by Heather Boyd
Table of Contents
Contents
The Trouble with Love
Copyright
Blurb
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
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Epilogue
Second Epilogue
Book List
Meet the Author
Whitney shook out the material again and waved a pair of paint-smeared black silk breeches under his nose. “Have you missed these, my lord?”
His lost breeches. He reached for them, but Whitney was quicker. She packed them away in her little box. “You cannot have them back now. They’ve come in quite handy.”
“You shrew,” he whispered in horror.
“If I was a shrew, I’d have already told your intended what you were doing the night before you met her,” she warned.
He looked away, feeling guilty and ashamed. The one night he’d been incautious of his honor in society was the one time he’d truly felt free. Having the woman turn out to be Whitney Crewe, cousin of an earl, an acquaintance of his intended bride, was a source of embarrassment to him. If he’d known her name, connections, he’d never have touched her. “Why haven’t you?”
Praise for The Trouble with Love
The Trouble With Love blends fanciful with emotional and begets exceptional. If nothing else, Whitney and Acton prove that life has a sense of humor and sometimes the heart is the last to know, what the head has already discovered. ~ Isha Coleman, I Love Romance.
Ms. Boyd has created two characters that cause the rest of their world to fade with their vibrancy and willingness to be passionate about life. ~ Dianne, Tome Tender.
…it’s the slow building type of romance with a sexual chemistry just waiting to boil over. The Trouble with Love is a great addition to this series and sees one more distinguished rogue find his own HEA. ~ JG Baldos, Deluged with Books Café
Heather Boyd
The Trouble with Love
Distinguished Rogues
Book 8
Heather-Boyd.com
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Copyright © 2017 by Heather Boyd
ISBN: 978-1-925239-28-7
First Published November 2017
Edited by Kelli Collins
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced nor used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for use of brief quotations in a book review.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used facetiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
The best way to stay in touch is to be part of Heather’s Readers List. Follow this link to receive new release alerts and more.
Distinguished Rogues Series Reading Order
Book 1: Chills (Jack and Constance)
Book 2: Broken (Giles and Lillian)
Book 3: Charity (Oscar and Agatha)
Book 4: An Accidental Affair (Merrick and Arabella)
Book 5: Keepsake (Kit and Miranda)
Book 6: An Improper Proposal (Martin and Iris)
Book 7: Reason to Wed (Richard and Esme)
Book 8: The Trouble with Love
Keeping a promise has never been harder!
Whitney Crewe has a dream for her life, and it does not include a properly boring marriage or remaining in England. Passionate by nature, she’s headed for an adventure abroad but has been temporarily lured into the countryside to paint an important family portrait. Unfortunately, a friend is set to marry the family’s nearest neighbor, Lord Acton, and he is someone Whitney has seen far too much of…with and without his breeches on. Their past must remain a mere memory, but ignoring him proves impossible when she understands the decisions he’s made to protect those he loves.
Lord Acton is keeping secrets from his friends, and particularly from his innocent bride-to-be. The first was losing his head over an intoxicating, veiled seductress one gloriously reckless evening. A man of his word, he has no choice but to keep his promise to wed, even after he discovers his seductress was his bride’s friend, eccentric heiress and artist, Whitney Crewe. The second secret, Whitney stumbles upon all on her own, but her anger swiftly becomes an offer of friendship and much-needed compassion. They have absolutely nothing in common, so why oh why would he risk his future getting to know Whitney when she’s opposed to everything he desires?
Dedication
This is for my dear friends Michelle, Donna, Crystal, Anne and Kelli. Thanks for holding my hand (virtually) when I needed support the most and for laughing along with me when it was almost too hard. Love you.
Prologue
March, 1814
London
Making merry didn’t come easily for Everett Dean. The Earl of Acton did his duty, even if the weight of responsibility threatened to choke him at times. He sipped champagne slowly, casting an admiring glance over the lovely ladies who glided past his spot in the avenue of tall birch trees as if he’d not a care in the world.
Those who’d come to enjoy the Fairmont Bachelors Ball on the grounds of the expansive Fairmont estate were having a marvelous time without his participation. He could probably ask any one of the ladies to dance with him, but he did not want to give rise to unreasonable expectations beyond this one night.
Tomorrow it would be whispered that he was finally surveying the marriage mart and that could not be avoided. Those rumors would be true, if a little late. Everett had already chosen his bride, so he was uncertain why he’d felt a keen need to come to this unholy revel alone.
When he’d left his home, he’d originally had no intention of directing his driver to this spectacle but here he was, watching other people enjoy themselves. His hosts were not considered good ton. Lord and Lady Fairmont were more than a little eccentric in their habits, and in the company they kept. Within the manor behind him had been gathered mystics and fortune-tellers, determined to predict his future in exchange for coin. He’d pressed through their number without partaking or being taken for a fool. Acton did not need a fortune-teller to determine what his future path would bring. His future was already determined.
He would take a bride within the next month and that was that.
Miss Alice Quartermane was a fine choice for him. She was not in attendance tonight; she was not out in society yet, and her parents wo
uld certainly have shielded her gentle soul from boisterous depravity such as this. He had negotiated the marriage contract with her father last year while riding to hounds at a friend’s estate, and he was looking forward to meeting Alice tomorrow in quieter surroundings at last.
Everett accepted another glass of champagne from a passing waiter and looked along the avenue of trees. He would not dance tonight out of respect for Alice, and would dissuade any damsel who might encourage him. Pretty women were in general a distraction from the serious business of being the head of a well-known and respected family. That was why he’d chosen the innocent Miss Alice Quartermane to be his wife. Her father knew his interests. They both agreed that Alice would be the perfect woman to become mistress of Warstone Manor, and his countess. It was the best possible arrangement for all concerned.
A flash of long bright red hair weaving through the trees ahead caught his eye. There were others following her, men and women making the most of the moonlit evening to dance gaily.
Everett was drawn toward them too, and smiling widely.
He’d lost his innocence to a redhead in Leeds at fifteen, been caught rutting with a russet-haired maid at eighteen, and after one final indignity—falling head over heels for a married countess—he wisely chose to keep his amours confined to fair-headed damsels ever since.
Miss Alice Quartermane was reputed to be blessed with very fair hair.
The redheaded woman was garbed as a gypsy—a prosperous lady, judging by the silk caressing her curves and the gold glittering on every finger under the torchlights as she weaved between the tree trunks. Her thumbs sparkled with gold bands too but her face was veiled, so all he could see were a pair of laughing, merry eyes.
But he felt her exuberant laughter as if she was stroking her jeweled fingers over his skin. She broke from the trees onto the clipped lawn and Everett followed. She lifted her skirts a little as she danced with careless abandon, revealing slender ankles and bare feet gliding upon the neatly trimmed lawns.
He drew closer, intrigued by the way she moved with unhindered sensuality. It was as if the darkness was her natural element, and she a flame in the midst of the chaos around her. She did not seem to care, or notice, that she was making a spectacle of herself.
He wasn’t the only person who admired this woman. She continued to draw a crowd of admirers, even among the fairer sex. People stared, smiled at her transparent energy, and made a game of trying to copy her movements with varying degrees of success.
Everett was utterly entranced, and found a spot to watch as the redhead suddenly grabbed a lady, swinging her into her wild dance. They laughed in giddy joy, and soon the entire crowd was swaying to a beat that Everett had never seen before at a ton event.
The energy was compelling, the sounds and movements drawing him ever closer to the mass of humanity. He found himself surrounded, touched by strangers as they spun about on their merry way.
The redhead paused in her mad flight right in front of him and looked him directly in the eye as she had no one else so far. He acknowledged her with a dip of his head, unsure of what else he should do. He had not meant to curb her dancing. He’d been enjoying watching her sensual movements too much to desire that, but he was glad she had stopped.
He did not recognize her in the half dark but wanted to know her.
She held out her hand to him, fingers wriggling in invitation. The gems winked and he stepped forward.
Redheads were his weakness, but he suddenly didn’t care one whit for caution or restraint or propriety. He took her bare fingers in his firmly. Her skin was soft and warm within his grasp and he didn’t want to let go.
She tugged, and he followed her away from the crowds and into the house where it was quieter.
Their fingers still entwined, the lady led him toward a drinks table without a word, hips gently swaying ahead of him. She requested punch from a footman as she lowered her gauze veil.
“Dancing is thirsty work,” she apologized in a husky tone between sips of her drink. “Why did you not join in and dance with us?”
He requested another beverage for the lady when she finished the first, trying to better see her face in the candlelight. She looked young, and very, very pretty to his eye. “How do you know I didn’t dance?”
Her pretty green eyes glowed with delight. “Because I was watching you watching everyone else at play since you arrived in the garden. You are too serious, sir. Did you not read your invitation? Guests were supposed to leave their cares at the door.”
“Life cannot be all fun and games.”
“I don’t see why not,” she insisted. “As long as you hold reasonable expectations, it does not have to be full of misery. A little fun never hurt anyone.”
“Is that so?”
The lady, having quenched her thirst, reset her veil over her face. “Indeed. Come with me.”
She caught his hand again and pulled him along in her wake and into a deserted long gallery. Holding his hand firmly, she studied the paintings of their hosts’ ancestors. “Look at this. You can tell just by looking at them that living life to the fullest extent was their goal. Don’t you want a similar happiness for your own life?”
Everett gave the paintings a second longer glance, noting the couple closest to him were surrounded by hens and other farmyard fowl. “It is widely acknowledged that the Fairmont family possess a great number of eccentrics.”
“I like eccentrics,” she told him. “In fact, I have become one already. I will never do what is expected of me by society no matter how many long noses, and disapproving looks, bear down upon me.”
His lips twitched in amusement. The woman had no idea of the trouble that attitude would cause her one day. “Already a rebel to propriety at your tender age.”
“I am older than I appear to you, sir,” she said, twirling a strand of red hair around one slender, bejeweled finger. “In my family, our looks change very slowly.”
“Lucky you,” he murmured. There was already streaks of gray in his hair at the temples and the odd strand at his crown. He felt time rushing past him—particularly so when he collected rents and saw how many men of his age had children old enough to work their farmland. But this woman had her whole life ahead of her. “Your hair has very distinct coloring.”
“I’m wearing a wig,” she confessed with a soft laugh.
It shocked him that she might really not be as she appeared tonight. He stretched out his hand and gathered a lock of her hair between his fingers. She felt real enough to him. “It’s a very convincing wig.”
Her brows were penciled, darkened with kohl, but he thought he detected a little bit of ginger underneath.
He lost his grip on her hair as the lady brushed her hair back over her shoulder. “Has anyone every told you that you are a very pretty fellow?”
Everett coughed in shock at the bold question. “Not to my face,” he said, feeling his cheeks heat with embarrassment.
“But you are,” she insisted. Her lips curved into a broad smile and she brushed her fingers across his cheek. She turned his face this way and that, studying him. “You have a face deserving serious consideration.”
Her fingers were so firm and warm against his skin that he was astonished to feel himself become aroused just by her touch. “I would like to see more of your face, too.”
The woman ignored his words as she traced each of his eyebrows, the shape of his nose, and again caressed his jawline, rasping her fingers against the grain of his new beard growth.
Her attention dropped to his lips, and he discovered he’d captured one between his teeth.
“Can I have you?” she asked.
He was flattered. A dalliance with the redhead wasn’t wise, given his plans for tomorrow, but with her fingers still caressing his skin, his reasons for resistance began to erode. What could it hurt, this one last night to taste temptation before he became a properly devoted husband? “For tonight, but no more than that.”
Her fingers slipp
ed around his face to trace the edge of his ear. “But I could spend many days and nights studying this face.” Her lips parted slightly.
She could not have more than this one night to know him, so he grabbed her hips firmly and tugged her close. “Only tonight.”
She stood inches under his height of six feet three, slender but utterly feminine in silk. Her body was so soft and warm as she pressed against him. She burrowed her nose against his neck and inhaled as her arms slipped under his coat. Her hungry moan shocked him because it matched the way he was feeling.
Everett had some idea of the layout of the Fairmont estate, so he propelled the woman into a nearby chamber before anyone came along to interrupt them and closed the door.
“What is your name?”
“My friends call me Trouble,” she whispered. “Undress for me.”
It bothered him only a moment that she did not ask for his name before he removed his coat and kicked off his shoes. “Not completely.”
She drew back, her eyes narrowing on his lower half. “Then please remove the clothing that is in the way of what I want to see.”