Tall, Dark and Disreputable. Deb Marlowe

       Portia would not trust him to keep his word, but she was willing to take him to her bed? What sort of logic was that?

      Mateo snorted in disgust. Women’s logic—the sort tailor-made to drive him mad.

      

      And therein, perhaps, lay part of the problem. For until she’d pressed that deliciously curved body up against him he hadn’t allowed himself to think of Portia as a woman. First he’d painted her as a scheming opportunist, and even once he’d realised he was mistaken still he had not truly looked at her. Instead he’d overlaid her with a picture of the unassuming, unfailingly supportive young girl he’d once known.

      

      In reality, she was neither. She was still as he’d remembered and expected, but she’d grown, too. No, he had not expected to encounter strength, steel and determination. She’d become a woman of fascinating layers. And were this any other time and circumstance he’d enjoy nothing more than slowly peeling them away.

      Deb Marlowe grew up in Pennsylvania with her nose in a book. Luckily, she’d read enough romances to recognise the true modern hero she met at a college Halloween party—even though he wore a tuxedo T-shirt instead of breeches and tall boots. They married, settled in North Carolina, and produced two handsome, intelligent and genuinely amusing boys.

      Though she spends much of her time with her nose in her laptop, for the sake of her family she does occasionally abandon her inner world for the domestic adventure of laundry, dinner and carpool. Despite her sacrifice, not one of the men in her family is yet willing to don breeches or tall boots. She’s working on it. Deb would love to hear from readers! You can contact her at [email protected]

       Recent novels by the same author:

      SCANDALOUS LORD, REBELLIOUS MISS

      AN IMPROPER ARISTOCRAT

      HER CINDERELLA SEASON

      ANNALISE AND THE SCANDALOUS RAKE

      (part of Regency Summer Scandals)

      Tall, Dark and Disreputable

      Deb Marlowe

      

      

MILLS & BOON®

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      To the Biaggi’s Bunch…

      You all already know why—

      and that’s what makes it beautiful!

       Chapter One

       Berkshire, England—Summer 1821

      Ribald laughter and drunken babble spilled out into the night. The owner of the Spread Eagle Inn took cheerful part in the bonhomie as he shooed his last customers into the dark. He stood a moment, listening as they scattered, secure in the knowledge that they would be back tomorrow and that the satisfying weight of coins in his apron pocket would only grow heavier.

      Inside his taproom, quiet settled over the abandoned tables and peace wrapped itself around the place in lieu of the dissipating curtain of smoke. Mateo Cardea alone had not stirred when the innkeeper called. Here the fire burned warm, the ale was good and the accommodating wench in his lap ran soft fingers through his hair. He should have been blissfully content.

      He was not.

      The lightskirt slid a finger around his ear. She leaned in close, her brassy blond hair tickling his jaw, her other hand trailing a whisper-soft caress against his nape. Mateo could feel the tough calluses on her fingertips. He closed his eyes and imagined the touch of them against his other, more sensitive areas.

      Arousing as the image might be, Mateo still could not summon the enthusiasm needed to climb out of his chair. Ridiculous. A few paltry coins and the girl was his for the taking, yet the thought did not dredge up more than a faint stir of desire.

      The yawning innkeeper ambled back into the taproom. He cast a glance at Mateo and crooked a finger at the girl. ‘Get these chairs atop the tables, Etta, and I’ll help you sweep up,’ he said, not unkindly. The girl gave a soft groan of protest, but rose up and out of Mateo’s lap. She trailed a finger over his shoulder and down the length of his arm as she went. Mateo recognised the gesture for the promise it was and briefly waited for an answering surge of interest.

      It did not come. Inside him there was no room for such clean and simple things as peace and desire. ‘Dio nel cielo,’ he breathed. Oh, but he was tired of the unfamiliar burn of anger in his gut and the caustic flow of resentment in his veins. For weeks he’d been like this, since he’d first discovered his father’s shocking betrayal.

      All of it gone. Everything he’d spent his life working for, planning towards, gone with the reading of a few cold words. Years of biting his tongue, of endless explanations, of patiently coaxing his father to more modern business practices, and still the old man had not trusted him in the end. Mateo was in disgrace and, for the first time in a hundred years, control of Cardea Shipping had fallen outside the family. It was more than a man’s pride could bear.

      His indifference was more than the strumpet could bear. She had worked her way back over to his side of the room and into the dark corner behind him. Now she leaned against him, blocking the heat of the fire, but warming him none the less when she bent low to encircle him in her arms. Her impressive bosom pressed soft against his back.

      ‘Are ye even here, tonight?’ Etta asked, demanding the return of his attention. ‘What are you thinkin’ of, that’s got your mind so far away?’ She stiffened a little and drew back. ‘Some other woman, p’raps?’

      Mateo smiled. ‘I am not so foolish, sweet.’ With a sigh of regret he acknowledged the need to evade her interest and retire upstairs alone. Tomorrow held fair promise to be the worst day of his life and no amount of mindless distraction tonight would help ready him for it.

      ‘What is it, then?’ she demanded, circling round to the front of him again, her bottom lip forming a perfect pout. ‘Something important, I hope,’ she said low in his ear, ‘to be distracting you from the bounties at hand.’

      He disentangled himself and drew her around to his side. Taking the girl with him, Mateo crossed the small distance to the bar. Here the innkeeper tidied up, trimming the wicks on cheap tallow lamps and polishing the worn wooden counter with pride. Mateo took the furthest stool and gestured for the girl to perch next to him.

      ‘No, tonight I have been lost indeed—thinking of fathers, and of sons. Do you know,’ he continued in a conversational tone, ‘that my father once caused a citywide riot over a wh—’ Etta straightened in her seat and he cleared his throat ‘—over a celebrated courtesan?’

      She relaxed. ‘He never!’

      Mateo smiled at her obvious interest. Even the innkeeper sidled closer to listen. ‘Oh, but he did. It happened in Naples, long ago. La Incandescent Clarisse, she was called, the greatest beauty in Europe. Endless poems were written to the soft pink of her lips, to the sweet curve of her hips. Playwrights named their heroines for her, artists worshipped her as their muse. Men followed her carriage in the street. My father was only one of many caught firmly in her spell.’

      ‘What happened?’ The girl’s face shone bright and she had briefly forgotten her practised seduction.

      ‘The inevitable.’ Mateo shrugged. ‘La Incandescent got with child. All of Naples held their breath, fascinated to hear who she would name as the father.’

      ‘Who was it?’ she breathed. ‘Not your da?’

      ‘After a fashion. You see, Clarisse could only narrow down the field. The father of her child was