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Regency Surrender: Sinful Conquests: The Many Sins of Cris de Feaux / The Unexpected Marriage of Gabriel Stone
Louise Allen
Secrets, sins, and an affair to remember! The Many Sins of Cris de Feaux by Louise Allen When the intrepid Tamsyn Perowne saves his life off the Devonshire coast, Crispin de Feaux is unable to tear himself away… But Tamsyn would never make an appropriate bride. Yet, for the first time, Cris is tempted to ignore his duty, and claim Tamsyn as his own! The Unexpected Marriage of Gabriel Stone by Louise Allen Gabriel Stone, Earl of Edenbridge, might have a rakish reputation, but he’s also a gentleman—of sorts. So when he learns Caroline Holt is trying to help her brother he’s willing to help her, but is shocked when his mission takes him somewhere he never thought he’d end up – down the aisle!
About the Author
LOUISE ALLEN loves immersing herself in history. She finds landscapes and places evoke the past powerfully. Venice, Burgundy and the Greek islands are favourite destinations. Louise lives on the Norfolk coast and spends her spare time gardening, researching family history or travelling in search of inspiration. Visit her at www.louiseallenregency.co.uk (http://www.louiseallenregency.co.uk), @LouiseRegency and www.janeaustenslondon.com (http://www.janeaustenslondon.com).
Regency Surrender: Sinful Conquests
The Many Sins of Cris de Feaux
Louise Allen
The Unexpected Marriage of Gabriel Stone
Louise Allen
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-08571-7
REGENCY SURRENDER: SINFUL CONQUESTS
The Many Sins of Cris de Feaux © 2016 Melanie Hilton The Unexpected Marriage of Gabriel Stone © 2016 Melanie Hilton
Published in Great Britain 2019
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, 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 publisher.
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www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Table of Contents
Cover (#u6d118d3d-e8c2-5040-914b-75697b93096d)
About the Author (#u604d00fe-497a-5b06-9cd0-b4b334c87b39)
Title Page (#u4ce82f32-259c-5082-aa22-da91fcdcb1fa)
Copyright (#u6d118d3d-e8c2-5040-914b-75697b93096d)
The Many Sins of Cris de Feaux (#u400d9ad7-71cd-5f05-996b-18fa879f95d9)
Back Cover Text (#u5f55f331-17cb-5793-8b05-e8459f311128)
Dedication (#u1afea122-ccbd-551e-aa1f-dcf6c90cdd6d)
Chapter One (#u605929a5-3b89-5183-88c1-7353b3f5bb05)
Chapter Two (#ucd453fe9-0574-5073-80a5-a2ada7611eb1)
Chapter Three (#u9b7351d2-cd7d-5a60-9925-df45f01babf1)
Chapter Four (#ucb93cf62-10bd-566b-8d3b-f746efa76ae5)
Chapter Five (#u0e75126c-7766-5062-b0c2-39712110ee8e)
Chapter Six (#ub783491f-9216-57c8-b8da-54a555943c3a)
Chapter Seven (#u47018ec0-1089-512c-95b6-35d89c28daa7)
Chapter Eight (#u087026a9-b1fd-59bf-845d-a8c5586628c8)
Chapter Nine (#uc3059598-77a3-5692-8731-9124c9541124)
Chapter Ten (#ua1e78c42-9bb3-50ac-b947-f540fc46434f)
Chapter Eleven (#u93f71d17-7df3-529a-8238-d9ae25b40dcf)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
The Unexpected Marriage of Gabriel Stone (#litres_trial_promo)
Dedication (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
The Many Sins of Cris de Feaux (#ufdd044b4-9d96-5e36-ab74-8b6a5835b7e9)
Louise Allen
Secrets, sins and a scandalous affair
Crispin de Feaux, Marquess of Avenmore, has always done his duty and knows the time has come to find a suitable wife. But when the intrepid Tamsyn Perowne saves his life off the Devonshire coast, Cris is unable to tear himself away...
The widow of a notorious smuggler, Tamsyn would never make an appropriate bride. And Cris has secrets that could tear them apart before they’ve even begun! Yet, for the first time, Cris is tempted to ignore his duty and claim Tamsyn as his own!
For the Quayistas, in memory of a verycheerful week’s research.
Chapter One (#ufdd044b4-9d96-5e36-ab74-8b6a5835b7e9)
Cris de Feaux was drowning. And he was angry. The realisation of both came with the slap of a wave of icy salt water in the face and he shook it out of his eyes, cursing, while he came to terms with the fact that he had swum out from the little cove without thinking, without stopping to do anything but shed his clothes on the rocks and plunge into the breakers.
It had felt good to cut through the surf out into deep water, to push his body hard while his mind became mercifully blank of anything except the co-ordination of arms and legs, the stretch of muscles, the power of a kick. It had felt good, for once in his life, not to consider consequences, not to plan with care and forethought. And now that indulgence was going to kill him.
Was that what he had wanted? Eyes wide with shock, Cris went under, into a watery blue-green world, and kicked up to the surface, spitting and furious. He had fallen in love, unsuitably, impossibly, against all sense and honour. He knew it could never be, he had walked away before any more damage could be done and now his aimless wanderings across England had brought him here, to the edge of North Devon and the ocean.
Which was about to kill him, unless he was very lucky indeed. No, he did not want to die, however much he ached for what could never be, but he had swum too far, beyond the limits of his strength and what he could ask of his hard-exercised horseman’s body.
Use your head, he snarled at himself. You got yourself into this mess, now get yourself out of it. You will not give up. I am not killing myself for love.
He studied the shore between sore, salt-crusted lids. High cliffs, toothed at their base with jagged surf-lashed rocks, mocked him, dared him to try to land and be dashed to bloody death. But there were little coves between the headlands, he knew that. The current was carrying him south-west along the line of the shore so he would go with it, conserve his strength until he saw a point to aim at. Even in those few minutes as he hung in the water it had already carried him onwards, but he dared not risk just lying there, a passive piece of flotsam on the flow. It might be the first day of June, but the sea was strength-sappingly cold. He could hardly feel his legs, except for the white-hot pain of over-extended muscles and tendons. His shoulders and arms felt no better.
The wind shifted, slapping the water into his face from a different angle. There. Above the nearest towering headland, a drift of something against the blue of the perfect sky. Smoke. Which meant a house, a beach or perhaps a jetty. Swim. Ignore the pain. Dig down to every last ounce of strength and then find some more. Whatever it was that eventually killed the fifth Marquess of Avenmore, it was not going to be a hopeless love and a lack of guts.
Time passed, became simply a blur of pain and effort. He was conscious, somewhere in the back of what was left of his consciousness, that he could not stay afloat much longer. He lifted his head, a lead weight, and saw land, close. A beach, breakers. It seemed the scent of wood smoke and wild garlic cut through the salt for a second. Not a mirage.
But that is. In the moment of clarity he thought he saw a woman, waist-deep in the water, thick brown hair curling loose on her shoulders, calling to him, ‘Hold on!’
Mermaid... And then his body gave up, his legs sank, he went under and staggered as his feet hit sand. Somehow he found the strength to stand and the mermaid was coming towards him, her hands held out. The water dragged at him, forcing his legs to move with the frustrating slowness of dream running. The sand shifted beneath his feet as the undertow from the retreating wave sucked at him, but he struggled on. One step towards her, then another and, staggering, four more.
She reached for him as he took one more lurching step and stumbled into her, his hands grasping her shoulders for balance. Under his numb hands her skin was hot, burning, her eyes were brown, like her hair. There were freckles on her nose and her lips were parted.
This was not a mermaid. This was a real, naked, woman. This was life and he was alive. He bent his head and kissed her, her mouth hot, his hands shaking as he pulled her against him.
She kissed him back, unresisting. There was the taste of woman and life and hope through the cold and the taste of salt and the hammering of the blood where his hands rested against her throat.
The wave broke against his back, pushing them both over. She scrabbled free, got to her feet and reached for him, but he was on his feet now, some last reserve of strength coming with that kiss and with hope. He put his arm around her waist and lifted her against him.
‘I do not require holding up—you do,’ she protested as they gained the hard sand of the beach, but he held on, stumbling across the sand, over stones he could not feel against his numbed soles. Then, when they reached the grass, his legs finally gave way, and he went down again, hardly conscious that he was falling on to rough grass and into oblivion.
