Mistress Couplet
2 total works
The dark, devastating stranger rode into the village fair and wagered twenty pounds at the throwing booth — for a chance to win the daisies in Viola Thornhill’s hair. The Gypsy fortune teller had warned: “Beware of a tall, dark, handsome stranger. He can destroy you — if you do not first snare his heart.”
Recklessly Viola flirted, then danced with him around the Maypole. And then came his delicate, delicious kiss. Viola did not regret that she had let down her guard — until the next morning, when he appeared at her door to claim her beloved Pinewood Manor.
Lord Ferdinand Dudley won her home in a game of cards!
Viola hated him for trying to take everything, including her soul. She was mistress of Pinewood Manor. Yet Dudley refused to leave, even as his conscience rebelled at compromising this beautiful innocent whose only proof of ownership was a dead earl’s promise. Dudley held the deed, but at what cost?
Each day under the same roof brought its share of temptation, intimacy, and guilt. But Viola knew it was a battle she could not afford to lose. Marriage was out of the question, and she would be no man’s mistress. Even as Dudley’s unnerving presence, his knowing smile, threatened to melt her resolve.
Against his better judgment, Lord Ferdinand Dudley was beguiled. This maddening beauty had stirred him as no woman had before. And he was bound and determined to make her his own.
At once sensuous, whimsical, and wonderfully romantic, Mary Balogh’s new novel holds us in thrall, bringing to life a love story that sizzles with passion and originality.
In this captivating novel, Mary Balogh, the premier writer of Regency romance, invites you into a world of scandal and seduction, of glittering high society and intrigue, as an arrogant duke does the unthinkable—he falls in love with his mistress.
She races onto the green, desperate to stop a duel. In the melée, Jocelyn Dudley, Duke of Tresham, is shot. To his astonishment, Tresham finds himself hiring the servant as his nurse. Jane Ingleby is far too bold for her own good. Her blue eyes are the sort a man could drown in—were it not for her impudence. She questions his every move, breaches his secrets, touches his soul. When he offers to set her up in his London town house, love is the last thing on his mind.
Jane tries to pretend it’s strictly business, an arrangement she’s been forced to accept in order to conceal a dangerous secret. Surely there is nothing more perilous than being the lover of such a man. Yet as she gets past his devilish façade and sees the noble heart within, she knows the greatest jeopardy of all, a passion that drives her to risk everything on one perfect month with the improper gentleman who thinks that love is for fools.