 by Annabel Joseph.jpg)
Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 78100 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78100 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
That should be the end of their provocative love affair, but instead, it’s the beginning of a journey fraught with deceit and danger, and passionate disciplinary sessions for a young woman Marlow fears he’ll never deserve…
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Chapter One
A Rabbit Funeral
London, 1823
George Bernard, most commonly known as The Honorable Viscount Marlow, leaned against a tree in his friend’s town house garden, surveying the crowd of mourners from his vantage point near the back. At the garden’s edge, beside a small, white memorial, his friend the Marquess of Townsend delivered a eulogy for his wife’s deceased pet rabbit. A fully serious eulogy, spoken with great tenderness and not a hint of dry sarcasm.
Lord Townsend, the driest of dry at sarcasm. Lord Townsend, formerly rumored to be heartless.
This was the same Townsend who used to spank the courtesans at Pearl’s for looking at him the wrong way. Lofty, cynical, stick-up-his-arse Townsend, now lovingly eulogizing Bouncer the rabbit before dozens of guests because his wife had cared for the creature as a pet. What had come of the world? What had come of him and his friends’ raucous bachelorhoods? Why were all of them here in Townsend’s back garden paying tribute to a dead rabbit who, incidentally, had been consumed by Lady Townsend’s pet python?
He shook his head, then disguised the movement by jerking his long hair out of his eyes. He was here mourning the rabbit too in this unforeseen new existence. Reckless, dashing, you-mustn’t-marry-him Marlow was standing amongst all the others with his head bowed in respect.
To a rabbit.
Lately consumed by a snake.
He stifled a sigh and shifted his weight to his other foot. Could he leave yet? He liked both Townsend and his wife Jane very much, but if he had to withstand another moment of their cloying affection for one another at this damned rabbit funeral, he might well scale the tree he stood beside and fling himself from its highest bough.
He allowed himself to imagine, as an amusement, his own funeral following hot on the trail of this one, perhaps in this same garden for convenience. Would the ton mourn him more or less than Lady Townsend’s rabbit? Hard to say.
He was shaken from his dreaming by a half-hearted cheer offered up to Bouncer’s memory by his cousin Lord Augustine. Good old August. He could always be counted on to be artless at the most entertaining times. Now people would mingle and say what a good rabbit Bouncer had been, and eat some of the glorious repast set out for guests. They’d sit in the bright spring sun and speak of the Season’s highlights so far, the best balls, the most brilliant matches… If his mother could catch him, she would tell him which young ladies of the first water were still available, should he wish to pay his addresses.
He did not wish to pay his addresses. Ever.
Better to steal away, to seek a hiding place where he could be here but not really be here. Once everyone started mingling, this tree near the back would not be hidden enough. Even here, Rosalind, Townsend’s youngest sister, had found him. She’d caught his gaze three separate times, peering back at him from her spot near the front. Each time their eyes met he could tell she felt caught in a transgression. She’d drop her gaze and turn away, pretending to speak to her mother or her cousin.
Sweet Rosalind, his joy and agony, his flame and burn.
He wasn’t sure when he’d become aware that Rosalind loved him, whether it was before or after he’d developed feelings for her. Why did she idolize him? Who knew? Perhaps she’d been born with some predilection for men with blond hair, or his particular tall, rangy build. It wasn’t his character or anything he’d done for her. He had no redeeming qualities. Not like her.
Marlow had watched Rosalind grow from a honey-haired child to a quiet, shy teenager and now a demure young woman new on the marriage scene. He’d always felt protective of her; they all had, for she had a delicate way about her that inspired protective feelings.
But at some point, his protective instincts had reeled drunkenly sideways into something else, something she must never understand, something she wouldn’t be capable of understanding with her virginal glances and blushes. He could not admit the twisted fantasies he entertained because she was so bright, wholesome, and untouchable, and he so perverse.