The Reluctant Viscount
The rake’s returnA decade ago, wallflower Alyssa Drake’s heart broke when Adam Alistair was banished from Mowbray. Now, he’s back – wealthy, titled, and more cynical than before! And Alyssa’s determined not to fall under this notorious rake’s spell ever again…Reluctant viscount Adam knows only betrayal. But Alyssa proves herself an unexpected ally when he finds his life endangered, and they are forced into a sham engagement. Their betrothal may be fake, but there’s no denying the very real passion that explodes between them!
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The rake’s return
A decade ago, wallflower Alyssa Drake’s heart broke when Adam Alistair was banished from Mowbray. Now, he’s back—wealthy, titled and more cynical than before! And Alyssa’s determined not to fall under this notorious rake’s spell ever again...
Reluctant viscount Adam knows only betrayal. But Alyssa proves herself an unexpected ally when he finds his life endangered, and they are forced into a sham engagement. Their betrothal may be fake, but there’s no denying the very real passion that explodes between them!
Alyssa turned around as the door opened and stared at the man who entered.
For one disorientating moment she thought she must have made a mistake—that this was surely not Adam. Even accounting for the ten years that had passed, there seemed nothing but a vague resemblance to connect this tall, hard-looking individual with the young man she remembered.
He was still handsome, but it was almost as if all those layers had been stripped away, exposing a hewn granite core. He was dressed for riding like any country gentleman, in pale buckskins and a dark blue coat, but there was a foreign air about him. Perhaps it was because he was tanned and his dark hair—which had once been carelessly long—was cut unfashionably short. But the greatest difference was in his eyes. She had remembered they were grey, but not that they were so dark and watchful. They expressed no emotion. No recognition. Not even curiosity.
‘Miss Drake?’ he said after a moment. ‘You wished to see me?’
I wanted to write a story about betrayal. Not just the cost of romantic betrayal, but the long-lasting emotional impact of the betrayal children experience at the hands of selfish, self-serving or abusive parents. How each subsequent betrayal in life just deepens the wound, driving us to thicken our armor, heighten our battlements, deepen our moats.
Our parents are our first models for learning about trust, self-esteem and unconditional love. If those models are faulty we can still learn from other sources—siblings, other family members, friends and, later in life, lovers—but there will always be scar tissue: a fundamental fault line of wariness and mistrust that any new relationship has to overcome. Trust will have to be earned, built, tested, and only then accepted. But couples who manage to overcome those barriers can often reach much richer emotional levels of intimacy than couples who come to love without question or challenge.
The Reluctant Viscount is just such a story about betrayal and redemption—how two scarred and wary individuals make a difficult and uneasy voyage to overcome the impact of early betrayals, risking their hard-earned emotional safety in order to experience trust and love.
LARA TEMPLE was three years old when she begged her mother to take the dictation of her first adventure story. Since then she has led a double life—by day she is a high-tech investment professional, who has lived and worked on three continents, but when darkness falls she loses herself in history and romance (at least on the page). Luckily her husband and two beautiful and very energetic children help her weave it all together.
To Andy, husband, friend, lover and fellow voyager through the rocky shoals of life.
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Alyssa touched her gloved finger to the stone bust of Heraclites that stood precariously on the edge of the wide desk and gave it a push back to safety. The face of the ancient Greek looked worried, which suited someone who saw the world in a state of unrelenting flux and who was known as the ‘weeping philosopher’. Or perhaps she was just reading into the rugged creases of sculpted skin a concern to mirror her own. And nerves. Right now nerves dominated even the concern that had motivated her visit.
She glanced quickly at her reflection in the large mirror on the other side of the study, but then turned away. Even in her best afternoon dress of palmetto green she looked small and insignificant in the imposing but dilapidated study which had once been the late Lord Delacort’s.
It had all seemed easier in her mind once the idea had surfaced. But facing the butler’s obvious surprise and consternation at her request to see Lord Delacort had been enough to make plain it was extremely foolish to come here.
As Stebbins had led her through the large entrance hall which had been transformed into a maze of building materials and piles of threadbare furniture awaiting disposal, he had glanced worriedly back at her, as if debating whether to advise her to flee while she still could. Alyssa had kept her chin up and her demeanour calm, as if there was nothing in the least improper about calling, unchaperoned, on the scandalous new Viscount Delacort within a week of his arrival in Mowbray. She only hoped her reputation was robust enough to survive this very uncharacteristic act. Aunt Adele would be shocked if she knew what she was doing, but there was no way she could approach Adam in the staid presence of a chaperon. As risky as it was, if she meant to ask Adam for help, this was something she had to do alone.
