Katherine Langford is in London ready to make her debut to society when she discovers that the home next door is being rented by the "Murderous Marquess" Hayden Rowling. Always impulsive, Katy decides to sneak over and take a peek at the notorious M...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I blushed before his bold proposal...
Hayden had just sunk deep into the feather mattress of his rented bed, his exhausted muscles groaning with relief, when an all too familiar banging sounded belowstairs.
"Surely you jest," he muttered, throwing himself to his back and glaring up at the underside of the bed's wooden canopy. The one thing he'd looked forward to in London was a few nights of uninterrupted sleep. But it seemed even that was to be denied him.
Not even that rascal Tristan could have devised a torture this diabolical.
Hayden was a man who valued his solitude above all other comforts, yet in the space of a few hours his privacy had been besieged by a snooping virgin, an insolent strumpet, and an irate duke. Perhaps Tristan had returned to confess that the entire nightmare had been one colossal joke, that the delectable debutante and her infuriated brother-in-law were only actors hired to perform in some ridiculous farce of which he'd become the unwitting lead.
But if that were true, then the woman he'd held in his arms tonight had been an accomplished actress indeed. Any Fleet Street doxy could mimic passion, but the innocence he'd tasted in her kiss was not so easily feigned.
The banging ceased. Hayden soaked in the blissful silence, afraid to breathe. Perhaps it had just been his valet or one of the other servants, stumbling back from their night of revelry at one of the local gin shops.
He rolled to his side and plumped up his pillow, determined to steal at least a fitful nap before sunrise.
The banging resumed—sharp and persistent.
Throwing back the covers, Hayden jumped out of the bed. He jerked on his dressing gown, yanking the sash in a careless knot. Snatching up a candlestick, he went storming down the stairs, cursing himself for having ever given the servants the night off in the first place. For a man who wanted nothing more than to be left alone, his company was certainly in very high demand these days.
As he flung open the door, the last person he expected to find standing on his stoop was Katherine Langford.
She opened her mouth. He closed the door.
There was a brief pause, then the banging resumed, twice as forceful as before.
Hayden threw open the door, using the full advantage of his height to glare down at his uninvited guest. She'd changed out of her torn gown and now looked less ravished than ravishing in a maroon skirt and a fur- trimmed spencer of emerald green velvet. The short jacket hugged her trim waist and accentuated the gentle curves of her bosom. She'd even crowned her curls with a saucy felt hat topped with a pink feather. Oddly enough, it was the defiant angle of that jaunty little feather that gave Hayden's heart an unexpected tug. If she was nonplussed at being confronted with six feet, two inches of angry male wearing nothing but a burgundy dressing gown and a ferocious scowl, she hid it well.
