The Countess Misbehaves
She was a proper ladyAs the mighty ocean liner sank to its watery grave, two strangers bold savored their final moments by making passionate love. Matching the raging hurricane outside with her own white-hot abandon, Countess Madeleine Cavendish willingly surrendered herself to the devilishly handsome Creole rogue–never dreaming of a fate worse than death. Never dreaming she'd survive.Except in his armsNow, amidst the glitter of New Orleans society, reunited with her oh-so-proper fiancé, Madeleine tried to forget the lover who awoke her to temptation. But trying to forget a man like Armand de Chevalier is impossible. Especially since he, too, survived and is seizing every opportunity to remind her of their shared desire.But as a treacherous web of deceit closes around her, Madeleine must turn to the one man she swore never to acknowledge again, daring to surrender to a passion that could shatter her world–or bring her its sweetest bliss…
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He had kept her garter all this time.
“I know what that is on your upper arm!” Madeleine hotly accused. Armand de Chevalier smiled, said nothing. “How dare you wear my garter for all the world to see!” she raged.
“Now, Maddie, no one but you and I know that it’s your garter.”
Unconvinced, she charged, “You are bent on ruining my life simply because I…because we…”
“Made memorable love in a summer’s storm?” He softly finished her sentence.
“Shhh!” she hissed. “Give that garter back to me!”
“Can’t do that,” he said, lifting then lowering his wide shoulders. “It’s my good luck charm. Besides, it’s all I have of you.”
“It’s all you’ll ever have of me, de Chevalier!”
“Ah, you’re wrong there, Maddie,” he said with irritating cockiness. “You know you are.” A sudden warmth radiated from his eyes when he added, “One day we’ll be together again.”
Countess Madeleine Cavendish swallowed with difficulty. Then she narrowed her eyes and promised him in a soft, acid-laced voice, “You’re the one who’s wrong, Creole. That day will never come!”
“Yes, it will, chérie.” He smiled seductively and predicted, “Perhaps sooner than you think.”
Nan Ryan “writes beautifully. Her style, plotting and characterizations are skillfully developed.”
—Wichita Falls Times Record
Also available from MIRA Books and NAN RYAN
WANTING YOU
For
Katonna Smothermon
A super talented lady, a beautiful woman, an excellent mother and a treasured friend.
Contents
One
Liverpool, England
August 1856
She knew he was trouble the first time she saw him.
And the first time the Countess of Ballarat saw Armand de Chevalier, was as she boarded White Star’s luxury liner, the S. S. Starlight, for the long voyage to America.
The Countess, known to most as Lady Madeleine Cavendish, lifted her skirts, stepped onto the ship’s long gangway, and then paused to look up. She immediately spotted a tall, strikingly handsome, raven-haired man lounging against the ship’s railing and boldly giving her the once-over.
He smiled disarmingly at her. But the wise noblewoman did not return his smile. Instead, she quickly looked away. She had no wish to encourage him in any manner. She knew his kind well. Too well. She had married just such a man when she was a young, impulsive girl and it had been a disaster.
Lady Madeleine’s delicate jaw hardened at the unpleasant recollection. She had fallen deeply in love with him and the passion between them had raged white hot. In his arms, she had experienced incredible ecstasy, but it had lasted only for a very brief time. They had barely returned from the Italian honeymoon before her bridegroom—a charming commoner her mother had warned her not to wed—began behaving as if he had no wife. He began drinking heavily and gambled away great sums of money. Money that was hers, not his. Worse, he was soon seeking diversion in the arms of other women, humiliating her. It was a nightmare of a kind she was determined never to experience again.
After three miserably unhappy years as the neglected wife, Madeleine Cavendish had been widowed at age twenty-one when her wayward husband was killed in a drunken brawl over another woman.
Now as she ascended the ship’s gangway, Lady Madeleine impatiently shook her bonneted head to clear her mind of those events. The action turned her thoughts to the present.
Was the dark, dangerous-looking man still at the ship’s railing? When she reached the huge vessel’s polished teak deck, she couldn’t restrain herself from casting a quick glance in his direction.
He was, to her genuine surprise, still there. Still staring. And still smiling at her in a disturbingly affable way that enforced her earlier impression that he was indeed trouble. Uncharacteristically flustered, Lady Madeleine made a misstep and almost fell. In an instant, the tall, jet-haired admirer was at her side, steadying her.
The startled Countess abruptly experienced an unwanted rush of excitement when the dark stranger’s powerful right arm went around her waist and he pressed her close against his side. Awed by the granite hardness of his lean male frame, she suddenly felt very small and vulnerable.
Lady Madeleine looked up with intent to thank him, but his flashing midnight eyes arrested her so completely she could not speak. She said nothing. Snared by his hot gaze, she felt her heart begin to pound alarmingly and she knew that she must, on this long journey to America, stay as far away from this sinfully handsome man as possible.
