A Desirable Husband. Mary Nichols

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      He must have sensed her presence.

      He suddenly turned and looked straight at her. She found herself catching her breath, because he was the most handsome man she had ever seen in her life.

      He smiled at her, put his finger to the brim of his hat and tilted it toward her. Her answering smile lit her face, as if she had suddenly met someone she had known long ago and hadn’t seen for a while.

      “Esme, how could you?” Rosemary took Esme’s arm and almost dragged her away.

      Esme looked back over her shoulder and discovered the young man was staring after them….

      A Desirable Husband

      Harlequin^®Historical

      MILLS & BOON

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      MARY NICHOLS

      Born in Singapore, Mary Nichols came to England when she was three, and has spent most of her life in different parts of East Anglia. She has been a radiographer, school secretary, information officer and industrial editor, as well as a writer. She has three grown children and four grandchildren.

      A Desirable Husband

      MARY NICHOLS

      Available from Harlequin^® Historical and MARY NICHOLS

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      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Epilogue

      Chapter One

      March 1850

      ‘Are we nearly there?’ Esme turned from watching the countryside flying past the carriage window at a speed that would have frightened her had she been a young lady given to attacks of the vapours, which she certainly was not.

      It was not her first ride in a train because she had travelled by this means the short distance from her home in Luffenham to Leicester to visit her married sister, Lucy, but that went at the pace of a snail. This was the first time she had undertaken such a long journey, and without her parents, too. Lucy had intended to accompany her, but five-year-old Harry had gone down with a cold and she would not leave him. So here she was, being escorted by her brother-in-law, who had business in town, and Miss Bannister, her old governess, who was going to act as companion and maid.

      ‘Not long now,’ Myles told her. ‘Are you tired?’

      ‘Not especially, I’m simply impatient to arrive.’ Papa had said he could not give her a Season—at least, not one befitting the daughter of the Earl of Luffenham—and she would have to take her chances on finding a husband among the local gentry, which would be very nearly impossible. She knew them all and there wasn’t one she liked well enough to want to spend the rest of her life with. The whole family talked about it, arguing to and fro as if they were talking about what to do with a problem servant. Both Lucinda and Rosemary had had come-out seasons and it didn’t seem fair that Esme should be deprived of one, for how else could she find a suitable husband? In the end, Rosemary, who was married to Rowan, Viscount Trent, and lived in a smart mansion in Kensington, had persuaded her husband to provide the wherewithal. Esme could not wait to see what social occasions had been arranged for her.

      At nineteen, the youngest of the Earl of Luffenham’s three daughters, Esme was as excited as a child. With her flawless skin, rosy cheeks and big blue eyes, she looked younger than her years—a state of affairs she was anxious to correct. She was a young lady, a marriageable young lady, and she wished everyone would not treat her like a schoolgirl. Mama and Papa and Lucy had spent the whole of the day before giving her advice on how to behave. ‘Do this. Don’t do that. Remember you are a lady. Be courteous and friendly, but do not allow any of the gentlemen to whom you are introduced to take liberties.’ She wasn’t quite sure what they meant by liberties; she supposed kissing her would be one. She wondered what it would be like to be kissed by a man, but she hadn’t dared ask.

      The