Lord Laughraine's Summer Promise

AUTHOR NOTE

Welcome to Lord Laughraine’s Summer Promise, the third part of A Year of Scandal, in which Lady Virginia Winterley has left a quest for each of my four heroes to solve, one season at a time. It all began with winter in The Viscount’s Frozen Heart, and then there was spring with The Marquis’s Awakening. Now my third hero and heroine are struggling with a passionate attraction under the English summer sun.

Sometimes a quiet man has the deepest secrets, and I knew Frederick Peters had plenty of those the moment he strolled into action in The Scarred Earl—part of a different series of books altogether—and made himself at home. Under his true identity, Sir Gideon Laughraine has the hardest task so far: to persuade the woman who once loved him so much that he really is still her hero and that they deserve a second chance.

I really hope you enjoy Gideon and Callie’s story as much as I did writing it, and I thank you for coming with me through this vintage year for Lady Virginia’s beloved band of heroes.

Lord

Laughraine’s Summer Promise

Elizabeth Beacon

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ELIZABETH BEACON has a passion for history and storytelling and, with the English West Country on her doorstep, never lacks a glorious setting for her books. Elizabeth tried horticulture, higher education as a mature student, briefly taught English and worked in an office, before finally turning her daydreams about dashing piratical heroes and their stubborn and independent heroines into her dream job: writing Regency romances for Mills & Boon®.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

AUTHOR NOTE

Title Page

About the Author

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

‘So where is this Cataret House School you might recall if you weren’t feeling “quite so mazed” by the heat?’ Sir Gideon Laughraine, otherwise known as Mr Frederick Peters, asked the pretend idiot he’d hailed for directions.

The idler scratched his grizzled head and shrugged as Gideon bit back a curse and wondered if anyone else would be about on such a sweltering afternoon. Unless he found a field being worked close to the road, there was probably nobody who wasn’t at work or staying inside out of the sun within hailing distance, so he dug in his waistcoat pocket for a small coin and held it up to encourage the man’s memory.

‘That’s it over yonder,’ the man finally admitted with a nod towards a farmhouse on the opposite side of the valley that looked as if it had delusions of grandeur. ‘Likely you’ll find the old girl in, but young miss went down the track to Manydown a half hour ago.’

Gideon bit back a curse and flipped the coin to the knowing rogue before turning his weary horse and following in young miss’s footsteps.

‘I wouldn’t want to find the old besom in a hurry either, mister,’ the knowing idiot told him before slouching off to spend his windfall in the local ale house.

‘Needs must when the devil drives,’ Gideon muttered grimly, not much looking forward to that encounter either, then he forgot the ‘old girl’ by wondering what the young one might be up to.

Would she blench at the very sight of him and look as if the devil was on her heels, or give him that delightful smile he still remembered with a gasp of the heart all these years on? Who knew? Lady Virginia Winterley was right though; he had to find out if his wife would ever smile at him again outside his favourite dreams.

Dear Boy, his late patroness and friend began the letter that heralded the third quest on her list, left in her will to chime with every new season of the year after her death. He’d had no inkling he was one of the unfortunates she’d decided to do good to until that demand he do as he was bid for the next three months was put in his hand by the new Lady Farenze.

I am quite sure it will come as a great surprise to you when dear Chloe tells you that you have the next quest on my list.

Well, yes, you’re quite right there, my lady, he thought with a shake of his dark head to admit she’d outfoxed him once again.

It should not be, she continued, as if she were standing at his shoulder and could see the sceptical expression on his face when he finally realised why Luke Winterley’s new wife had sought him out to hand him the letter from Lady Virginia.

You are my beloved Virgil’s secret grandson, and it is only out of consideration for your cousin, Lord Laughraine, that we have not been able to claim you openly. If we did so it would take away the only legal heir he has left to carry on his titles and estates and we both love and respect Charlie Laughraine far too much to do that to him or you. I know the true facts of your birth have been a trial to you ever since you were old enough to realise what the gossips had to say about your father’s true parentage, but they are a great comfort to me.