Moonlight and Mistletoe
A sparkling Regency Christmas in a sleepy English village!Guy Westrope, Earl of Buckland, was not a gentleman used to encountering opposition to his will. But the quick-witted, stubborn and delectable Miss Hester Lattimer was proving to be more than a match for him….Local ghost stories would not scare Hester from her new house–especially not at Christmas! Though her heart told her to trust the mysterious earl, she knew she had to be wary. Even if Guy was not behind the strange events, letting him get too close would inevitably reveal her scandalous past!
Читать Moonlight and Mistletoe онлайн беплатно
“You know, Hester, once you have reached the stage of sitting on a gentleman’s knee, I do feel the time for formality is past.
“Will you not call me Guy?”
She looked startled, producing yet another shade of gold in those fascinating eyes. “I could not possibly!”
“Well, you are sitting on my lap. I think calling me by my given name is a minor informality compared to that.”
“So I am! My lord…Guy…please let me go.”
“But of course.” He opened his arms wide and added wickedly, “A pity. I was enjoying it.”
Praise for Louise Allen
The Earl’s Intended Wife
“…well-developed characters…an appealing sensual
and emotionally rich love story.”
—Romantic Times BOOKreviews
“If you’ve a yen for an enjoyable Regency-set
romance that takes place somewhere other than London, pick up The Earl’s Intended Wife. Louise Allen has a treat in store for you, and a hero and heroine you’ll take to your heart.”
—The Romance Reader
“I liked the unusual location of Malta in this sweet book.
I look forward to what Ms. Allen will write next.”
—Rakehell
“A sweet romance and an engaging story…the sort
of book to get lost in on a lazy afternoon.”
—All About Romance
Contents
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
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter One
December 4th 1814
The inhabitants of Winterbourne St Swithin prided themselves upon their village. It was no mere rural backwater, no sleepy hamlet full of rustics and yeomen whose social hierarchy was topped off by a red-faced squire and whose amenities consisted of the church and a tavern or two.
Theirs, they boasted, was a bustling community straddling the post road to Aylesbury with a glimpse over the meadows to the waters of the new canal ordered by the crazy old Duke of Bridgewater, up in his mansion on the Chiltern crest. There was the Bird in Hand, a large coaching inn, to serve the stage and the mail and the carriages of the gentry going to and from London and Oxford. There was the fine Winterbourne Hall with the Nugents to preside over local society and half a dozen gentry houses in the vicinity to fill the pews of the grey stone church with the living, and the marble monuments with the dead.
And there was even a shop, a superior emporium selling haberdashery and lengths of cloth, the London and Oxford papers a day late and snuff, tea and Hungary water.
The life of the village centred around the church, the Bird in Hand and the Green, the grassy heart of the community with its duck pond, decaying stocks, venerable oak tree and ring of fine houses and half-timbered cottages.
On a raw, damp Thursday morning three respectable housewives made their way around the Green, deep in discussion of new and fascinating intelligence. It seemed there was no doubt that the gentleman who had taken the Old Manor—the one architectural blot upon the village centre—was none other than an earl.
‘Or, as it might be, a duke,’ Mrs Thorne hazarded hopefully, lifting her skirts to negotiate a puddle. ‘Whichever, ’tis a fine thing for Winterbourne. He’ll bring down all his society friends, you mark my words, and he’ll be hiring on staff and wanting eggs and milk and bacon.’
‘If he wanted his society friends, what’s he doing in Winterbourne in December?’ her bosom enemy Widow Clare enquired tartly. ‘The nobs are all off visiting, or at their big country houses. What’s an earl doing hiring that old barn of a place? Outrunning his creditors, that’s what. I tell you, ladies, it’ll be cash on the nail for any eggs that household wants to buy from my hens!’
‘Oh, and nobody’s seen him,’ Mrs Johnson squeaked, her eyes popping at the thought of an earl in the village, even one fallen upon hard times. ‘I’ve seen his butler, mind—I thought it was his lordship himself for a minute, so grand and starched up he was—talking to poor Bill Willett. “I will trouble you, my man,” he said, all frosty-like, “I will trouble you to remember that only the freshest milk and cream is fit for his lordship’s table and that cream is fit only for the cat.” And have you seen the horses?’
The other ladies nodded. Not only had they seen them arrive three days ago but had been bored to death at dinner by their husbands and sons carrying on about the splendour of his lordship’s stable. But, to everyone’s chagrin, it seemed that his lordship had driven himself down from London and had managed to arrive at the one moment of the day when not a single curious eye was focused on the Green, but instead was watching the spectacle of the Mail sweeping through.
‘He’ll have to come out sooner or later,’ Mrs Thorne prophesied comfortably. ‘Even if the bailiffs are after him.’
She broke off as a gig turned off the main road and was driven at a spanking pace around the far side of the Green. It was a modest but somewhat rakish vehicle—the sort that a sporting curate might favour, perhaps—drawn by a neat Welsh cob.
