Janice Preston – Saved By Scandal's Heir (страница 1)
Slowly, she raised her eyes to his.
Harriet could not read his expression in the dim light that filtered through the window, but she did see the muscle leap in his jaw. The air between them crackled with intensity, and her pulse responded with a lurch and a gallop. She licked at her dry lips as he moved closer. His gaze fastened on her mouth, sending desire sizzling through her. Pure instinct tilted her head, lifted her lips to his.
The most delicate of touches. Lip to lip…sweet, gentle…almost worshipping. Memories of love and laughter and pure joy. They had been so young. A shared future planned. They had followed the instinctive desires of their youthful bodies. She had felt so secure in his love for her.
Benedict Poole, hero of
The heroine of
I do hope you enjoy reading about the dire predicament Harriet finds herself in following Benedict’s reappearance in her life, and that you, like me, have fun revisiting old friends from my previous books.
Saved by
Scandal’s Heir
Janice Preston
JANICE PRESTON grew up in Wembley, North London, with a love of reading, writing stories and animals. In the past she has worked as a farmer, a police call-handler and a university administrator. She now lives in the West Midlands with her husband and two cats and has a part-time job with a weight management counsellor (vainly trying to control her own weight despite her love of chocolate!).
To my wonderful editor, Julia, who first sparked the idea of rewarding Harriet with her own Happy-Ever-After.
Contents
Mid-February 1812
Harriet, Lady Brierley, paced the lavishly furnished drawing room at Tenterfield Court, mentally rehearsing the words she would say to Sir Malcolm Poole. If she had known the baronet was hovering so close to death, she would never have made the journey from London at this time of year. She had not known, however, and, now she had come all this way into Kent, she might as well ask the questions to which she sought answers. She had come to Tenterfield to find the truth of the past, in order to help her friend Felicity Stanton come to terms with her sister’s death...and Harriet was certain that Sir Malcolm held the key to that particular puzzle.
Felicity’s older sister, Emma, had been just eighteen—an innocent girl seduced and impregnated, who had seen no way out of her predicament other than to take her own life when the man she’d believed loved her had cruelly abandoned her.
Harriet suppressed her shiver. She could so easily have suffered the same fate. Was that why she had been so quick to come to Tenterfield? The empathy she felt for Felicity’s poor sister? There but for the Grace of God...
She crossed the room to stand again before the portrait of the baronet, painted in his younger days, although he was still far from being an old man even now. He gazed down at her, devastatingly handsome, with his lean aristocratic features, dark auburn hair and deep green hooded gaze. Harriet shuddered, partly at the knowledge of what this man was—or what he had been, in the past—partly at his resemblance to... Resolutely, she steered her thoughts in a different direction. This trip was bound to resurrect painful memories... She must rise above them...concentrate on—
‘Lady Brierley. To what do we owe this pleasure?’
Harriet froze. It could not be. Had she conjured him up in the flesh, just by allowing her thoughts one tiny peek at those memories? Moisture prickled her palms even as her mouth dried. She drew a calming breath, gathered her years of experience in hiding her feelings and turned.
He was framed in the open doorway.
Benedict.
After all this time.
He had the same long, lean legs and wide shoulders, but this was a man, not the youth she’d once known. His chin was just as determined but the high forehead under the familiar fox-red hair now sported faint creases. His lips were set in an uncompromising line and his leaf-green eyes pierced Harriet as he stared into her face, his gaze unwavering. A cat stalking its prey could not be more focused.
Harriet swallowed past the jagged glass that appeared to have lodged in her throat.
‘Good afternoon, Mr Poole.’ Had those composed words really come from her lips? She took courage. She had faced worse than this. ‘I apologise for calling uninvited. I did not realise your...’ What was his relationship to Sir Malcolm again? All she could recall was that he had been Benedict’s guardian. ‘Sir Malcolm was so very ill. I had hoped for a few words with him.’
‘He is my second cousin. I’m the only other Poole left now.’