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A Marquess, A Miss And A Mystery
ANNIE BURROWS
A staged seduction… …to solve a murder mystery! After one disastrous season Miss Horatia Carmichael avoids the ton—her mind and her tongue are too unfashionably opinionated for her to land a husband! But to find her brother’s killer she must join forces with incorrigible rake Lord Devizes and allow the Marquess to pretend to seduce her for all to see! Horatia knows it’s not real—she’s a plain spinster after all—but as danger grows so does their desire…
A staged seduction...
...to solve a murder mystery!
After one disastrous season, Miss Horatia Carmichael avoids the ton—her mind and tongue are too unfashionably opinionated to land a husband. But to find her brother’s killer, she must join forces with incorrigible rake Lord Devizes and allow the marquess to pretend to seduce her for all to see! Horatia knows it’s not real—she’s a plain spinster after all—but as danger grows, so does their desire...
ANNIE BURROWS has been writing Regency romances for Mills & Boon since 2007. Her books have charmed readers worldwide, having been translated into nineteen different languages, and some have gone on to win the coveted Reviewers’ Choice award from CataRomance. For more information, or to contact the author, please visit annie-burrows.co.uk (http://www.annie-burrows.co.uk), or you can find her on Facebook at facebook.com/AnnieBurrowsUK (http://www.facebook.com/AnnieBurrowsUK).
Also by Annie Burrows (#u14f5cf59-8150-5d25-b52d-73449fe2a343)
A Mistress for Major Bartlett
The Captain’s Christmas Bride
In Bed with the Duke
Once Upon a Regency Christmas
The Debutante’s Daring Proposal
A Duke in Need of a Wife
Brides for Bachelors miniseries
The Major Meets His Match
The Marquess Tames His Bride
The Captain Claims His Lady
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).
A Marquess, a Miss and a Mystery
Annie Burrows
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-08922-7
A MARQUESS, A MISS AND A MYSTERY
© 2019 Annie Burrows
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)
Note to Readers (#u14f5cf59-8150-5d25-b52d-73449fe2a343)
This ebook contains the following accessibility features which, if supported by your device, can be accessed via your ereader/accessibility settings:
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To Holly Rose,
who was coming into being along with this book.
Contents
Cover (#u3b9b371f-09b9-58d6-877d-a4ea4ac8be54)
Back Cover Text (#u66e72e94-7045-505a-9581-f545f4838e04)
About the Author (#u8995c9cb-b1a9-5802-973f-30eb4a0fc238)
Booklist (#u7362423f-0a0e-5171-9f9b-59cf5b1ab892)
Title Page (#u28adfabc-9760-5240-9837-e62b02f733db)
Copyright (#u1f9237e7-2e06-5a5d-b124-76eb5cd2e0ba)
Note to Readers
Dedication (#u0c0225b2-1eb9-540f-a7ac-4e23ffd5f89e)
Chapter One (#u6bd23b28-e6a2-5559-90b3-0a10c305b8fe)
Chapter Two (#ue8465aee-33b1-506e-8c39-a8a87fdecc35)
Chapter Three (#u97f82384-0ce2-5935-8679-f807a1c88ee9)
Chapter Four (#u0dc02e6b-64f0-586c-a5cc-d60c891ff9e3)
Chapter Five (#uc7e6780d-fe4e-5715-8126-c6a173fc6a2f)
Chapter Six (#u3d00b8ae-b6b1-5674-8665-4abc34774d44)
Chapter Seven (#u5b6b258b-1a9d-58b9-8c60-9862d36d1881)
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)
Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#u14f5cf59-8150-5d25-b52d-73449fe2a343)
There was nothing for it. Horatia Carmichael was going to have to do something drastic.
She peered round at the congregation, who were gathering their prayer books and Bibles together as the Duke of Theakstone’s elderly chaplain mumbled the service to a close, and swallowed. The Duke’s private chapel was awash with lords and ladies. She didn’t think anyone below the rank of viscount had been invited to stay at Theakstone Court for the week preceding his wedding. Apart from her. Which made her feel a bit like Cinderella must have done at that ball to pick a bride for Prince Charming, or whatever his name was. She’d never paid all that much attention to fairy tales. They were always full of pretty people getting unlikely rewards simply for being pretty. Or titled. She’d have been far more impressed if, for once, cleverness had been the virtue that won the prize.
But anyway, even though Cinderella was undoubtedly pretty, she must have felt completely out of her depth walking into a castle packed with titled people. Just as Horatia did, right this minute.
But then desperate times called for desperate measures. Two months it had been since Herbert’s murder. Two months during which she’d waited, with mounting impatience, for the Marquess of Devizes to come and offer his condolences, so that she could pass on the information which could prove vital to tracing her brother’s killer.
But the...the... She wrestled with a suitable word to describe the character of the man who’d been her brother’s best friend and colleague in his clandestine work...and could think of nothing polite enough to voice, not even in her mind, while in a chapel.
But anyway, the point was the...the...she had it! The puffed-up popinjay hadn’t come anywhere near her. And, of course, she hadn’t been able to simply go to him. A lady could not just walk up to the door of a single man’s residence and gain admittance, not without drawing attention to herself. Especially not a single man with the kind of reputation he had. He was the kind of man who could persuade just about any woman into his bed with just one slow smile. And so he did.
Nor would Lord Devizes have welcomed her visit, not even when he heard what she had to tell him. Marching up to his front door in broad daylight, or at any other time, would have drawn the attention of the very people they most needed to outwit. They would have put two and two together and that would have been that.
Which meant she’d had to find some way to approach him that wouldn’t arouse suspicion.
The trouble was, since she was in mourning, she couldn’t attend any of the balls or parties where she might have simply walked up to him. Especially since they weren’t the kinds of events she’d gone to very often, even before Herbert’s death. That would have raised as many eyebrows as if she’d gone to one of the gambling hells she knew he attended, or walked into a cock fight, or a coal-heaver’s tavern, or any of the other disreputable places he’d gone with Herbert in pursuit of information. Or so Herbert had maintained. Though she hadn’t forgotten he’d gone to such places even before he’d started looking for the group of people he’d told her were trying to drum up support for the exiled French emperor, Bonaparte.
It was a good job the Marquess’s half-brother, the Duke of Theakstone, had suddenly decided to get married, or heaven knew what stratagems she might have been obliged to adopt. Fortunately, a friend of hers, Lady Elizabeth Grey, had an invitation to the wedding, so all Horatia had had to do was persuade her to bring her along in the guise of a companion. She’d assumed that once here, while everyone was wandering around the grounds, or taking tea, she was bound to find an opportunity for sidling up to Lord Devizes and passing on her translation of the coded letter Herbert had given her, to decipher, the very night he’d been murdered.
But, drat the man, even here she hadn’t been able to get near him. There were too many other females fluttering round him, like so many brainless moths dashing themselves against a glittering lantern. Or pigeons, perhaps. Preening themselves and cooing up at him. Well, whatever type of brainless creatures they resembled, at any given time, he always behaved like a...pasha, surrounded by an adoring harem. As though feminine adulation was no more than his due. He lapped it all up, doling out that lopsided smile of his like a kind of reward to any that particularly amused him, though his lazy-lidded eyes made him look as though he was on the verge of laughing all the time. As though life was one huge joke.
Which made her want to wring his neck. Or kick him in the shins. Or something equally violent, because while he was lounging about, flirting with every female in the place under fifty, the trail that might have led straight to Herbert’s killer was getting colder and colder.
To her left, the friend who’d played fairy godmother to her Cinderella was getting to her feet. Which meant that she would have to do the same. And then follow meekly back to the main part of the house for refreshments. And it was no use telling herself she could approach him over nuncheon, because it was far more likely that she’d feel so out of place that instead of confronting Herbert’s friend, she’d retire to a corner where she’d perch like a little black crow and watch the gaudier females flock round Lord Devizes.
It was now or never. Pushing her glasses back up to the bridge of her nose, she got to her feet and shuffled to the end of the pew, then pulled open the strings of her reticule and took out a handkerchief. Behind her, Lady Elizabeth’s mother, the Dowager Marchioness of Tewkesbury, breathed in sharply though her nostrils. Something she was wont to do whenever Horatia crossed her line of sight. The Dowager made no secret of the fact that she disapproved of her daughter becoming so friendly with a mere Miss. In fact, if it wasn’t for the fact that mother and daughter were barely speaking to each other at the moment, she suspected she would have forbidden Lady Elizabeth from bringing her along.
However, she was here. And Lord Devizes would be sauntering past the end of her pew any second now.
She blew her nose, then thrust her handkerchief back into her reticule, her heart thundering. It was too much to hope he might pause and bid her good morning. He’d had ample opportunity to do so any number of times since his arrival at Theakstone Court. But over and over again, he’d looked right through her. As if she was beneath his notice. As if he didn’t recognise her.
Though why should he? Though Herbert had introduced them, during her one and only Season, while he’d still been trying to persuade her that he could make her ‘fashionable’, Lord Devizes had clearly been highly unimpressed by his friend’s dumpy, dowdy little sister. He’d danced with her just the once. And that clearly only as a courtesy to his friend. Lord Devizes had barely spoken to her during that dance. Had never subjected her to an iota of the charm for which he was so famed, let alone actually progressed to flirting with her.
But never mind that now. This wasn’t the time to indulge in ancient resentment. Especially since he’d treated her no worse than any other of the so-called gentlemen who’d been persuaded to take pity on such a frumpy little wallflower. He was within three yards. A couple more steps and she’d be able to reach out her hand and tug at his sleeve.
Like a beggar, seeking alms.
So, no, she wouldn’t do that. She had to make their contact look accidental, or she’d be drawing attention to her desperate need to speak to him. Which she must not do.
And so, as he drew level with her, she fumbled her Bible off the pew and tossed it at his feet, hoping it would look as though she’d dropped it.
He stopped. Looked at the Bible lying in his path. Looked at her. Placed one hand on his hip and raised one corner of his mouth into a...a cynical sort of sneer.
