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An Innocent Maid For The Duke
Ann Lethbridge
His lady in red…Jacob, Duke of Westmoor, is feeling the weight of his recently inherited title, when a stolen kiss with a beautiful woman in his gentlemen’s club breathes life back into him. Until he discovers she’s a maid!Unable to let the beautiful innocent go, he arranges for Rose Nightingale to become his grandmother’s companion. But living under the same roof, their attraction becomes impossible to resist!The Society of Wicked GentlemenThe hour is late and the stakes are high
His lady in red...
Jacob, Duke of Westmoor, is feeling the weight of his recently inherited title when a stolen kiss with a beautiful woman in his gentlemen’s club breathes life back into him. Until he discovers she’s a maid!
Unable to let the beautiful innocent go, he arranges for Rose Nightingale to become his grandmother’s companion. But living under the same roof, their attraction becomes impossible to resist!
Hidden amongst the masked revellers of an underground Regency gentlemen’s club where decadence, daring and debauchery abound, the four owners of Vitium et Virtus are about to meet their match!
Welcome to...
The Society of Wicked Gentlemen
Read
A Convenient Bride for the Soldier by Christine Merrill September 2017
An Innocent Maid for the Duke
by Ann Lethbridge
October 2017
A Pregnant Courtesan for the Rake
by Diane Gaston
November 2017
And look for the concluding story from Sophia James
A Secret Consequence for the Viscount
December 2017
Author Note (#u1e936611-158c-508d-b85c-1590d046b654)
In every book I try to include a little bit of history that might be an insight into a world long gone but still beloved by so many. The panorama visit by Jake, Rose and Lucy is a description of a real place and event during the time frame of this story. Panoramas were a forerunner of the movies we love to watch today. The size of the building, the care with which the scenes were painted and presented, were a testament to human creative ingenuity.
Everyone flocked to the Leicester Square Rotunda to see the latest panorama offered by the owner Robert Barker for nearly seventy years. The painted views provided a window on other parts of the world, and were not only painted with painstaking accuracy, but decorated with artefacts to add to their realism. People viewing these vistas often became nauseous because of the realism and unaccustomed scope. Barker’s Rotunda still exists in London today, tucked in between buildings in Leicester Square—and, fittingly enough, the only way it can be seen is from above.
I do hope you like Rose and Jake’s journey to happiness, and enjoy reading the series as much as we authors have enjoyed writing it for you.
If you wish to know more about me or my books, visit annlethbridge.com (http://www.annlethbridge.com). If you would like to dive deeper into the world of the Regency, visit my blog: RegencyRamble.blogspot.com (http://www.RegencyRamble.blogspot.com).
Until next we meet, I wish you health, happiness and love.
An Innocent Maid for the Duke
Ann Lethbridge
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
In her youth, award-winning author ANN LETHBRIDGE reimagined the Regency romances she read—and now she loves writing her own. Now living in Canada, Ann visits Britain every year, where family members understand—or so they say—her need to poke around every antiquity within a hundred miles. Learn more about Ann or contact her at annlethbridge.com (http://www.annlethbridge.com). She loves hearing from readers.
Books by Ann Lethbridge
Mills & Boon Historical Romance
and Mills & Boon Undone! ebooks
Rakes in Disgrace
The Gamekeeper’s Lady
More Than a Mistress
Deliciously Debauched by the Rake (Undone!)
More Than a Lover
The Gilvrys of Dunross
The Laird’s Forbidden Lady
Her Highland Protector
Falling for the Highland Rogue
Return of the Prodigal Gilvry
One Night with the Highlander (Undone!)
The Society of Wicked Gentlemen
An Innocent Maid for the Duke
Linked by Character
Wicked Rake, Defiant Mistress
One Night as a Courtesan (Undone!)
Secrets of the Marriage Bed
Haunted by the Earl’s Touch
Captured Countess
The Duke’s Daring Debutante
The Rake’s Inherited CourtesanLady Rosabella’s RuseThe Rake’s Intimate Encounter (Undone!)
Visit the Author Profile page at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk) for more titles.
This novel is dedicated to CanadaLoneWolves, in particular Donmar, Lyon and Katz. Each and every day these awesome people provide me with laughs and smiles. Everyone needs folk like these in their lives and I hope you all have some of those too. I also want to dedicate this story to the other three authors in this series. Thank you, ladies, for being such a wonderful group to work with on this project.
Contents
Cover (#ud2cd6b97-bf90-5f54-bfe9-a0fa3630a172)
Back Cover Text (#uec35dcea-c490-59a3-9d6d-aac209263e62)
The Society of Wicked Gentlemen (#u73410a62-6c7b-55a0-a9ad-5a671c63ef78)
Author Note (#u154bbcda-808c-54ad-bab9-a53a38a3724b)
Title Page (#ufc938b30-81b0-52a6-bda6-433f8c04c8b8)
About the Author (#u3189fbeb-5565-53af-a452-c3f52b264394)
Dedication (#u23353565-743b-584e-9975-4f2290c99759)
Chapter One (#u7ceff656-d762-515a-abc0-87e9dbfa177d)
Chapter Two (#ud4e6d657-9f32-5f48-a50e-f94439def7d9)
Chapter Three (#ua57639c2-81fd-5483-ad74-8a39fdb623e1)
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)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#u1e936611-158c-508d-b85c-1590d046b654)
Entering the owners’ private quarters at the gentleman’s club Vitium et Virtus, Jake, Duke of Westmoor, stifled a groan at the sight of the other two founding members lounging in heavy leather armchairs placed around a low table. One of the two empty chairs was his. The fourth supported a small gilded box.
‘This was the reason you sent for me?’
Even seated, the brown-haired, brown-eyed Frederick Challenger had a military air. At Jake’s words he snapped to attention and glowered. ‘It may have escaped your lofty notice, Your Grace, but today is the sixth anniversary of Nicholas’s disappearance.’
Jake tensed at the use of his title. The significance of the date had indeed escaped his notice, busy as he was with the affairs of the Duchy, but he wasn’t about to admit it. ‘I thought we were beyond all this.’ He had enough reminders of loss at home without adding to them here. The one place he thought of as a refuge.
‘Sit down, Westmoor,’ Oliver, the other member of their group, said, his green eyes snapping sparks in his burnished face.
Jake sighed, but did as requested. Or rather ordered. If Oliver hadn’t been such a good friend... No. Not true. He had no wish to alienate these men, his oldest friends. Without them he might not have survived the loss of his father and brother.
He glanced on the gilded box on the other chair. It contained Nicholas’s ring, the last reminder of their missing founder of Vitium et Virtus. Could it really be six years since Nicolas’s disappearance? It hardly seemed possible. Back then, they’d scarcely achieved their majority. Now look at them. All three of them reaching the grand old age of thirty. The intervening years had passed in a heartbeat.
Yet the shock of finding a pool of blood in the alley outside Vitium et Virtus and Nicholas’s signet ring trampled in the dirt beside it wasn’t any less raw.
Oliver leaned forward and laid his hand palm up in the centre of the table.
‘You seriously intend to do this,’ Jake said.
The other two glared at him. Grudgingly, he placed his hand on top of Oliver’s, the warmth of another man’s skin odd against the palm of his hand. Frederick added his to the pile.
‘In vitium et virtus,’ they chorused like the bunch of schoolboys they’d been when they started this stupid venture. In vice and virtue. Even after all this time, the words sounded strangely lacking without Nicholas’s voice in the mix.
Withdrawing his hand, he picked up his brandy, lifting the glass towards the empty chair in a toast. ‘To absent friends.’
The others imitated his action.
‘Be he in heaven or hell—’ Oliver continued with the words they’d been saying each year for the past six years.
‘Or somewhere in between—’ Frederick intoned.
‘Know that we wish you well,’ they finished together. As if anything so nonsensical could bring their friend back.
They threw back their drinks, staring at the empty seat.
‘I was so sure he’d turn up like a bad penny before the year was out telling us it was all a jest,’ Frederick said.
‘If so, it would be in pretty poor taste. Even for Nicholas.’ Oliver said, his green eyes dark with the pain of loss they’d all felt since Nicholas’s disappearance. A loss Jake didn’t want to think about. There had been too many in his life. Each one worse than the last.
‘It would have been like him,’ Jake said, burying the surge of anger that took him by surprise. ‘Nicholas always was one for stupid japes. This club, for example.’
