Born to Scandal. Diane Gaston

       ‘We cannot pretend what happened did not occur.’

      ‘We cannot change it either,’ Anna countered.

      Lord Brentmore released her and stepped away. ‘Perhaps it is best that I return to London.’

      ‘Leave?’ Her voice rose and her eyes shot daggers at him. ‘Leave your children? Do not use me as an excuse to neglect them. If you have no wish to help them, then, indeed, go back to the pleasures of London. Forget them as you have done before—’

      ‘Enough!’ He closed the distance between them again. ‘You forget your place, Governess!’

      He sounded just like the old Marquess. She did not back down, none the less. Instead she looked directly into his eyes. ‘Last night you lamented the damage done your children by your absence. Now you seize upon the slimmest excuse to leave them again.’

      His gaze was entrapped by her blue eyes—so clear, so forthright and brave. Before he realised it his hands had rested on her shoulders, drawing her even closer to him. A memory, foggy and blurred, returned. He remembered kissing her …

      He stepped back, jarred at how easily his own behaviour turned scandalous. ‘See, Anna—Miss Hill—how easily I might compromise you again?’

       AUTHOR NOTE

      BORN TO SCANDAL is my homage to Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre—a story of secrets and betrayals, with a governess at the centre of it. Charlotte Brontë had been a governess in Yorkshire in the late 1830s, and well knew the loneliness of the position, later drawing on her experiences in writing her timeless classic.

      A governess in the nineteenth century was often a pitiable creature. Neither servant nor family, she lived a lonely life between the two, working long hours caring for children, receiving little pay and no protection from those who might abuse her. Worst of all, she had little recourse for anything better.

      Jane Austen, that astute social observer of her time, certainly shared the perception of the governess as a sad creature. In Emma, Austen even likens the prospect to slavery. Her character Jane Fairfax, who feels fated to become a governess, remarks that the governess trade is ‘… widely different certainly as to the guilt of those who carry it on; but as to the greater misery of the victims, I do not know where it lies.’

      Never was there a Regency character more in need of a happy ending!

      I wondered … What if I created a governess with a past even more scandalous than Jane Eyre’s and an aristocratic hero who, like Mr Rochester, is desperate to overcome the scandal in his own life? How could I give these two their happy ending?

      BORN TO SCANDAL is the result.

      I love to hear from readers. Visit me on Facebook and Twitter, or come to my website at http://dianegaston.com

      About the Author

      As a psychiatric social worker, DIANE GASTON spent years helping others create real-life happy endings. Now Diane crafts fictional ones, writing the kind of historical romance she’s always loved to read. The youngest of three daughters of a US Army Colonel, Diane moved frequently during her childhood, even living for a year in Japan. It continues to amaze her that her own son and daughter grew up in one house in Northern Virginia. Diane still lives in that house, with her husband and three very ordinary housecats. Visit Diane’s website at http://dianegaston.com

       Previous novels by the same author:

      THE MYSTERIOUS MISS M

      THE WAGERING WIDOW

      A REPUTABLE RAKE

      INNOCENCE AND IMPROPRIETY

      A TWELFTH NIGHT TALE

      (in A Regency Christmas anthology)

      THE VANISHING VISCOUNTESS

      SCANDALISING THE TON

      JUSTINE AND THE NOBLE VISCOUNT

      (in Regency Summer Scandals)

GALLANT OFFICER, FORBIDDEN LADY*

      CHIVALROUS CAPTAIN, REBEL MISTRESS*

      VALIANT SOLDIER, BEAUTIFUL ENEMY*

A NOT SO RESPECTABLE GENTLEMAN?†

*Three Soldiers mini-series

†linked by character

      And in Mills & Boon^® Historical Undone! eBooks:

      THE UNLACING OF MISS LEIGH

      THE LIBERATION OF MISS FINCH

      Born to Scandal

      Diane Gaston

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      MILLS & BOON

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      To my sister Judy, my first and forever friend.

       Chapter One

       Mayfair—May 1816

      The Marquess of Brentmore walked out of the library of his London town house and wandered into the drawing room.

      He’d agreed to consider his cousin’s scheme. What the devil had he been thinking?

      He strode to the window and gave a fierce tug at the brocade curtains. Why hang heavy curtains when London offered precious little sunlight as it was? One of many English follies. What he would give for one fine Irish day.

      At times like this, when restlessness plagued him, his thoughts always turned to Ireland. He could never entirely banish his early years from his mind, no matter how hard his English grandfather, the old marquess, had tried to have it beat out of him.

      He stared out the window, forcing his mind back to the weather. The sky looked more grey than usual. More rain coming, no doubt.

      A young woman paced in Cavendish Square across the street. Something about her caught his eye and captured his attention.

      He could not look away.

      She brimmed with emotion and seemed to be struggling to contain it. He felt it as acutely as if those emotions also resonated inside him, as if he again waged a battle with a fiery