The Wedding Game
The engagement escapade!This season, all eyes are on biddable, well-connected Lady Belle. And for ambitious Benjamin Lovell, she’s the perfect candidate for a convenient marriage. First, though, he must contend with her fiercely protective sister, Lady Amelia Summoner.Amy is determined that only the right man will win her sister, and rakish Benjamin is certainly not that. Every move he makes, she’ll be one step ahead! Until the games get out of hand…and Amy realises she’s broken her own rules and fallen for Ben herself!
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The engagement escapade!
This season, all eyes are on biddable, well-connected Lady Belle. And for ambitious Benjamin Lovell, she’s the perfect candidate for a convenient marriage. First, though, he must contend with her fiercely protective sister, Lady Amelia Summoner.
Amy is determined that only the right man will win her sister, and rakish Benjamin is certainly not that. Every move he makes, she’ll be one step ahead! Until the games get out of hand...and Amy realizes she’s broken her own rules and fallen for Ben herself!
Benjamin Lovell might pretend modesty in his perfect plain suit. But the man was a trumped-up peacock, near to choking on his own pride.
He’d decided, without even meeting her, that he would have dear, sweet, innocent Belle—just to gain a seat in the House of Commons.
Something must be done, and it must be done immediately.
Amy stood suddenly, almost bumping into a young man balancing far too many glasses of lemonade.
Suddenly she had a plan.
She responded with a simpering laugh. ‘La, sir. It is a relief to see you. I retired to the corner for I was parched and near to fainting.’
She reached out and took two of his lemonades, taking a sip from the first. ‘Much better,’ she said, giggling again and ignoring his astonishment at her rudeness.
Then, as if she was as unsteady as she claimed, she turned and staggered forward the two steps necessary to stand before Benjamin Lovell. She wavered, lurched, and allowed herself a brief, triumphant smile. Then she dumped the contents of the glasses in her hand down his elegant white waistcoat.
This book gave me an excuse to use one of my favourite bits of Regency research. In the days before the advent of telephone and telegraph, written communication was the only way to stay in touch, and everyone was a master of correspondence. They found methods beyond word-choice to get a big message into a small space.
Since the recipients were the ones to pay postage on their mail, it was rude to make them pay for a long and heavy letter. To this end, there were no envelopes. The paper the letter was written on was folded and sealed with wax, and addressed on the blank side.
To cheat a second page into a one-page letter writers turned the paper ninety degrees and wrote the second half over the top of the previously written first page. It was up to the reader patiently to decipher the crossed words.
It made a sharp pen nib and good handwriting all the more important. I think of my own unreadable penmanship and stand in awe.
CHRISTINE MERRILL lives on a farm in Wisconsin, USA, with her husband, two sons, and too many pets—all of whom would like her to get off of the computer so they can check their e-mail. She has worked by turns in theatre costuming and as a librarian. Writing historical romance combines her love of good stories and fancy dress with her ability to stare out of the window and make stuff up.
Books by Christine Merrill
Mills & Boon Historical Romance
The de Bryun Sisters
The Truth About Lady Felkirk
A Ring from a Marquess
Ladies in Disgrace
Lady Folbroke’s Delicious Deception
Lady Drusilla’s Road to Ruin Lady Priscilla’s Shameful Secret
Stand-Alone Novels
A Wicked Liaison
Miss Winthorpe’s Elopement Dangerous Lord, Innocent Governess Two Wrongs Make a Marriage Unlaced at Christmas ‘The Christmas Duchess’ The Secrets of Wiscombe Chase The Wedding Game
Mills & Boon Historical Undone! ebooks
Seducing a Stranger
Virgin Unwrapped To Undo a Lady
Visit the Author Profile page
at millsandboon.co.uk for more titles.
To 2017.
You are still bright and unspoiled. Please be more gentle and loving to us all than last year was.
Contents
As they always were at the height of the London Season, Almack’s Assembly Rooms were crowded to the point of overflowing. Amelia Summoner circled the edges of the main room, watching the marriage-minded throng unobserved. It was easy to do when one knew the place and people in it as well as she did.
She had not missed a Wednesday in the three years her family had had vouchers. In that time she had watched three crops of debutantes arrive, parade and depart on the arms of the gentlemen who married them. She had made her own come-out the first year and, after a brief splash, she had sunk through the waters of society, forgotten.
Now she moved about the place like a fish in the deep, invisible until the moment she chose to be otherwise. Unlike other unattached girls of her age, she viewed this more as a freedom than a failure. It was more relaxing to dance, speak or flirt only when one felt moved to do so, instead of obsessing on each social interaction as if it was to be a life-changing event. If one simply wished to watch others, it was much better to be that Summoner girl.
