Miss Lottie's Christmas Protector
A Christmas mission… …with the scarred and brooding gentleman! Part of Secrets of a Victorian Household: Working in her family’s charity foundation for destitute women, caring but impulsive Miss Lottie Fairclough is desperately trying to find a missing woman. She’s roped in family acquaintance Mr Jasper King to help her, equally impressed and annoyed when he rescues her from perilous danger! As she gets to know the injured entrepreneur, it seems he needs her just as much…
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A Christmas mission…
…with the scarred and brooding gentleman!
Part of Secrets of a Victorian Household. Working in her family’s charity foundation for destitute women, caring but impulsive Miss Lottie Fairclough is desperately trying to find a missing woman. She’s roped in family acquaintance Mr. Jasper King to help her, having been equally impressed and annoyed when he rescued her from perilous danger. As she gets to know the injured entrepreneur, it seems he needs her just as much…
SOPHIA JAMES lives in Chelsea Bay, on Auckland New Zealand’s North Shore, with her husband who is an artist. She has a degree in English and History from Auckland University and believes her love of writing was formed by reading Georgette Heyer in the holidays at her grandmother’s house. Sophia enjoys getting feedback at facebook.com/sophiajamesauthor.
Gentlemen of Honour miniseries
A Night of Secret Surrender
A Proposition for the Comte
The Cinderella Countess
Secrets of a Victorian Household collection
Miss Lottie’s Christmas Protector by Sophia James
And look out for the next books
Miss Amelia’s Mistletoe Marquess by Jenni Fletcher
Mr Fairclough’s Inherited Bride by Georgie Lee
Lilian and the Irresistible Duke by Virginia Heath
Coming soon
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.
ISBN: 978-1-474-08950-0
MISS LOTTIE’S CHRISTMAS PROTECTOR
© 2019 Harlequin Books S.A.
Published in Great Britain 2019
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
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Thank you Jenni Fletcher, Georgie Lee
and Virginia Heath, for making this series such an easy
and fun one to write together. You were all generous
with your replies and accommodating of any changes.
Contents
Note to Readers
In the shadow of Westminster Abbey lay an area known as the Irish Rookery—a place of narrow streets, rundown buildings and hopelessness.
This area, once a sanctuary offered to debtors and criminals by the monks from the abbey, was by 1842 the haunt of the displaced Irish, who lived in a festering labyrinth of dark and impenetrable streets full of desperation and vice.
However, social philanthropy and charity-based movements were on the rise in Victorian England, as Christian duty encouraged acts to save the souls of those mired in poverty.
The Fairclough Foundation was one such organisation and it lay in Howick Place, just on the edge of Old Pye Street, the Perkins Rents, Great Peter’s Road and St Anne’s Street—home to some of the worst slums in all of London.
Late November 1842—Westminster, London
Gilbert Griffiths, a man who was scared of his own shadow, had offered for her sister.
These words echoed through Lottie in sheer horror and growing apprehension. If Amelia accepted the overzealous and pedantic curate as a husband she would shrivel, piece by little piece, until nothing of joy and hope were left.
