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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780061712784 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | HarperCollins |
| Publication date: | 08/25/2009 |
| Edition description: | Reprint |
| Pages: | 384 |
| Product dimensions: | 4.16(w) x 6.86(h) x 1.04(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
To Wed a Wicked Earl
Chapter One
A Gentleman never hesitates to
rescue a Lady.
The Bride Hunt Ball, Castle Wolverest
August 1813
"My word, child. You look lovely this evening."
Miss Charlotte Greene leveled a blank stare at Viscount Witherby. She should smile, to be polite of course, but her lips wouldn't budge. So instead she simply murmured, "You are much too kind, my lord."
"Kindness has little to do with it." His broad, nearly connected white eyebrows waggled as his greedy gaze swept over her bodice. "I say, you are a temptress," he hissed in a raspy whisper, most likely so her mother wouldn't overhear.
Giving a distracted nod in acknowledgment of the absurd compliment, Charlotte pressed her lips together, suppressing a smile. The balding, elderly viscount might mistakenly consider it encouragement.
"Will you do me the honor of a dance in this next set?" he asked her bosom.
Absolutely not! she wanted to shout. Her proper upbringing, of course, kept the thought from tumbling past her lips, but just barely. Taking a measured breath, she scrambled to find a suitable response.
At her hesitation, his bushy brows raised in haughty disbelief. Truly, if he had half as much hair on his head as he did on his eyebrows, he'd have quite the coiffure.
"Ah, I mean to rest for the time being, my lord," she managed, watching the viscount's spine stiffen as she spoke. "However, I do thank you."
As her mother stepped closer beside her, Charlotte heard her frustrated sigh.
Apparently, Charlotte should have been eager for hisattentions, or any attention for that matter, considering her well-known wallflower status. However, Charlotte just couldn't summon the required gratitude.
"You'll have to excuse my daughter," her mother interjected. "She's just being shy."
Charlotte inwardly cringed at her mother's muttered excuse. Shy? Why did that word always rankle her? Her mother's well-meaning conciliations never failed to make her feel like a girl of seven. Still, the fact remained that being accursedly timid around men had little to do with it. The real reason she refused to dance this evening was simply that no one had asked her.
Well... no one who wasn't foxed, looking for a victim to grope, or old enough to be her grandfather. Or all three as was the case with Viscount Witherby.
Even so, Charlotte hadn't the time to wallow in self-pity. It was nearly midnight, and if her calculations were correct, a long-awaited dream of hers was about to come to fruition.
She just might find herself engaged to none other than Lord Tristan Devine.
As luck would have it—though there were those who thought it was more of a miracle—Charlotte had been selected to participate in the Duke of Wolverest's bride hunt for his younger brother, a man she had been enamored of for so long—ever since that fateful day when he had rescued her mother and herself from their mangled carriage. Since then, she had been completely, irrevocably besotted.
She bit her lip, thinking of the other bride hopefuls and wondering again of her chances. Besides herself, there was her friend Madelyn Haywood (who Charlotte suspected would soon marry Lord Tristan's brother, the duke, instead), the Fairbourne twins, and Harriet Beauchamp. Out of all of them, Miss Beauchamp was her only real competitor, as the twins had their eyes on Madelyn's duke.
A waltz would be played next, and then the remaining women would line up at the north end of the room to await his decision.
Charlotte's heart hammered inside her chest. It was almost time.
Thankfully, Witherby decided to leave Charlotte to her musings. He offered his arm to her mother, who clutched at it as she often did when her rheumatism ailed her. "Good luck to you, my dearest," Hyacinth Greene said quietly for Charlotte's ears only. "If he has any sense in that handsome head of his, he'll make the right decision."
Charlotte gave her mother a small smile as the pair tottered off to a settee set against the wall, her mother throwing Charlotte an encouraging grin from over her shoulder.
A shaky sigh escaped her. Surely, Lord Tristan would pick her.
Just the night before, he had pulled her aside after dinner and told her that she was a cut above the others. He told her she was the only genuine one of the lot and that if he truly had to spend the rest of his life with any of them, it would be her.
Certainly, he must have been sincere? But if she was so certain, why did she feel overcome with doubt?
Perhaps because his words, however pleasing for her to hear, sounded a bit rehearsed.
She blinked out of her musings when she noticed a man walking purposefully toward her. She squinted, willing her eyes to focus. Tall, raven-haired, and just a bit of a swagger. Lord Tristan.
She needed to pinch herself. Was she really here, in his ancestral home, waiting for his proposal? It was all so terribly romantic... even if it was a scandalous way to find a bride.
"Good evening, Miss Greene," he said with a smile, holding out his hand.
She took it without caring where he was going to take her. He led her to the middle of the ballroom, her feet having no need for the glossy parquet floor, for she was surely floating.
To Wed a Wicked Earl. Copyright © by Olivia Parker. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.What People are Saying About This
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