Regency Christmas Vows: The Blanchland Secret / The Mistress of Hanover Square. Anne Herries

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Название Regency Christmas Vows: The Blanchland Secret / The Mistress of Hanover Square
Автор произведения Anne Herries
Жанр Исторические любовные романы
Серия
Издательство Исторические любовные романы
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781474006439



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      Meet the lords and ladies of London’s ton,

      Bath society and Regency

      country house parties

      in

      Two vivid, festive novels

      by reader favourites

      Nicola Cornick and Anne Herries

      Regency Christmas Vows

      The Blanchland Secret

      Nicola Cornick

      The Mistress of Hanover Square

      Anne Herries

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      Table of Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

      The Blanchland Secret

       About the Author

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

       Chapter Seven

       Chapter Eight

       Chapter Nine

       Chapter Ten

       Chapter Eleven

       Chapter Twelve

       The Mistress of Hanover Square

       About the Author

       Chapter One

       Chapter Two

       Chapter Three

       Chapter Four

       Chapter Five

       Chapter Six

       Chapter Seven

       Chapter Eight

       Chapter Nine

       Chapter Ten

       Copyright

       The Blanchland Secret

      Nicola Cornick

      For the first eighteen years of her life NICOLA CORNICK lived in Yorkshire, within a stone’s throw of the moors that had inspired the Brontë sisters to write Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. One of her grandfathers was a poet and her family contained teachers and avid readers who filled the house with books. With such a background it was impossible for Nicola not to become a bookworm.

      Nicola met her future husband while she was at university, although it took her four years to realise that he was special and more than just a friend. Her husband, being so much more perceptive, had worked this out much sooner, but eventually an understanding was reached.

      This lack of perception also meant that Nicola did not realise for years that she was meant to be a writer. She wrote bits and pieces of novels in her spare time, but never finished any of them. Eventually, she sent in the first three chapters of a Regency romance to Mills & Boon and, although they were rejected, she found she had become so addicted to writing that she could not stop. Happily, her third attempt was accepted and she has never looked back.

      Nicola loves to hear from her readers and can be contacted by e-mail or via her website, www.nicolacornick.co.uk.

       Chapter One

      Mr Julius Churchward, representative of the famously discreet London lawyers of the same name, had a variety of facial expressions he could draw upon, depending on the nature of the news he was imparting to his aristocratic clients. There was sympathetic but grave, used when breaking the news that an inheritance was substantially smaller than expected; there was sympathetic but rueful, for unsatisfactory offspring and breach of promise; finally, there was an all-purpose dolefulness, for when the precise nature of the problem was in doubt. It was this third alternative that he adopted now, as he stood on the doorstep of Lady Amelia Fenton’s trim house in Bath, for if the truth were told, he knew nothing of the contents of the letter he was about to deliver.

      Mr Churchward had travelled from London the previous day, stopped overnight at the Star and Garter in Newbury and resumed his journey at first light. To undertake such a journey in winter, with Christmas pressing close upon them, argued some urgency. The morning sun was warming the creamy Bath stone of Brock Street but the winter air was chill. Mr Churchward shivered inside his overcoat and hoped that Miss Sarah Sheridan, Lady Amelia’s companion, was not still at breakfast.

      A neat maid showed him into a parlour that he remembered from a visit three years before, a visit during which he had conveyed to Miss Sheridan the disappointing news that her brother Frank had left no estate to speak of. At the back of his mind was an occasion some two years before that, when he had had to proffer the even more depressing intelligence that Lord Sheridan had left only a small competence to keep his daughter from penury. Miss Sheridan had borne the news with fortitude, explained that she had very few material needs and gained Mr Churchward’s admiration in the process.

      He still felt the inequity of her situation keenly. A lady of Miss Sheridan’s breeding should not, he felt, be reduced to acting as companion, even to so benevolent a relative as her cousin, Lady Amelia. He was sure that Lady Amelia was too generous ever to make Miss Sheridan feel a poor relation, but it was simply not fitting. For several years Mr Churchward’s chivalrous heart had hoped that Miss Sheridan would make a suitable match, for she was young and looked well to a pass, but three years had gone by and she was now firmly on the shelf.

      Mr Churchward shook his head sadly as he waited in Lady Amelia’s airy drawing-room. He tried hard not to have favourites; it would have been quite inappropriate when he had so many esteemed clients, but he made an exception in the case of Miss Sarah Sheridan.

      The door opened and Sarah came towards him, hand outstretched as though he was a great friend rather than the bearer of doubtful news.

      ‘Dear Mr Churchward! How do you do, sir? This is an unexpected pleasure!’

      Mr Churchward was not so sure. The letter he carried seemed to weigh down his document case. But such misgivings seemed foolish in the light of day. The parlour was bright with winter sunlight; it shone full on Miss Sheridan, but she was a lady whose face and figure could withstand the harshest of morning light. Indeed, her cream and rose complexion seemed dazzlingly fresh and fair and her slender figure was set off to advantage by a simple dress of jonquil muslin.

      ‘How do you do, Miss Sheridan? I hope I find you well?’

      Mr Churchward took the proffered seat and