegs. He shouldn’t be surprised. Once, in the throes of their insatiable passion, Georgette had broken the bedpost to which he had tied her during their love play and then had fallen asleep. He couldn’t say it was a complete shock when the local blacksmith informed him upon his arrival a few days ago that Georgette was a widowed courtesan with three children and had recently become mistress to the lord of the manor.
“I know I’ve taken too long to make amends.” He pinned her wrists behind her back, satisfied by the warm stillness of her body. The keys slipped from her grasp. He caught the ring before it reached the grass. “You have every right to resent me.”
She tossed her head. The thick knot of tawny brown hair at her nape came unraveled. “I have every right to kill you,” she said, averting her face. “You must be mad, accusing me of trysts and then taking me captive. I don’t know what you want—well, I can guess, and I guarantee you aren’t getting it from me. Now, release me or I’ll call the dogs on you.”
He laughed softly. “Call the dogs. I’ve been nosing around this estate for four days and haven’t heard as much as a ‘bowwow.’ How times have changed. Perhaps, instead of your hostility, I should receive preferential treatment for playing such a large role in your success.”
“What role? Are you the most arrogant jackass I have ever met or simply an imbecile?”
His laughter died away. “You don’t remember me yet, do you? We’ve changed. Perhaps you’d recognize me in the daylight.” He grasped her chin in his hand to kiss her lightly on the lips. “If this doesn’t awaken your memory, I’ll be deeply insulted.”
The Mistress Memoirs Page 1