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Scandal And Miss Markham
Janice Preston
A scandalous journey…Glassmaker’s daughter Thea Markham is devastated when her brother Daniel goes missing. Then a mysterious lord turns up asking questions about Daniel and offers to find him. Unsure she can trust the handsome peer, Thea dresses up as a boy and follows him!Lord Vernon Beauchamp feels his life lacks direction. Meeting Thea gives him a renewed purpose. And when they are thrown together on their scandalous adventure, friendship soon gives way to desire…
A scandalous journey...
Glassmaker’s daughter Thea Markham is devastated when her brother Daniel goes missing. Then a mysterious lord turns up asking questions about Daniel and offers to find him. Unsure she can trust the handsome peer, Thea dresses up as a boy and follows him!
Lord Vernon Beauchamp feels his life lacks direction. Meeting Thea gives him a renewed purpose. And when they are thrown together on their scandalous adventure, friendship soon gives way to desire...
Vernon stood at the washstand, shirtless, his back to her as he bent over the bowl.
The candlelight danced across unblemished skin and she watched, fascinated by the play of muscles across his shoulders and back, as he continued his ablutions. Her hands itched to touch, to stroke, to discover if his skin was as smooth as it looked. His breeches were stretched tight, outlining taut buttocks—thrust temptingly in her direction—and long, lean thighs. Her mouth dried as her skin heated. A thrilling sense of anticipation swirled in her belly, then slowed, arrowing in to the juncture of her thighs and provoking a strange restlessness.
An insistent need.
Thea resisted the urge to move, to turn onto her back, to push aside the covers, to extend her arms and invite him to hold her. How would it feel to throw aside morals and caution and pride and follow that craving? She lay motionless, still watching as Vernon hummed a tune she did not recognise under his breath, seemingly perfectly relaxed.
Desire.
She recognised it instinctively, although she had never before experienced it.
Author Note (#ub9023f9e-87e6-53c1-bac6-8e63428c1502)
Scandal and Miss Markham is the second of The Beauchamp Betrothals linked books, but it is a stand-alone story and it’s not essential to read Cinderella and the Duke first.
It is time for Lord Vernon Beauchamp—handsome, wealthy, darling of the ton and younger brother of Leo, Duke of Cheriton—to meet his match. But his life seems almost too perfect. A man like him—and he has featured in other books of mine, apart from Cinderella and the Duke—would surely just need to snap his fingers to win any woman he chose? But then I thought a bit more about his life and I realised he has always been Leo’s sidekick, always the second in command, and he is bored. He needs shaking out of his perfect life, and I knew just the woman to do it.
Enter Dorothea Markham, a glass manufacturer’s daughter with fascinating springy copper curls, a stubborn streak a mile wide and a penchant for acting first and repenting later—or not, as the case may be. She doesn’t need help from anyone when her brother fails to return home—least of all from a spoilt, wealthy aristocrat with a tendency to tease her...and to make her pulse leap alarmingly.
Enjoy the trip as Vernon and Thea embark on an adventure to find her missing brother and end up finding more than they bargained for.
Scandal and
Miss Markham
Janice Preston
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
JANICE PRESTON grew up in Wembley, North London, with a love of reading, writing stories and animals. In the past she has worked as a farmer, a police callhandler and a university administrator. She now lives in the West Midlands with her husband and two cats, and has a part-time job as a weight management counsellor—vainly trying to control her own weight despite her love of chocolate!
Books by Janice Preston
Mills & Boon Historical Romance
The Beauchamp Betrothals
Cinderella and the Duke
Scandal and Miss Markham
The Governess Tales
The Governess’s Secret Baby
Men About Town
Return of Scandal’s Son
Saved by Scandal’s Heir
Linked by Characterto Men About Town duet
Mary and the Marquis
From Wallflower to Countess
Visit the Author Profile page at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).
To Mum.
I like to think you would be proud.
Contents
Cover (#u1515e2ed-714f-5ab6-bc40-c48c6a42478f)
Back Cover Text (#ud9875fdb-dcdd-5b83-bfae-730ece7d34c6)
Introduction (#u08b4ba83-6f63-5eed-b759-0d2986b545f8)
Author Note (#uf0d56132-e044-5ea7-86e8-e1b96551d87c)
Title Page (#ua7e1d470-e725-5105-b7a6-d16a07b641b6)
About the Author (#u4a6fd9a0-cdeb-55f7-a92e-ae96dfaa76eb)
Dedication (#u27ebf7b9-7266-5714-9485-79cc2fc242c0)
Chapter One (#u73009820-8122-5d1b-bedd-3be15680515d)
Chapter Two (#uc9c448a0-0674-5a12-831c-e5d74433233b)
Chapter Three (#ue0326a9f-8e0b-516f-b13d-fa267f60ce6e)
Chapter Four (#u049650fc-0d79-5082-9f0e-41c8f8185542)
Chapter Five (#uc48eb665-9950-5673-b443-84f1eed3e899)
Chapter Six (#u76718a25-cab0-5f33-bf2e-bb5ededea2c8)
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)
Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#ub9023f9e-87e6-53c1-bac6-8e63428c1502)
Thea’s head snapped up at the sound of wheels crunching across the gravel outside Stourwell Court.
Daniel!
Hope erupted through her...it had been five days since her brother had gone out one day and not returned. She leapt to her feet and hurried to the salon window. A glimpse of a curricle drawn by a pair of blacks set her heart racing, and she flung her embroidery aside, gathered her skirts and ran for the door. Across the hall and through the front door she sped.
Please. Let it be him.
Doubts nipped at her as she sprinted down the steps to the now stationary conveyance, but she ignored them. She could not bear to let that prayer of hope fizzle and die. She shut her mind against the evidence of her eyes as she reached the foot of the steps and hurried to the curricle.
‘Daniel—’
Her eyes met those of the driver—a stranger—and she skidded to a halt, gravel spinning from beneath her feet.
‘Who are you? Where is Daniel?’ She raked the driver with her eyes and then switched her gaze to the horses. ‘Those are his—’
Her jaw snapped shut and her cheeks scorched. ‘Oh!’ Those doubts had caught up with her and knocked her flat. She bit her lip as sick disappointment flooded her, followed by the fear that had dogged her ever since her brother had failed to come home.
‘I beg your pardon, sir. I mistook your horses for those of my brother’s but I see, upon closer examination, they are not his.’
They were a pair of blacks, yes, but of far superior quality to Daniel’s, and a groom—another stranger—perched on the back of the curricle. And besides...
Fool! Daniel didn’t even take his curricle. He was on horseback.
And that had been her one ray of hope in this desperate mess, one that she clung to with all her heart: her brother had ridden away and not returned, but neither had Bullet, his grey gelding, whose homing instinct was powerful and who in the past had often carried his foxed rider safely home after a night spent drinking. Thankfully, though, Daniel had soon outgrown that wild behaviour.
And now Thea clung to her belief that whilst Bullet was missing, there was still hope.
The stranger appraised her with raised brows and she scowled back at him, irritated by the amused curl of his lips. She quashed the tug of attraction she recognised deep in her core. It was a very long time since she had allowed herself to be attracted to any man.
‘Your brother being Mr Daniel Markham?’
His voice was deep and cultured—that of a gentleman born. Thea had been subjected to enough elocution lessons to recognise that aristocratic drawl. She studied the driver, from the brim of his tall beaver hat to the toes of his shiny boots. What business could a man like this have with Daniel? Suspicions swirled. Did this stranger have something to do with Daniel’s disappearance? Daniel had been troubled before he disappeared, that much she did know. But, unusually, he had refused to confide in her.
‘He is,’ she said. ‘And you are?’
He frowned, clearly put out by such a brusque demand. Well, Thea had more pressing concerns than a strange gentleman’s sense of his own importance.
‘I am Lord Vernon Beauchamp, here to speak to your brother.’
‘A lord? What on earth do you want with Daniel?’
A muscle leapt at the side of his jaw. ‘Bickling, hold the horses.’
He tied off the reins and the groom jumped down and ran to the horses’ heads. Lord Vernon Beauchamp climbed in a leisurely fashion from his curricle and walked across the gravel to Thea, not stopping until he was so close he towered over her, radiating confidence and power. Thea set her jaw and stood her ground, refusing to be intimidated even though his commanding air and his raw masculinity rattled her from her head to her toes.
‘I suggest that is a matter between your brother and me, madam. Am I to understand he is not here?’
‘No, he is not.’
She glanced back at the house. No sign of her mother. Good...no doubt she was with Papa; she often read to him in the morning after he awoke. Heaven knew how much longer Thea could protect them from knowing the full truth of Daniel’s absence. She looked up at Lord Vernon.
‘If it concerns Stour Crystal, I assure you that I am perfectly able either to assist you myself, or to refer any query to the appropriate individual at the manufactory.’
