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Convenient Proposal To The Lady
Julia Justiss
‘Duty can also be pleasure, Lady Alyssa…’When politician Benedict Tawny set out to save Lady Alyssa from a nefarious plot, he never expected to find himself trapped in a compromising situation with the alluring lady! Now duty demands he propose…and claim her as his bride!Tainted by his illegitimacy, Ben knows he can’t give Alyssa the life of luxury she deserves. But if he can convince her to succumb to the undeniable heat between them, their convenient marriage might just lead to the love of a lifetime!
‘Duty can also be pleasure, Lady Alyssa...’
When politician Benedict Tawny set out to save Lady Alyssa from a nefarious plot, he never expected to find himself trapped in a compromising situation with the alluring lady! Now duty demands he propose...and claim her as his bride!
Tainted by his illegitimacy, Ben knows he can’t give Alyssa the life of luxury she deserves. But if he can convince her to succumb to the undeniable heat between them, their convenient marriage might just lead to the love of a lifetime!
Hadley’s Hellions
Four friends united by power, privilege and the daring pursuit of passion!
From being disreputable rogues at Oxford to becoming masters of the political game, Giles Hadley, David Tanner Smith, Christopher Lattimar and Benedict Tawny live by their own set of unconventional rules.
But as the struggle for power heats up so too do the lives of these daring friends. They face unexpected challenges to their long-held beliefs and rigid self-control when they meet four gorgeous independent women with defiant streaks of their own…
Read Giles Hadley’s story in
Forbidden Nights with the Viscount
Read David Tanner Smith’s story in
Stolen Encounters with the Duchess
Already available
Read Benedict Tawny’s story in
Convenient Proposal to the Lady
Available now!
And watch for the final Hadley’s Hellions story, coming soon!
Author Note (#uccf27540-6928-52ce-81ee-e602b51f1bb8)
For modern women it’s almost impossible to imagine the limited choices faced by women of the past. A well-born girl was expected to marry, ladies did not work and, like gentlemen, couldn’t indulge in anything as vulgar as earning money. So what do you do if producing art is what you were born for? Lady Alyssa struggles to fit into a world that neither interests her nor appreciates her talent. It will take an uncommon man to see the brilliance in this rough-hewn gem…
It’s also hard for our modern world, with its acceptance of out-of-wedlock births, to imagine the life-long stigma carried by a Regency-era individual born outside of marriage. Though well-born bastards, if recognised by their noble fathers, often did lead prosperous lives, they must always have felt a hunger to understand why, and a struggle to believe themselves equal to their peers.
Although Ben Tawny knows what he’s worked to achieve makes him exceptional, there are always mockers around to remind him that he wasn’t born a gentleman. When a quest to save a girl from his mother’s fate lands him in a marriage of convenience he must face all those demons—including a strong aversion to falling in love.
I hope you will enjoy Ben and Alyssa’s journey to love and fulfilment.
Convenient Proposal to the Lady
Julia Justiss
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
JULIA JUSTISS wrote her first ideas for Nancy Drew stories in her third-grade notebook, and has been writing ever since. After publishing poetry in college she turned to novels. Her Regency historical romances have won or been placed in contests by the Romance Writers of America, RT Book Reviews, National Readers’ Choice and the Daphne du Maurier Award. She lives with her husband in Texas. For news and contests visit juliajustiss.com (http://www.juliajustiss.com).
Books by Julia Justiss
Mills & Boon Historical Romance
Hadley’s Hellions
Forbidden Nights with the Viscount
Stolen Encounters with the Duchess
Convenient Proposal to the Lady
The Wellingfords
The Wedding Gamble
The Proper Wife
A Most Unconventional Match
Regency Candlelit Christmas
‘Christmas Wedding Wish’
From Waif to Gentleman’s Wife
Society’s Most Disreputable Gentleman
Ransleigh Rogues
The Rake to Ruin Her
The Rake to Redeem Her
The Rake to Rescue Her
The Rake to Reveal Her
Silk & Scandal
The Smuggler and the Society Bride
Visit the Author Profile page
at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk) for more titles.
To the Birding Brothertons of Daingerfield, TX, whose guide to local birds and enthusiasm in sharing their expertise on all things avian are the inspiration for my heroine Alyssa.
Contents
Cover (#u4bfa1ddb-c657-51d8-8337-8a3adea6d347)
Back Cover Text (#u17828c7d-aa98-5fd8-b123-de617d20eef7)
Introduction (#u38bf2fa9-c25b-54af-aa9e-cb9bcb000123)
Author Note (#u507dbfed-3480-5844-9343-d88a4651ecd0)
Title Page (#ud0bccfa4-f967-5262-b12f-1603a7d9a191)
About the Author (#ucf3238ac-fbf3-557d-bdb2-b5d802c50bfd)
Dedication (#uca17c207-545e-5912-ad49-d70c5a7da8e1)
Chapter One (#udc0baa38-049f-5167-814e-3dd295c7387a)
Chapter Two (#uabb6cdf8-7f69-5fb5-8414-9ad31a5c28b1)
Chapter Three (#u1f33baaa-a1b6-50b6-b74b-1f3843a55b70)
Chapter Four (#ue7f205c5-9f76-56d2-9875-611c73792544)
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)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#uccf27540-6928-52ce-81ee-e602b51f1bb8)
The things one does to soothe one’s conscience.
With that rueful thought, Benedict Tawny led his horse stealthily along the grassy verge of the drive curving through a pretty wood to Dornton Manor, early-morning October sunlight just beginning to dapple the few leaves overhead. A gust of wind tugged loose his hat and he jumped to catch it.
If his fellow Hellions could see him now! he thought with a grin, jamming the cap back on his head. Not that he was the delight of his tailor, but in his worn jacket, serviceable breeches and scuffed boots, he hardly looked like a respectable Member of Parliament, one of the leaders of the Reform movement and a rising force in government. Surprising how easily he’d fallen back into the role of intelligence-gatherer he’d performed for the army in India.
All to safeguard the virtue of a female he’d never even met.
But with the Parliamentary session over until Grey could convene a new one later in the year and the other Hellions out of London, he had time on his hands.
He might as well use it to perform a good deed.
A flicker of light in the woods up ahead caught his eye. Through the slender tree trunks, he could just make out the figure of a young female. Shifting his position to get a better view, he saw that she was short, her dark hair thrust up under a sadly out-of-date straw bonnet—and that her entire attention was focused on the sketch pad balanced on her knee.
Though the gown was as outdated as the bonnet, the cut and cloth were of good quality—the garment too unfashionable a cast-off to tempt a lady’s maid and too fine to be passed on to a housemaid—so she must be Quality. And only a lady of quality passionate about her art would be out sketching this early in the morning.
Petite, unfashionable, avid artist—the description fit to perfection the lady he sought. Delighted to have been handed the solution to the problem of how an unrelated male would find a way to speak alone with a gently bred virgin, Ben approached quietly, not wanting to alarm her.
But even as he reached the clearing where she sat on a felled log, she remained so absorbed in her drawing that she didn’t seem to notice him. Finally, clearing his throat loudly, he said, ‘Lady Alyssa Lambornne, I presume?’
Gasping, the maiden nearly dropped her sketchbook and the box containing her pastels did go flying. Ben jumped to nip them up before they fell to the forest floor. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,’ he said.
Straightening, he reached out to hand back the box, met the gaze she’d focused on him—and froze. Shock zinged through him, as if he’d walked across the library carpet on a crisp winter day and touched the metal latch.
Her eyes were magnificent—large, fawn-brown, with an intelligence in their golden depths that drew him in and invited him to linger. There was a fierceness and intensity there, too. Not just in her eyes, he thought dazedly, but in the whole set of her body, as if she were poised to flee—or attack.
Indeed, in her drab gown, a wisp of dark hair escaping from under the shabby bonnet, the shawl slipping off her shoulders, she seemed almost...feral, as if she were as untamed as the woodland she sketched.
Something primal and passionate and powerfully female about her called to everything male in him. Desire thickened his tongue, thrummed in his blood, sent arousal rushing to every part of his body.
Drawn to capture those lips, he reached out for her, rattling the pastels in the box he’d been about to return.
That small noise, loud in the stillness, broke the spell. He shook his head, searching for his vanished wits.
Pull yourself together, Tawny. This is not a passionate Diana, ready for a frolic in the woods, but a modest, virginal girl.
No matter what his erratic senses were telling him.
