Rake Beyond Redemption. Anne O'Brien

      

       ‘Here. Drink this,’ Zan ordered.

      The girl sighed, accepted the glass, then sipped.

      Zan tossed back a glass of brandy himself before he turned to her. To his amazement his temper heated, rapid and out of control, then bubbled up to spill out in hard words. ‘What were you thinking, madam, getting yourself trapped by an incoming tide? Did you not see what was happening?’

      The soft summer blue of her gaze sharpened, as did her voice. ‘No, I did not see. Or I would not have been trapped, would I?’

      She had spirit. He’d give her that. Zan raised his brows as his irritation began to ebb. ‘Now what do I do with you?’

      ‘You do nothing with me.’ Her eyes flashed. ‘I am very grateful that you rescued me, of course, but I am perfectly capable of returning home on my own. You are at liberty to ride on your way.’

      Zan simply stood and looked at her, torn between amusement and frustration. She sat and looked back at him, mutiny in her face.

      And there it was. The sword of Damocles fell.

      Rake Beyond Redemption

      Anne O’Brien

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      ANNE O’BRIEN was born and has lived for most of her life in Yorkshire. There she taught history, before deciding to fulfil a lifetime ambition to write romantic historical fiction. She won a number of short story competitions until published for the first time by Mills & Boon. As well as writing, she finds time to enjoy gardening, cooking and watercolour painting. She now lives with her husband in an eighteenth-century cottage in the depths of the Welsh Marches.

      You can find out about Anne’s books and more at her website: www.anneobrien.co.uk

       Recent novels by the same author:

      THE DISGRACED MARCHIONESS^*

      THE OUTRAGEOUS DEBUTANTE^*

      THE ENIGMATIC RAKE^*

      CONQUERING KNIGHT, CAPTIVE LADY

      CHOSEN FOR THE MARRIAGE BED

      COMPROMISED MISS^†

       and in MIRA® Books:

      VIRGIN WIDOW

      MILLS & BOON

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      To George, as ever, with love.

      AUTHOR NOTE

      COMPROMISED MISS ended with Luke and Harriette finding true happiness together. But two of the characters in COMPROMISED MISS, both of them dear to my heart, were left under a dark cloud. Marie-Claude de la Roche from France, young, unhappy, widowed with a small child to raise, might have been rescued from physical danger, but was now dependent on an unknown family in a new country. And then there was Alexander Ellerdine, unscrupulous rake and smuggler, his character ruined beyond redemption, guilty by his own admission of any number of terrible sins and cast off by his family.

      Both were alone and, for different reasons, without hope.

      Were they to remain so? I decided I could not abandon them, and RAKE BEYOND REDEMPTION came to be written. Marie-Claude needed a new life, and the chance of love to replace the one she had lost. Could it be with the disreputable rake Alexander Ellerdine? It would seem to be completely beyond belief with a man of Alexander’s black and vicious reputation. How could the immoral villain of COMPROMISED MISS possibly be reinstated into Polite Society?

      But perhaps…

      Read on to discover how Alexander and Marie-Claude find their destiny together against all the odds. I’m certain you will love the grief and passion, the pain and the eventual fulfilment in their story as much as I enjoyed writing it.

      Chapter One

      June 1818—Lydyard’s Pride, a rambling manor house on the cliffs above the smuggling village of Old Wincomlee, Sussex

      ‘How can you not be happy? What more can you possibly want from life than what you have? Considering everything, you should be deliriously content!’

      Alone in her bedchamber overlooking the cliff top and endless succession of sprightly waves, Marie-Claude Hallaston, her French accent more pronounced than usual, raised her chin at her own sharp reprimand and continued to draw patterns with her fingertip on the grimy, salt-encrusted pane. Leaves and scrolls bloomed around her artistically executed initials, becoming more flamboyant as she replied with a cross frown, ‘I really don’t know what I want. I’ve no idea what’s sunk my spirits, that’s the problem.’ She added another swirl of vegetation to the pattern on the glass, before regarding her begrimed finger with distaste.

      Perhaps it was the remnants of the fever that had laid her low in the spring months and had robbed her of all her spirits, the reason she was now here at Lydyard’s Pride, to enjoy the benefits of sea air and restore her to health. Perhaps. Or, Marie-Claude added with a sigh, ‘Perhaps it’s because I see myself as a widow for the rest of my life, wearing black, high-collared gowns and lace caps!’

      And Marie-Claude breathed on the glass to obliterate the leaves before, rather wistfully, drawing the outline of a little heart.

      Then impatiently swiped the heart away with the heel of her hand.

      This was no good. Rather than simply standing at the window and looking at the view, wallowing in wretched self-pity, she’d go and walk off her megrims. At least here at Lydyard’s Pride she had no need to take a maid or one of the servants to escort her. No one knew her here. No one would think her immodest or in need of a chaperon. Besides, as a widow of long standing—six years!—she had earned the right to do as she pleased.

      On which note of defiance, Marie-Claude tied the satin ribbons of a plain straw bonnet—very suitable for a walk along the cliffs—and put on a dark blue velvet spencer over her gown of celestial-blue silk with its intricate knots of ribbon and ruched hem—not suitable at all for striding along the beach, but what matter. She exchanged her silk pumps for a pair of ankle boots, stalwart but still elegant on her narrow feet, and set off down the steep path to the cove and the village of Old Wincomlee. The light breeze was gentle, the sun dipping towards the sea, glowing on an enticing patch of shingle at the base of the cliff where the inlet narrowed to the first row of cottages, turning the stones a soft pink in the light. Little waves, lace-edged, frilled on to the pebbles. That’s where she would go with no one to please but herself.

      Alone. Always alone, the voice whispered in her mind. The little racing waves repeated the phrase as they shushed on the pebbles. Alone.

      Marie-Claude’s hands stilled on the ivory handle of her parasol as she prepared to snap open the delicate silk and lace. Would she go to her grave, never