“I think you’re making a big mistake.” Letter to Reader Title Page About the Author CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE Copyright
“I think you’re making a big mistake.”
“A mistake?”
“It wouldn’t work.”
He feigned innocence. “Why on earth not?”
“You really need to ask?” Lady Caterina grimaced as she elaborated. “We’re not even capable of conducting a civil conversation. How on earth could we possibly contemplate working together?”
Matthew smiled. “Think of it as a challenge.”
Caterina did not smile back. “There are challenges and challenges. And this one, I’m afraid, just doesn’t appeal to me.”
Dear Reader,
Welcome to ROYAL AFFAIR! By appointment to her loyal readers, Stephanie Howard has created a blue-blooded trilogy of romeos, rebels and royalty. It follows the fortunes of the San Rinaldo royal family: Damiano, the Duke of San Rinaldo, his brother, Count Leone, and their sister, Lady Caterina. Together the three of them are dedicated to their country, people and family. But it takes only one thing to turn their perfectly ordered lives upside down: love!
COUNT LEONE MONTECRESPI, the younger brother of the ruling Duke, is a habitual heartbreaker. A playboy of the old school: love them, leave them and on no account, marry them. But will small-town American girl, Carrie Dunn, be the one to finally get him up the aisle?
LADY CATERINA MONTECRESPI, Leone and Damiano’s baby sister, has swom off men since her last disastrous encounter with the opposite sex. And Matthew Allenby is hardly the man to change her mind. As far as Caterina is concerned, he’s a crook and a charlatan. Unfortunately he’s also proving irresistible!
The DUKE OF SAN RINALDO, DAMIANO MONTECRESPI, had married Sofia to secure his dukedom and produce an heir. But duty for Sofia is a cold bed partner—she wants Damiano to love her as much as he does their baby son, Alessandro. Is a happy ending to their fairy-tale romance too much to ask for?
Each of these books contains its own stand-alone romance, as well as making up a great trilogy. Follow Leone and Carrie’s tale in The Colorado Countess. In The Lady’s Man, it’s Caterina and Matthew’s turn. And finally, The Duke’s Wife features Sofia and Damiano’s story—not forgetting little baby Alessandrol
Happy Reading!
The Lady’s Man
Stephanie Howard
Stephanie Howard was born and brought up in Dundee, Scotland, and educated at the London School of Economics. For ten years she worked as a joumalist in London on a variety of women’s magazines, among them Woman’s Own, and was latterly editor of the now defunct Honey. She has spent many years living and working abroad—in Italy, Malaysia, the Philippines and in the Middle East.
THE MONTECRESPI ROYAL FAMILY TREE
CHAPTER ONE
CATERINA was furious. White-knuckle furious. As she marched down the corridor like some unstoppable human tornado, her glossy light brown bob swinging in time to her fury, there was no doubt about it, she was spoiling for a fight.
‘How dare he?’ she was muttering. ‘I’ve had enough of his interfering!’ Her fists were clenched, her blue eyes sparking. ‘Well, this time I’m putting my foot down! He’s not getting away with it!’
Luckily the corridor down which she was marching was empty. The only eyes and ears to bear witness to her tirade were the unseeing, unhearing ones depicted in the portraits—of bishops and princes and generals of old—that hung in their carved frames from the silk-upholstered walls. For the corridor in question was the splendid west-wing corridor of the fabulous Palazzo Verde, home for three hundred years of the illustrious Montecrespis, hereditary rulers of the little dukedom of San Rinaldo—the west wing being where the current Duke had his private quarters.
Generally, it must be said, visitors to the Duke’s private office—for that was where Caterina was currently headed—tended to proceed down the corridor at a more respectful pace and quite often with a sense of awe at their surroundings. But Caterina, at this moment, was feeling far from respectful and she was unlikely to be awed for she was used to these surroundings. For the man she was on her way to see, His Grace, the Duke- of San Rinaldo, just so happened to be her brother.
Not that her feelings right now were particularly sisterly either. As she reached the panelled door that led to his office, she flung it open impatiently and strode across the threshold.
‘Damiano!’ she bellowed. ‘I’ve got a bone to pick with you!’
The only person in the room, however, was Rosa, Damiano’s pretty young secretary. She’d been sitting at her desk, quietly working at her word processor, but she leapt to her feet now like a poor startled frog.
‘Lady Caterina, I’m sorry,’ she started to explain, curtsying, ‘but I’m afraid His Grace isn’t here at the moment.’
Normally Caterina would have chastised her for curtsying, for she had told her a hundred times that it really wasn’t necessary. But right now she had other, more pressing matters on her mind.
‘Isn’t here?’ She swept furiously across the huge room, totally disregarding what Rosa had just told her, and thrust her head round the door of his private inner office. ‘He’s got to be here! I made an appointment!’
But, appointment or not, there was definitely no Damiano, though Caterina continued to stand in the doorway for a moment, her china-blue eyes angrily scouring every corner as though she might detect him hiding under the carpet.
‘Damn him!’ she muttered. ‘He knew I was coming!’
Then she turned back to Rosa, scowling like a gorgon. ‘Where has he gone?