A Wicked Persuasion. Catherine George

       But Ms Brewster had not come alone. “Good morning, Harriet,” Charlotte said briskly. “Apropos of our discussion, I’ve brought a possible client for your new venture. James Crawford—meet my accountant, Harriet Wilde.”

      Harriet got to her feet, feeling as though all the air had been sucked out of her office, as James, elegant in a dark City suit, strolled in and dominated it. After all the years of fantasising over a meeting here he was at last in the flesh: harder, older and colder, with little resemblance to the man she’d fallen in love with.

      “Miss Wilde and I have already met,” he informed Charlotte, the deep voice striking a chord so familiar Harriet’s pulse went into overdrive as he held out his hand. He gave her a hard, bright look. “But it was so long ago you’ve probably forgotten.”

      “Of course not.” She shook the hand, and felt a streak of heat along her veins at the contact.

       Dear Reader

      My life as a Jane Austen fan began when I was fourteen. Although a mere junior I won a role in the school production of Pride and Prejudice as the nasty Miss Bingley, decked out in a black velvet dress with my hair in ringlets.

      I went on to read Emma and Mansfield Park in school, but I finally met up with Persuasion many years later when I was living in Brazil. I was confined to bed with a virus in the hottest part of the year, and was delighted when one of my husband’s colleagues lent me selections from his library of classic literature, which included Dickens, the Brontes, Thomas Hardy and, most important of all, a large tome entitled Jane Austen, The Works. I devoured this from cover to cover, ending up with Persuasion, which was, and still is, my favourite of all Jane Austen’s novels.

      It was a challenge to achieve a modern romance based on the theme of Persuasion, with its codes of behaviour from a bygone age, but I hope you enjoy the final result as much as I enjoyed writing A Wicked Persuasion.

      Love and best wishes,

       Catherine

      About the Author

      CATHERINE GEORGE was born in Wales, and early on developed a passion for reading which eventually fuelled her compulsion to write. Marriage to an engineer led to nine years in Brazil, but on his later travels the education of her son and daughter kept her in the UK. And, instead of constant reading to pass her lonely evenings, she began to write the first of her romantic novels. When not writing and reading, she loves to cook, listen to opera, and browse in antiques shops.

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      A Wicked

      Persuasion

      Catherine George

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

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      With thanks to the immortal Jane

      CHAPTER ONE

      NOT a single thing had changed in the cobbled streets around the medieval market hall since the stormy day he’d driven away like a bat out of hell, swearing never to set foot in the place again. Ten years on, the steep roofs and stone mullions typical of local architecture glowed in the sun as he left the town centre for Broad Street to walk past graceful old buildings, the private dwellings outnumbered by medical consultants, banks, chartered accountants, solicitors and even interior designers. To satisfy his curiosity he went inside the bank he was aiming for and learned that one thing had changed. But on his way out he heard a voice behind him exchanging greetings with one of the bank clerks and stopped dead, his heart slamming rabbit punches against his ribs. He turned slowly, and felt a jolt of visceral satisfaction when the woman walking towards him turned so deathly pale he almost put out a hand to steady her.

      ‘James!’ She swallowed, so visibly shocked his satisfaction doubled as he held the door open for her.

      ‘Why, hello! How are you, Harriet?’ he asked affably.

      ‘Very well.’ A statement which was such a palpable lie he almost laughed in her face. ‘And you?’

      ‘Never better.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Good to see you again, but I can’t stop—running late. Goodbye.’

      James Crawford strode down the street without a backward glance, angry because the chance sighting of Harriet Wilde had affected him so violently. She’d changed out of all recognition from the girl he’d once adored. The girl who’d shut him out of her life and changed his own for ever.

      Harriet stood transfixed outside the bank, staring at the man striding away down the hill. At last she let out the breath she’d been holding and turned, shaken, to make for her car. For years after the painful break up she had dreamed of meeting James Crawford again. The result had been too many sleepless nights, and weight loss that ruined her looks, according to the siblings who’d accused her of dieting. And in time she had stopped imagining that every tall, dark male figure she spotted in the distance was James, mainly because in ten long years she had never actually laid eyes on him again. And now she had at last bumped into him, fate arranged it to be after a hard day’s work when she probably looked every minute of the ten years since their last meeting. She hadn’t bothered with lipstick since lunch, either. She smiled bitterly. It would take a lot more than lipstick to mend fences with James Crawford. Who was sure to be a husband and father long since. Harriet’s sharp twinge of pain at the thought was the last straw. She’d been so sure she felt nothing for him any more. But it was only natural to feel something, if only to wonder what he was doing here after all this time. Her phone rang as she turned up the steep, winding drive but she let her father’s call go to message. After the devastating encounter with James she was in sore need of some peace at her own place before tackling the evening ahead.

      When Harriet had qualified as a chartered accountant she accepted a job with a local firm instead of a tempting offer from a London-based company, and then astonished her family by announcing that she wanted to move permanently into the Lodge at River House.

      ‘Why on earth would you want to do that?’ had demanded Julia, the eldest of the three Wilde sisters. ‘It’s so small!’

      It was also self-contained, enough distance from the main house for privacy, but near enough to keep a monitoring eye on it. ‘I like it there,’ Harriet had told her. ‘I’ve always used the Lodge to study, anyway. It’s surely not unreasonable at my age to want a place of my own.’

      Aubrey Wilde had dismissed the