A YEAR OF SCANDAL
A gentleman for every season
At the mercy of a ghostly matchmaker, four gentlemen must perform a shocking task. But claiming their inheritance might just lead them to the women who will steal their hearts!
Don’t miss this wonderful new quartet by Mills & Boon® Historical Romance author
Elizabeth Beacon!
First out:
THE VISCOUNT’S FROZEN HEART
Available August 2014
Welcome to THE VISCOUNT’S FROZEN HEART, the first book in my new quartet of novels A Year of Scandal. Each book is set during a different season of the year. THE VISCOUNT’S FROZEN HEART starts the series off in January, with a new beginning for dark and brooding Luke and the most unlikely housekeeper he has ever met.
Each book should stand alone, but I would love you to meet the rest of my heroes and heroines as A Year of Scandal unfolds. Thank you for being my tolerant, loyal readers. This book is dedicated to all of you. I really hope you enjoy it.
The Viscount’s Frozen Heart
Elizabeth Beacon
ELIZABETH BEACON lives in the beautiful English West Country, and is finally putting her insatiable curiosity about the past to good use. Over the years Elizabeth has worked in her family’s horticultural business, become a mature student, qualified as an English teacher, worked as a secretary and, briefly, tried to be a civil servant. She is now happily ensconced behind her computer, when not trying to exhaust her bouncy rescue dog with as many walks as the Inexhaustible Lurcher can finagle. Elizabeth can’t bring herself to call researching the wonderfully diverse, scandalous Regency period and creating charismatic heroes and feisty heroines work, and she is waiting for someone to find out how much fun she is having and tell her to stop it.
Previous novels by the same author:
AN INNOCENT COURTESAN
HOUSEMAID HEIRESS
A LESS THAN PERFECT LADY
CAPTAIN LANGTHORNE’S PROPOSAL
REBELLIOUS RAKE, INNOCENT GOVERNESS
THE RAKE OF HOLLOWHURST CASTLE
ONE FINAL SEASON
(part of Courtship & Candlelight) A MOST UNLADYLIKE ADVENTURE GOVERNESS UNDER THE MISTLETOE (part of Candlelit Christmas Kisses) THE DUCHESS HUNT THE SCARRED EARL THE BLACK SHEEP’S RETURN
Did you know that some of these novels are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk
Contents
Author Note
Luke Winterley, Viscount Farenze, turned to help his daughter down from the carriage and watched Eve eye the fine house nestled into the rolling Wiltshire hillside like a jewel bedded on winter-pale green velvet.
‘If only I had remembered Farenze Lodge was this beautiful I’d have teased you to bring me here a long time ago, Papa. I do recall Aunt Virginia giving me a sugarplum after I fell down the steps and cut my knee as a little tot, but that’s about all,’ she said and he had to smother a pang of guilt as he handed Eve’s small but formidable maid from the carriage before answering, since he had kept Eve away so he wouldn’t have to spend any more time here than necessary.
‘No wonder that event stuck in your memory, but, yes, it is a very fine house,’ Luke said with the second look the Palladian villa’s neat elegance always deserved.
He had to brace himself for the empty feel of it without the last Viscountess Farenze here to make it a home, though. It was his duty to see Eve didn’t feel the loss of her great-great-aunt even more acutely here, despite his own sorrow and frustration, and the less anyone knew about that second, rough-edged emotion and how hard it always bit him under this roof, the better.
‘It doesn’t