Lord Ravenscar’s Inconvenient Betrothal + Giveaway
Lord Ravenscar’s Inconvenient
Betrothal
“Women either ran from Lord Ravenscar or ran to him.”
A Wild Lords and Innocent Ladies story
Alan Rothwell, Marquess of Ravenscar, is furious when unconventional heiress Lily Wallace refuses him purchase of her property. He can’t even win her over with his infamous charm. But when fever seizes him and they’re trapped together, horrified, Alan realizes Lily’s attentions will compromise them both! His solution: take Lily as his betrothed before desire consumes them completely…
A Wild Lords and Innocent Ladies story
Alan Rothwell, Marquess of Ravenscar, is furious when unconventional heiress Lily Wallace refuses him purchase of her property. He can’t even win her over with his infamous charm. But when fever seizes him and they’re trapped together, horrified, Alan realizes Lily’s attentions will compromise them both! His solution: take Lily as his betrothed before desire consumes them completely…
Purchase
Link: myBook.to/Ravenscar
Author
Bio –
Lara Temple writes strong, sexy regency romances
about complex individuals who give no quarter but do so with plenty of passion.
Her fifth book with Harlequin Mills & Boon, 'Lord Ravenscar’s Inconvenient
Betrothal,' will be published in March 2018, and is the second in her Wild
Lords series. Her four previous books are: Lord Hunter's Cinderella Heiress,
The Duke’s Unexpected Bride, The Reluctant Viscount, and Lord Crayle’s Secret
World.
When she was fifteen Lara found a very grubby copy of Georgette Heyer’s Faro’s Daughter in an equally grubby book store. Several blissful hours later she emerged, blinking, into the light of day completely in love with Regency Romance but it took three decades of various fascinating but completely unrelated careers in finance and high tech before she returned to her first love.
Lara lives with her husband and two children who are very good about her taking over the kitchen table for her writing (so she can look out over the garden and dream). She loves to travel (especially to places steeped in history) and read as many books as possible. She recently went looking for that crowded little bookstore but couldn’t quite remember around what corner it was…hopefully it is still there and another girl is in the corner by the window, reading and dreaming…
When she was fifteen Lara found a very grubby copy of Georgette Heyer’s Faro’s Daughter in an equally grubby book store. Several blissful hours later she emerged, blinking, into the light of day completely in love with Regency Romance but it took three decades of various fascinating but completely unrelated careers in finance and high tech before she returned to her first love.
Lara lives with her husband and two children who are very good about her taking over the kitchen table for her writing (so she can look out over the garden and dream). She loves to travel (especially to places steeped in history) and read as many books as possible. She recently went looking for that crowded little bookstore but couldn’t quite remember around what corner it was…hopefully it is still there and another girl is in the corner by the window, reading and dreaming…
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Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/LaraTemple
7
a Rafflecopter giveaway
This scene takes
place at the house the heroine Lily Wallace has inherited and where she finds
herself alone with Lord Ravenscar when he falls ill. This is the moment when
Ravenscar realizes the magnitude of the mess they are in…
Ravenscar pushed
into a sitting position and leaned his head in his hands, trying to think.
He had been alone
with Lily at Hollywell for a full day. The fact that no one knew this yet made
no difference. Her rashness and his fever had just sealed their fate.
‘You must return to
the Hall. Now.’
‘No, I cannot,’
Lily answered. ‘Everyone thinks I went to Bath. What on earth would I say if I
suddenly appeared the following day, as muddy and wet as a bog monster and
without my luggage? As soon as the rain stops and you are well enough to leave
you may walk to Keynsham. I will remain here until the post chaise returns for
me in two days’ time. You see, I have thought it all through.’
He didn’t raise his
head. He hadn’t felt so bruised since the forced march out of Portugal under
Moore. She wasn’t mad, yet she was if she thought it was that simple.
‘You aren’t well
enough to walk to Keynsham yet,’ she continued, infuriatingly matter of fact.
‘But you cannot spend another night here on the sofa. Do you think you can
manage the stairs? The bedrooms have been aired.’
The bedrooms have
been aired.
Lily. You’re mad.
He didn’t say it.
Partially because he knew that under her cheerful bravado she must be as aware
as he of the consequences awaiting them and partially because he couldn’t help
the anticipation that was building as his mind and body absorbed this new
reality.
He was about to
break another vow. It was becoming a habit.
Compromised by an
heiress.
Marriage.
Hunter and Stanton
would split with laughter.
‘Very well. Upstairs.’
It wasn’t as bad as
he anticipated. Halfway up the stairs his legs began to remember their function
and he could have made do with leaning on the bannister, but he kept his arm
around her for the pure pleasure of it. This indulgence almost cost him his
balance halfway down the corridor when Lily suddenly shuddered and leapt to one
side.
‘Lily! What’s
wrong?’ He managed to stop from keeling over by propping himself against the
wall and he pulled her against him in one movement.
‘I stepped on
something. It was soft and… Oh, no, it’s a mouse. I killed it.’
He found what she
was staring at in the faint light of the tapers she had lit along the corridor
to light their way. A tiny grey bundle in the centre of the carpet. His head
was pounding and his body felt it was a hundred years old, but he couldn’t help
it, he started laughing, then winced as she jabbed him with her elbow.
‘Oh, you heartless
brute. It isn’t funny!’
‘I’m not laughing
at that. I don’t know why I’m laughing. But you can relax that conscience,
sweetheart. It wasn’t a vixen that did your grey friend in, but a cat. Those
are claw marks.’
He felt her shudder
again as she looked and then glanced away and he pulled her more firmly against
him. What a strange little thing she was. To brave being alone in a haunted
house and caring for a felled rake, but then to come apart at the seams over a
mangled rodent.
‘Albert had a cat,
a very unfriendly ginger tabby who was always disappearing behind furniture and
making a general nuisance of himself. Come, let’s leave the little fellow for
now, there’s nothing you can do for him.’
‘I hate leaving him
there.’
‘I’ll toss him out
a window, then.’
‘No…leave him. The
tabby is probably hungry. I’ll try not to think about it.’
He kept a firm hold
on his smile until she had deposited him on the side of the bed with all the
concentration of a three-year-old carrying a full glass of water.
‘You should lie
down.’
So
should you, right here with me.
He didn’t say the
words, but as they surfaced in his mind he vaguely remembered asking her not to
leave when the fever had been high, clinging to her hand like a child. She must
think him pathetic. Even if she did lie down with him he was in no shape yet to
do anything about it. Yet.
In the light of the
single candle she looked younger, unusually awkward as she stood watching him.
Was she waiting for him to fall over again? What a blow to his vanity. Here he
was worried about the consequences of compromising her when she probably
thought him an object of pity. But whatever either of them thought, they would
likely only leave this house categorically betrothed. Did she realise that? For
someone so sophisticated she could be incredibly naïve. If he said anything she
would likely run away again, storm notwithstanding.
Would it be so
terrible to marry her?
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