Scandalous Miss Brightwells Read online

  Copyright © 2018 by Beverley Oakley

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  Scandalous Miss Brightwells Books 1-4

  Beverley Oakley

  Author’s Note about the series

  Hello Dear Reader,

  Welcome to my series featuring the Scandalous Brightwell sisters who really are a breed apart. Wicked and lively, Fanny and Antoinette Brightwell manage to make spectacular marriages in Rake’s Honour (Book #1)—despite scandals and the treachery of a disappointed suitor determined to derail their plans and besmirch their reputations.

  So, who better to play matchmaker when a deserving candidate waltzes into their orbit in subsequent stories?

  Bear in mind that each story has a completely different heat level, depending on the personality of the heroine and the situation in which she finds herself.

  Therefore, as each romance can be read as a stand-alone, you can choose whether to read one or all. Below is a guide.

  I hope you enjoy them.

  1. Rake’s Honour (Totally sizzling. Insatiable Fanny is a wild child!)

  2. Rogue’s Kiss (Sensual - not sizzling at all. Sweet and innocent Thea follows the rules.)

  3. Devil’s Run (A bit more sensual than Rogue’s Kiss but not sizzling like Rake’s Honour. Eliza has a ‘past’ and although she’s sworn off falling in love, she knows what love is when she stumbles upon it.)

  4. The Accidental Elopement (This is a more gentle-paced story about young lovers tragically parted by a terrible misunderstanding. It has several sensual scenes.)

  Enjoy!

  Contents

  Rake’s Honour

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Rogue’s Kiss

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Devil’s Run

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Epilogue

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Part II

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Epilogue

  Note from the Author

  Get A Free Book

  About the Author

  Rake’s Honour

  Chapter 1

  Vauxhall Gardens, 1818

  In the shadows of the lantern that hung outside their supper house, Fanny registered the dismay on Lord Alverley’s face and realised she’d just made the biggest miscalculation of her life.

  He shuffled his feet, unable to look her in the eye. “I’m afraid I can’t marry you, Miss Brightwell. Forgive me.”

  The distant strains of the orchestra now playing in Vauxhall Gardens’ rotunda competed with his awkward let-down. He cleared his throat and mumbled, “Lady Georgiana has been my intended bride since we were children… I thought you knew that.”

  Despite her shock, Fanny kept her smile in place. If there was one thing her mother had taught her it was that dignity must be maintained at all times. Even when the unstable ground beneath her daughter’s feet brought back Fanny’s ever-present fears she was on the verge of being tossed overboard and fed to the sharks.

  Her mother would do it, too. Fanny had just failed in her most important mission—make a match that would restore the Brightwells to their former position on society’s ladder—and now she must accept her fate…marriage to that other odious creature who’d got into Lady Brightwell’s ear and made her a bargain she couldn’t refuse: Her eldest daughter in return for a comfortable lease in Soho with a carriage and two for the baron’s widow for the rest of her days.

  Carefully she breathed out. She would not cry. But she would not make it easy for him, either. No, there was a limit to how accepting Fanny could be, even for the sake of dignity. Lord Alverley wanted Fanny to forgive him for such a betrayal when her future lay in tatters? Her mother would never forgive her.

  Clutching the spider-gauze fichu of her daring masquerade costume, Fanny stepped back to avoid his open-armed approach.

  He wanted her, but not as his wife. Could he really imagine she’d sacrifice her reputation, and that of her family, to be his mistress?

  “You deceived me, Alverley.” It was true. He’d led her to believe he was in love with her and she’d formed a fondness for him—for her mother’s sake— because there’d been precious few other suitors prepared to take a dowerless bride whose father, well-born though Baron Brightwell had been, had married so far beneath him.

  “Fanny, wait—” His eyes were beseeching.

  Cow’s eyes.

  She’d thought it from the start, so why had she persisted in this futile courtship? Surely she should have been clever enough to trust her instincts?

  But of course she’d persisted because Lord Slyther had been waiting in the wings.

  An alternative worse than death.

  Grotesque Lord Slyther, with his moist skin and his repulsive breath, had known Fanny was on a doomed mission to find a husband who would satisfy Lady Brightwell’s exacting criteria as well as the yearning of Fanny’s ridiculously sentimental heart.

  Lord, what Brightwell of Fanny’s generation could afford to be sentimental?

  She shook her head not trusting herself to speak as she turned away. It wasn’t only Alverley’s deception that had landed her in this predicament. She had to take responsibility for her own gullibility. The normally careful, calculating Miss Fanny Brightwell had miscalculated, and soon her mother would remind her that Lord Slyther was both just punishment and more than a girl like her could have hoped for
.

  The tongue-lashing would be almost worse than what was happening right now.

  “Fanny, I—”

  “Please, leave me, my lord,” she managed in something just above a whisper. “I should never have agreed to visit you here, alone. If you have any regard for me, you’ll say nothing about this if only to preserve my reputation.”

  “Just one final kiss.” His voice was too near her ear when she thought he’d comply and slink into the shadows. The thought of being touched by him, ever again, made her recoil, and as she spun away, her flimsy-soled slippers skidding on the gravel, her ankle gave way beneath her. She felt the brush of leaves, the scratch of branches, and thought of the pitiful sight she would make as her mother vented her fury upon her.

  Fanny was to have made the Brightwells’ fortunes. She amended this in the split second available for thought. Fanny had begged to be given this last chance before the ghastly alternative that would ensure the Brightwells’ survival…

  …but Fanny had failed.

  The ground rushed to meet her. So! This was to be the final indignity—to land in the dirt at his feet!

  She closed her eyes, throwing out her hands and tensing as she anticipated the pain, wishing the price of her failure could be similarly condensed.

  Instead, strong, unfamiliar arms scooped her up and an amused voice murmured in her ear, “Young lady, I think you’d be far safer tucked up in your own bed than consorting with this obviously unsatisfactory gentleman.”

  Fanny blinked up into a pair of dark eyes that glinted at her through the slits of his demi-mask. Her first instinct was to cleave closer to whomever was prepared to offer rescue from her current nightmarish predicament; then remembering that her instincts had been decidedly off lately and that if she had any chance of getting home before her mother discovered her missing, she made a violent attempt to struggle out of his arms.

  The chest against which she was now pinioned seemed to ripple with amusement. To her fascinated horror it was a naked chest, hard and tense beneath the fine linen of his pirate costume. “It seems you are a disadvantage, madam. Allow me to remove you from further embarrassment.”

  For just a moment, Fanny was robbed of speech. Then anger rose to the fore. This man, fascinating though he was—and no doubt all the more because he was in masquerade—was belittling her. He had no idea of the magnitude of the disaster Fanny now confronted and his levity in the face of her humiliation, still so fresh, swept away the gratitude she might otherwise have felt.

  “Put me down,” she ground out as Alverley, after a hesitation, stepped forward, saying, “Your intervention, sir, is appreciated…”

  When the stranger made no move to set Fanny on her feet, Alverley’s voice became diffident. “However, we must rejoin our party. Please…put the lady down.”

  Was Alverley afraid? For her? For her reputation? The reputation he was prepared to see shredded in front of all the world—or, at least, those who mattered. Or did Alverley fear for his own safety, since her saviour’s piratical costume revealed that this was a man who did not resort to padding to bolster his masculine attributes?

  The pirate tightened his hold on Fanny and regarded Alverley critically. “I gained the impression the young lady has no wish for your company, sir.”

  Fanny was not going to deny it. Having realised the futility of her struggles, she simply gave up. Why not enjoy the intimate warmth for a few minutes of someone who wasn’t a whey-faced bounder like Alverley? Someone who would actually whisk her out of Alverley’s orbit.

  Perhaps she shivered, for suddenly the arousing, mellifluous tones of this pirate stranger sounded intimately in her ear as he stepped back from the supper house where she and Alverley had arranged their assignation. “You are cold, madam, and this man has caused trouble enough. I think it’s time we took our leave.”

  “Sir, I must object!”

  It wasn’t Fanny who said this but she made no attempt to respond to Alverley who sprang forward as she was swung wide, her bare arm feeling the brush of Alverley’s vainly grasping fingers before she was borne into the gloom.

  A crowd of revellers rounded the bend, sweeping Alverley into their midst as Fanny was carried in the opposite direction. Still she did not struggle as his shouts faded into the distance.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t scream?” The stranger’s voice was conversational as he rapidly traversed the serpentine walk that led to the river; as if it were a normal occurrence for a pirate to bear a damsel in his arms.

  The strong beat of his heart through her fine muslin gown made Fanny’s beat all the more erratically, as he went on, “Isn’t that what ladies do when they’re kidnapped?”

  “I thought you were rescuing me.” Despite her doubt regarding his intentions, she found his sardonic humour appealing. She consoled herself with the thought that she need only scream and he would set her back upon her feet. She would be free.

  It was not a liberating thought. Free to tell her mother she had misjudged matters? Free to become an object of pity—if not ridicule—to her so-called friends?

  She decided to surrender herself to fate for the moment, clinging to him more tightly as he negotiated a hazard upon the footpath. Trying to sound bolder than she felt, she added, “Besides, bringing attention to my predicament might injure my reputation.”

  “While my attentions won’t?” They were by the river now. A short crossing would take them out of the gardens. Almost disappointed, she acknowledged she’d been in good hands after all. Her rescuer was going to put her in a hackney carriage when they got to the other side.

  Lord, what was she thinking? Of course that was what must happen. If she wasn’t home before her mother took herself off to bed, Fanny would be marching up the aisle to join Lord Slyther before the week was finished.

  Her rescuer signalled to a waiting ferryman by the river’s edge who navigated his vessel towards them and then deposited her upon the bench of the barge. After issuing instructions, he leaped into the vessel, the corners of his mouth turning up at her obvious embarrassment when he sat so close their thighs touched.

  Fanny raised her face to the moon and closed her eyes as a cool, gentle breeze caressed her heated skin. Soon she would be home to face an uncomfortable confrontation with her mother. Right now the unknown was far more enticing.

  “My Lady of Troy is an enigma,” the handsome man beside her murmured while he rearranged the sword and scabbard of his costume. “Cavalier enough of her reputation to cavort alone with gentlemen in secluded supper boxes and offer no resistance when a better offer comes along, but suddenly so prim.” He raised an eyebrow and his mouth quirked.

  What could she say? Fanny initial refutation of his assessment was truncated by the jolt of the boat as it pushed off from the river bank, which threw her closer against her companion. Drawing back, she said icily, “I am not from the ranks of the Fashionably Impure, sir.” She was rapidly doubting the wisdom of having accepted his assistance. Alverley, though he’d let her down, was too lily-livered to pose a threat. This man was an unknown quantity. She glared. “Might I remind you that you tore me from the arms of a serious suitor—”

  “—whose marital criteria I believe you failed to meet—?”

  “His mama’s marital criteria!”

  “I beg your pardon.” With a chuckle, he flashed her an infuriating smile before cautioning the ferryman who smelled of drink and appeared to be making straight for a boat crossing their boughs. He was a gentleman—his voice, his bearing left her in no doubt about that. He was also a very well built gentleman. One who was amusing himself at her expense. After the night she’d had, Fanny was in no mood for his lightheartedness.

  As soon as she was on dry land, she should take to her heels and escape whatever else he might have in mind for her.

  Yet when he caressed her cheek, the most extraordinary sensations fizzed through her. Though she pressed herself against the far side of the river craft in a futile attempt not to touch h
im, she couldn’t help running an admiring gaze the length of his leather-booted feet and calves, up his long, outstretched legs and lean hips. They were as impressive as the hard, flat chest against which she’d so recently been pressed. So different from Alverley’s.

  So different from Lord Slyther’s. Uugghh!

  Unlike Alverley’s weak chin, his was strong and well-sculpted, which had her locking gazes with him when another surreptitious study ended with an approving assessment of his treacle-brown eyes. She slid her own away in embarrassment. Confident eyes, she thought. Like hers, his demi-mask sufficiently concealed his identity for an amour such as this, but the eyes were pools of information and she was satisfied that his conveyed all the attributes she considered essential in a man—humour, decisiveness, confidence and, just briefly, kindness. Perhaps he was not a swaggering ‘Johnny-take-all’, after all.