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Claiming His Defiant Miss
Bronwyn Scott
Seduced by her bodyguard!Aristocrat’s daughter May Worth is beautiful, headstrong…and in trouble. There’s only one man who can protect her: Liam Casek, her brother’s best friend, a government agent, and the man whose sinfully seductive touch she’s never forgotten.Rakish Liam always knew May’s wild beauty would be the death of him, but if he’s to protect her with his life, he’s damned if he’ll deny their still-sizzling chemistry! May is everything Liam wants—if only he dare claim this defiant miss for his own.
Seduced by her bodyguard!
Aristocrat’s daughter May Worth is beautiful, headstrong...and in trouble. There’s only one man who can protect her: Liam Casek, her brother’s best friend, a government agent and the man whose sinfully seductive touch she’s never forgotten.
Rakish Liam always knew May’s wild beauty would be the death of him, but if he’s to protect her with his life, he’s damned if he’ll deny their still-sizzling chemistry! May is everything Liam wants—if only he dares claim this defiant miss for his own.
Wallflowers to Wives (#u9ef7eef6-3ea4-5bab-83d2-0fcdcee2957a)
Out of the shadows, into the marriage bed!
In Regency England young women were defined by their prospects in the marriage market. But what of the girls who were presented to Society…and not snapped up?
Bronwyn Scott invites you to
The Left Behind Girls’ Club
Three years after their debut, and still without rings on their fingers, Claire Welton, Evie Milham, May Worth and Beatrice Penrose are ready to leave the shadows and step into the light. Now London will have to prepare itself… because these overlooked girls are about to take the ton by storm!
Read Claire’s story in
Unbuttoning the Innocent Miss
Read Evie’s story in
Awakening the Shy Miss
Read May’s story in
Claiming His Defiant Miss
Available now!
And watch for Bea’s story—
Marrying the Rebellious Miss—coming soon!
Author Note (#u9ef7eef6-3ea4-5bab-83d2-0fcdcee2957a)
May and Liam’s tale is a coming of age story at its core, which makes it a very relatable storyline. It explores the practicalities of what it takes for love to survive. Is physical passion enough? There’s young love thwarted by the ‘wisdom’ of older minds—May’s father—and by a healthy dose of caution on May’s part. There’s also the issue of surviving change. We are not who we were at seventeen—how does love survive when we change? These are the issues that May and Liam deal with as former sweethearts who are reunited under unexpected circumstances.
These were interesting aspects to explore—not only against a Regency backdrop, in which family and reputation are everything, but also as timeless issues to explore in today’s world, where we are beset with technologies that make reconnection more possible than ever. One marketing site points out that modern high school sweethearts who marry in their teens only have a fifty-four per cent chance of that marriage lasting ten years. Only two per cent of high schoolers who marry their sweetheart go on to get a college education. I think that’s what would have happened to May and Liam, Regency-style, if she had married him the first time he asked. May recognises that, while she loves him, there are things like family and her own sense of independence she has to sort out before she can be a successful partner. Only when May and Liam know themselves can they fully engage in the love they have for one another.
I hope you enjoy their journey. I invite you to come and post your thoughts about first love and your own love journeys at bronwynswriting.blogspot.com (http://www.bronwynswriting.blogspot.com).
Claiming His Defiant Miss
Bronwyn Scott
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
BRONWYN SCOTT is a communications instructor at Pierce College in the United States, and the proud mother of three wonderful children—one boy and two girls. When she’s not teaching or writing she enjoys playing the piano, travelling—especially to Florence, Italy—and studying history and foreign languages. Readers can stay in touch on Bronwyn’s website, bronwynnscott.com (http://bronwynnscott.com), or at her blog, bronwynswriting.blogspot.com (http://bronwynswriting.blogspot.com). She loves to hear from readers.
Books by Bronwyn Scott
Mills & Boon Historical Romance
and Mills & Boon Historical Undone! eBooks
Wallflowers to Wives
Unbuttoning the Innocent Miss
Awakening the Shy Miss
Claiming His Defiant Miss
Rakes on Tour
Rake Most Likely to Rebel
Rake Most Likely to Thrill
Rake Most Likely to Seduce
Rake Most Likely to Sin
Rakes of the Caribbean
Playing the Rake’s Game
Breaking the Rake’s Rules
Craving the Rake’s Touch (Undone!)
Rakes Who Make Husbands Jealous
Secrets of a Gentleman Escort
London’s Most Wanted Rake
An Officer But No Gentleman (Undone!)
A Most Indecent Gentleman (Undone!)
Visit the Author Profile page
at millsandboon.co.uk (http://millsandboon.co.uk) for more titles.
For Catie, Tonia and my Brony, who came up with the name for this hero. Thanks for helping me create a memorable hero.
And to all the girls out there. If there’s one lesson I want you to have from this story, it’s that love will find you—sometimes you just have to wait.
Contents
Cover (#u51a5582f-0ecc-578d-87ab-35ff838dbe66)
Back Cover Text (#u1dd592b0-7d98-57d6-8269-be99f1216fdf)
Wallflowers to Wives (#u0a3606ed-76e6-5f00-bad1-48785b27e114)
Author Note (#u7f0cc8cb-f71a-5bbc-84dc-f7e304ca53fd)
Title Page (#u02e6d486-8b44-5af7-9beb-7351fbb0964f)
About the Author (#ud9e75151-3f80-5673-9587-1e8a13759f5e)
Dedication (#u0052ce10-adfc-5ce4-80d3-dd46560cab19)
Chapter One (#uf9e7491f-80e4-5be6-9afd-b89d53096f3a)
Chapter Two (#u99ec6fae-aed5-568e-b51d-4d7098b92710)
Chapter Three (#u779a9d4d-e6b4-5d6c-8b7e-ad84ac813a2d)
Chapter Four (#ueb710c74-63b9-5fd9-99f6-af335a23c670)
Chapter Five (#u9b2503ce-1eaa-593d-aaab-3e456ad673b8)
Chapter Six (#uf6ed9660-45ef-5497-ba30-ddc0a269e61e)
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)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#u9ef7eef6-3ea4-5bab-83d2-0fcdcee2957a)
Preston Worth might very well die this time. Liam Casek stripped off his shirt and tore away a wide strip with an efficiency born of too much experience—he’d patched up Preston more than once. But tonight might be the last time. He pressed the wad of cloth to the gash in Preston’s chest, alarmed by its location so near a lung and alarmed by the size of the crimson spread. It was too much for a mere strip of linen to staunch.
‘Case!’ Preston groaned with hoarse urgency, frantically grabbing at his arm to make him listen. ‘Leave me, they might be back.’ ‘They’ being the ambushers who’d come upon them on the road at dusk. There’d simply been too many to fight off, yet they had succeeded, at the price of Preston’s wound. It might have been Preston’s wound that saved them. The ambushers had retreated, perhaps convinced the natural course of events would finish off their prey.
‘Be still,’ Liam growled, all gruffness as he tied another strip around Preston’s chest to hold the bandage in place. ‘We have to get you stitched up.’ But the bleeding had to stop first. He racked his brain for a plan. The nearest town was two miles back. ‘Cover the bandage with your hand and press hard.’ Liam got his hands under Preston’s armpits. ‘We’re going to get you to the verge.’ He hated moving Preston, but the middle of the road was no place for a wounded man in the dark. It made an easy target for careless carriages and returning thugs.
Preston grunted against the pain as Liam hauled him to the side, no easy feat considering Preston was as tall as he was—a few inches over six foot, and nearly a dead weight—hopefully not about to become more dead. Liam propped his friend against a sturdy tree trunk and examined the bandage as best he could in the fading light. It would be entirely dark soon. Damn winter! There was never enough daylight and Liam desperately needed some now. He could feel rather than see the blood soaking the bandage.
‘I hurt, Case,’ Preston admitted and there was the briefest flicker of fear in his eyes.
‘Pain is good,’ Liam offered encouragingly. ‘You’re doing great. You’re conscious, you’re talking, you’re not numb.’ Numbness was what Liam feared most, a sure sign of impending death. He’d seen it too often in the wars. He was no doctor, but he was a veteran of battlefields.
‘Those men,’ Preston ground out, ‘Cabot Roan sent them.’
Liam nodded, too busy with his triage. He was not surprised. The attack tonight confirmed what they’d feared. Cabot Roan was a wealthy businessman suspected by important men in both the Home and Foreign Offices of leading an arms cartel. The cartel was made up of wealthy, private citizens who had manufactured arms for England during the recent wars and were missing their incomes now that the wars were over and there was no need for arms contracts. Now, those businessmen were selling arms to various revolutionary efforts across Europe. It went without saying that many of those efforts did not necessarily align with the British Empire’s own foreign-policy aims, which made these men traitors. But proof was needed that Cabot Roan was behind the arms deals. That was Preston’s job. If the ringleader was indeed Roan, the man was to be discreetly stopped. That was Liam’s job.
‘The hunches must be right, then. That’s good news. Roan wouldn’t have sent his thugs if there was nothing to hide.’ Liam kept talking, kept smiling. He didn’t want Preston to panic. He thought the bleeding might be slowing down at last. There was still too damn much of it, though. He couldn’t wait any longer to get help. ‘Do you think you can ride? Just a couple of miles?’
Preston nodded. ‘Even if I can’t, we have to try. We can’t stay here and this is serious. You’re going to need light to work by, Case.’ As opposed to the other times Preston had been shot, knifed or otherwise needed his attentions, Liam thought wryly. If the situation wasn’t dire, he would have laughed. As it was, Liam thought he needed a sight more than light to make Preston right again.
Liam moved to help him rise, but Preston stayed him with a hand. ‘Wait, before you do that I have to tell you something.’ Liam heard the unspoken message. In case I become unconscious because moving hurts too bloody much. Which was better than the other unspoken message: In case I become unconscious and don’t wake up. Ever.
