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Mad About the
Major
Bachelor Chronicles #8.5
Bachelor Chronicles #8.5
By: Elizabeth Boyle
Releasing June 2, 2015
Avon Impulse
The
pampered daughter of a duke . . .
Lady Arabella Tremont has spent her entire life
protected and overshadowed by her restrictive father. But she is a Tremont,
after all, and the morning after she is nearly ruined at a ball by a handsome
stranger, Arabella’s father demands she make an arranged match with an heir to
a dukedom. In desperation, Arabella takes matters into her own hands.
Takes a
London holiday with the most unsuitable of chaperones . . .
Major Kingsley is in London to avoid to his
parents’ dreadful house party. To his surprise he runs into the enticing - and
unforgettable -- minx he met at a ball the previous night. Arabella, or Birdie,
as he knows her, insists he owes her three favors-for he’s put her in a
terrible pinch; Kingsley agrees, if only to delay his trip home and because the
notion of spending the day with this enchanting bit of muslin is too tempting
to resist. But all too quickly he discovers Arabella’s requests are hardly what
he expected…
“And
unscathed, I see,” Roscoe said, glancing sideways at him. “Thought I heard you
got shot in that last brush with Boney.”
“A
scratch or two, nothing of note,” Kingsley told him.
“Good
news, that. Means you are in fine form for a bit of a wager.”
“A
wager?” Suddenly Augie’s interest came back to life.
Roscoe
leaned in. “Mrs. Spenser is here.”
“Mrs.
Spenser?” Augie shook his head again. Rather like a wet dog, but Kingsley was
too well-mannered to point that out. “You’re bamming us, Roscoe. Won’t fall for
any of your capers.” He huffed, tucked up his nose, and crossed his arms over
his chest, as if to ward off whatever mischief the man proposed.
“No,
indeed it is true,” Roscoe shot back, all affronted. “Apparently the duke and
duchess attended her ball last month. In disguise of course.”
“Of
course,” Augie agreed, for apparently that
was old news.
“Yes,
well, Mrs. Spenser is here and I have it on good authority that the fellow who
unmasks her before midnight gets to uncover the rest of her, if you know what I
mean.” He nudged Kingsley as if helping him along.
“Yes,
yes, I know what you mean. I’ve been on the Continent, not in a convent,”
Kingsley told him.
“And
have you heard of the lady? Mrs. Spenser?” Roscoe pressed.
“Yes.
I’ve heard of this nonpareil.” Kingsley hadn’t been in London a day before the
tales of Mrs. Spenser and her beauty (along with her lascivious practices) had
reached his ears. Exactly the sort of woman he’d come here searching for—the
sort he could lose himself with for a night or so … before he must absolutely
make his way to his mother’s house party.
And
all that it entailed. Proposed. Demanded.
Roscoe
rocked on his boot heels. “I know which lady she is.”
“Stuff
and nonsense,” Augie shot back. “If you know who she is, why haven’t you gone
and claimed her for yourself?”
“Was
going to do just that, then I saw our good friend here.” He nodded at Kingsley.
“Home from the war, I said to myself. Served his King and country with heroism—if
the newspapers are to be believed. Be rather selfish of me not to offer her up
to our own Major Kingsley, a thank-you as it were.”
Augie
snorted.
Kingsley
laughed in skeptical agreement. “Roscoe, I’ve never known you to share
anything, least of all a willing woman. Were you, perhaps, hit by a mail coach
while I was away?”
“Nothing
of the sort,” Roscoe replied, once again in a pique over having his intentions
questioned. “I thought you might like the opportunity, especially when the word
all over Town is that your mother has your bride and nursery at the ready.”
Kingsley
flinched. Gads, he’d hoped that part of his life wasn’t being bandied about,
but here was Augie, looking away and whistling, and Roscoe grinning confidently
over the news.
Yes,
it was all over Town.
“Not
interested,” he told his old friend, for certainly there was some hitch in all
this.
It
was Roscoe doing the offering after all.
“Now,
now, now. Wait until you behold the lady before you refuse this choice
opportunity,” Roscoe said, catching him by the arm and turning him toward the
open garden doors. “See the milkmaid there, lingering as if she hadn’t a single
concern about her flock or her virtue?”
Against
his better judgment, Kingsley looked.
He
should never have done so.
Even
Augie gasped, for indeed, the lady near the doors was the loveliest creature
Kingsley had beheld in a very long time. Long hair fell in curls all the way
down her back. Her gown, rather than the usual fluff and frills of some noble
version of a milkmaid, was instead simple and classical, a soft sheath of
muslin tied at her waist with a single silken cord.
A
plain white mask covered the upper half of her face, but beneath it were a pair
of pink, full lips that right now she was nibbling with her teeth.
Kingsley
blinked even as his body tightened. Yes, this was exactly what he’d had in mind
to discover.
More
to the point, however had he missed her before this?
She
was Sheba with a shepherdess’s crook.
Demmit,
what man wouldn’t want her?
“What is the wager?” Kingsley said, taking a
step toward her.
“A
monkey,” Roscoe told him. “And of course, the pleasure of her company.”
“Kingsley,
I wouldn’t—” Augie began, but was quickly overshadowed by Roscoe, who had
clapped his hand over Augie’s mouth and shoved Augie behind him.
“Should
I put your name down?” Roscoe asked, all innocence.
“Ah,”
Kingsley said with a grin. “Why not.”
“Kingsley—no—”
Augie struggled to get free, but it was too late, for the major was already
striding confidently off through the press of guests.
Roscoe
waited until their friend was well out of earshot, then began to laugh.
Uproariously.
“Badly
done,” Augie scolded, coming round him and watching in dismay as Kingsley made
his approach. “Do you know who that lady really is?”
“Of
course I do,” Roscoe said with glee.
“He’ll
call you out when he discovers what you’ve done,” Augie pointed out. “Years of
practice aiming at those wily Frogs … you’ll make an easy target in comparison.”
“Hadn’t
thought of that,” Roscoe admitted, making a noncommittal shrug, but nonetheless
taking an uneasy glance at Kingsley.
“You never do, Roscoe,” Augie replied. “You
never do.”
Fun and cute quick read! Thoroughly enjoyable even knowing what would be the outcome of Kingsley and Birdie's situation. I haven't read any of the previous books in the series, and I don't think it's necessary to do so in order to enjoy this book. Having said that, I think I would enjoy them based on this novella.
ARC via Edelweiss
Elizabeth Boyle was an antipiracy paralegal for Microsoft before
settling down to write full-time. Her first novel, Brazen Angel, which won
Dell's Diamond Debut Award in 1996, also won the Romance Writers of America's
RITA Award for Best First Book, and was a finalist for Best Long Historical
Romance. She lives with her husband in Seattle, Washington. She is also the
author of Brazen Heiress.
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