Chapter One
The Debutante’s Daring Proposal
Annie Burrows
“I want you to marry me.”
Miss Georgiana Wickford has a plan to avoid the marriage mart—she’ll propose a marriage of convenience! She hasn’t spoken to the Earl of Ashenden since their childhood friendship was torn apart, but now Edmund is her only hope.
Edmund refuses to take any bride, especially the unsuitable country miss who abandoned him years ago. But when he sees beautiful Georgie at the mercy of society’s rakes, it arouses his protective instincts. And soon the earl is tempted to claim the daring debutante for himself!
“If you have no interest in becoming a countess, why have you asked me to consider marrying you?”
He was standing closer to her now than he’d done since they’d both been children. Close enough for her to see those blue flecks in his eyes which prevented them from looking as though they were chiselled from ice. This close, she’d swear she could see a spark of interest, rather than cold indifference. This close, she could even almost imagine she could feel warmth emanating from his body
Some of you will already have met the Earl of Ashenden in my earlier booksin the library of his club, where he was having a delightful conversation with Mr Morgan about the insect life found in India. And you might recall how that conversation was so rudely interrupted by Lord Havelock, bursting in and demanding help with finding a bride in a hurry.
The Earl of Ashenden, being a man of science, suggested they draw up a list of what qualities said bride needed to have, and was very firm about his own intention one day to select a wife primarily for her intelligence.
‘I would hate to think,’ he said, giving Havelock a particularly penetrating look, ‘that I had curtailed my own freedom only to produce a brood of idiots.’
Naturally I could not allow him to settle for such a wife. Instead I decided to give him a heroine who would turn his ordered existence upside down!
If, after reading his story as told within these pages, you would like to know why Lord Chepstow was trying to brush off an imaginary stain when recounting his proposal to Honeysuckle, you can read about it in ‘Governess to Christmas Bride’, which appears in the anthology Gift-Wrapped Governesses.
And if you want to discover what measures Lord Havelock took to ensure Mary married him you can read about their courtship and the early days of their marriage in Lord Havelock’s List.
ANNIE BURROWS has been writing Regency romances for Mills & Boon since 2007. Her books have charmed readers worldwide, having been translated into nineteen different languages, and some have gone on to win the coveted Reviewers’ Choice award from CataRomance. For more information, or to contact the author, please visit annie-burrows.co.uk, or you can find her on Facebook at Facebook.com/annieburrowsUK.
‘...to the one I love...’
Meet me at our place.
G.
The Earl of Ashenden crumpled the note in his long
