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Miss Lottie's Christmas Protector
Sophia James
A Christmas mission… …with the scarred and brooding gentleman! Part of Secrets of a Victorian Household: Working in her family’s charity foundation for destitute women, caring but impulsive Miss Lottie Fairclough is desperately trying to find a missing woman. She’s roped in family acquaintance Mr Jasper King to help her, equally impressed and annoyed when he rescues her from perilous danger! As she gets to know the injured entrepreneur, it seems he needs her just as much…
A Christmas mission…
…with the scarred and brooding gentleman!
Part of Secrets of a Victorian Household. Working in her family’s charity foundation for destitute women, caring but impulsive Miss Lottie Fairclough is desperately trying to find a missing woman. She’s roped in family acquaintance Mr. Jasper King to help her, having been equally impressed and annoyed when he rescued her from perilous danger. As she gets to know the injured entrepreneur, it seems he needs her just as much…
SOPHIA JAMES lives in Chelsea Bay, on Auckland New Zealand’s North Shore, with her husband who is an artist. She has a degree in English and History from Auckland University and believes her love of writing was formed by reading Georgette Heyer in the holidays at her grandmother’s house. Sophia enjoys getting feedback at facebook.com/sophiajamesauthor (http://www.facebook.com/sophiajamesauthor).
Also by Sophia James (#u388d3239-b0ee-5698-8db9-a1a731d03b74)
Gentlemen of Honour miniseries
A Night of Secret Surrender
A Proposition for the Comte
The Cinderella Countess
Secrets of a Victorian Household collection
Miss Lottie’s Christmas Protector by Sophia James
And look out for the next books
Miss Amelia’s Mistletoe Marquess by Jenni Fletcher
Mr Fairclough’s Inherited Bride by Georgie Lee
Lilian and the Irresistible Duke by Virginia Heath
Coming soon
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).
Miss Lottie’s Christmas Protector
Sophia James
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-08950-0
MISS LOTTIE’S CHRISTMAS PROTECTOR
© 2019 Harlequin Books S.A.
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 (#u388d3239-b0ee-5698-8db9-a1a731d03b74)
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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Thank you Jenni Fletcher, Georgie Lee
and Virginia Heath, for making this series such an easy
and fun one to write together. You were all generous
with your replies and accommodating of any changes.
Contents
Cover (#u5bfdb08b-66ef-5eec-85b2-1e993be239e3)
Back Cover Text (#u801b750e-74ec-5f86-8d0b-5adfb3d09567)
About the Author (#u0e5a29ea-d0dd-5f69-b978-572a470131e7)
Booklist (#ue22112cd-51a2-5c71-92f0-7c65a199d1ba)
Title Page (#u459b98e4-1085-5ae2-ab52-aede8c6e84c4)
Copyright (#u4d302018-bb63-5a30-8d29-3b20507892dc)
Note to Readers
Dedication (#u6f288c7f-ee9c-5164-afa6-8eb6f702c69f)
Prologue (#u565c280e-71b4-53cd-8c80-948dfae817e0)
Chapter One (#u921adf62-694f-5a37-b1b3-6e4c40f34376)
Chapter Two (#u66c23104-317a-5efd-a3f8-698977808100)
Chapter Three (#u346a2ca5-cd75-5add-b664-b0604c50098f)
Chapter Four (#ua6f90775-851f-502d-8348-e89acbd1e145)
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)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue (#u388d3239-b0ee-5698-8db9-a1a731d03b74)
In the shadow of Westminster Abbey lay an area known as the Irish Rookery—a place of narrow streets, rundown buildings and hopelessness.
This area, once a sanctuary offered to debtors and criminals by the monks from the abbey, was by 1842 the haunt of the displaced Irish, who lived in a festering labyrinth of dark and impenetrable streets full of desperation and vice.
However, social philanthropy and charity-based movements were on the rise in Victorian England, as Christian duty encouraged acts to save the souls of those mired in poverty.
The Fairclough Foundation was one such organisation and it lay in Howick Place, just on the edge of Old Pye Street, the Perkins Rents, Great Peter’s Road and St Anne’s Street—home to some of the worst slums in all of London.
Chapter One (#u388d3239-b0ee-5698-8db9-a1a731d03b74)
Late November 1842—Westminster, London
Gilbert Griffiths, a man who was scared of his own shadow, had offered for her sister.
These words echoed through Lottie in sheer horror and growing apprehension. If Amelia accepted the overzealous and pedantic curate as a husband she would shrivel, piece by little piece, until nothing of joy and hope were left.
Charlotte Lilian Alexandra Fairclough could see the same guarded truth in Millie’s eyes and she shook her head hard, unleashing wild brown curls in the process.
‘You cannot love him, Millie? He is fussy and boring and impossible.’
Amelia smiled in the way that was purely her own, dutiful yet strained, a happy expression plastered steadfastly over conflict. ‘He has a modest income as well as a small property and would be able to keep the wolf from our door. Did you think of that?’
‘So you would sacrifice yourself for the greater good? Your life? Your for ever? There has to be a time when your selflessness has a limit, Millie. This is that time. I cannot let you do it. Not for me or for Mama.’
Her sister dug her heels in further. ‘You cannot stop me, Lottie, and if I wait much longer we will all be thrown out of our house into penury. If that happens, you would be begging for me to marry him.’
‘I never would. We can sell the furniture and go north. There must be enough to start elsewhere if we are frugal and besides we have…skills.’
‘What skills?’
‘I can sew. You can do bookkeeping and Mama can manage the rest. If we are lucky, someone far better might come along and offer for one of us and then…’ She petered out. No eligible suitor had presented themselves in years. It was a groundless hope.
‘And what of the vulnerable and desperate women in the Rookery who depend upon us here at the Fairclough Foundation? What would happen to them should I simply be selfish and refuse an offer of marriage that is not completely repulsive to me?’
‘If it isn’t, then it should be.’ Lottie backtracked when she saw her sister’s hurt and understood her worry about those they helped. ‘Well, at least promise me that you will wait until we have a letter from Silas, telling us of all the riches he has made in America.’
The mention of their brother’s absence brought a bruising sadness to Amelia’s green eyes.
‘He is lost, Lottie. I cannot feel him.’
As twins Amelia and Silas had always been close, so close that Lottie had felt the odd one out in the family, the twins’ sense of knowing where and how the other was was the bane of her early childhood. They had won every game of marbles, and hoop and stick, and hide-and-go-seek, the language they’d invented between them shutting her out. Often she had come across them whispering secrets and the feeling of being alone and unwanted had soon led her into trouble.
Charlotte Fairclough, the rebellious, opinionated and impulsive younger sister. The one who did not quite fit into the family structure of good deeds, fine thoughts and parsimonious self-sacrificing. Mama and Papa, Millie and Silas. In the pairings around her Lottie had had difficulty finding her place.
‘I think Silas is on his way home to England even as we speak. I think he wants to surprise us.’ She tried to place assurance into her words though at this moment she was feeling far from such faith.
‘I think you have an imagination that is over-fertile and impossibly optimistic, Lottie, but then I suppose you always did.’
Mama chose that moment to bundle into the room, her arms full of fabric and her dark wavy hair coming a little loose from the pins that held up the thickness of it. ‘I have just found this in one of the trunks your father brought from his family house years ago. I had forgotten about it completely, but it shall be perfect for us to make gowns with for Lady Alexandra’s party in a fortnight.’ Her eyes were wide with delight and Lottie thought for the thousandth time how beautiful her mother was even at the grand old age of forty-five.
But then Lottie’s heart fell. Lady Alexandra Malverly was her father’s cousin and both the daughter of a duke and the wife of a viscount. Many of the guests at the Christmas party would be well off and odious and they would also have a keen sense of the Fairclough family’s lower social standing.
Likely sensing the disenchantment in her daughters, her mother carried on.
‘I know you are not as thrilled about the invitation as I am, but it is important for us to make an effort, for who knows which handsome unmarried man might make an appearance this year? We could definitely do with the hope of it.’
Millie blushed and Lottie frowned.
‘I know you do not particularly enjoy venturing to see Alexandra, but she has always been kind to me and I like her company. Besides, it is only for a few weeks and the celebration of the Christmas season will lighten things up.’
