Mariel’s throat constricted as they reached the corner of Hereford Street. She dreaded entering the house, facing her mother’s unabashed joy at her impending marriage and her father’s palpable relief.
Her spirits sank lower and lower as she and Penny neared the end of the block.
When they were within steps of the town-house its door opened and a man emerged.
He turned towards them and the sun illuminated his face. ‘Mariel?’
She froze.
This man was the one person she’d thought never to see again, never wished to see again. He was the man to whom she’d been secretly betrothed—the man who had just inhabited her thoughts.
The man who had deserted her.
Leo Fitzmanning.
AUTHOR NOTE
One of the delights of my writing career was collaborating with Amanda McCabe and Deb Marlowe on The Diamonds of Welbourne Manor anthology. We’d known each other and been friends even before our Mills & Boon® days. In fact we went on a Regency tour of England together, visiting Mayfair and Brighton and Bath, seeing all the Regency era houses and museums. One of our highlights was a venture on our own through Hyde Park.
It was such a great thrill to be invited to do the anthology together. We were given carte blanche to create it any way we wished.
The three of us gathered for a weekend of history and brainstorming at Historic Williamsburg, Virginia, where we created The Fitzmanning Miscellany, the group of siblings and half-siblings who became the heroes and heroines of our novellas and the connected books.
These characters just leapt from our imaginations that day, as if they were real people waiting for us to knock on their door and interview them. A NOT SO RESPECTABLE GENTLEMAN? is Leo’s story and, sadly, the last of the Welbourne Manor series. It has been such a pleasure.
Diane
The Diamonds of Welbourne Manor books:
SNOWBOUND AND SEDUCED by Amanda McCabe
(in Regency Christmas Proposals) THE SHY DUCHESS by Amanda McCabe HOW TO MARRY A RAKE by Deb Marlowe A NOT SO RESPECTABLE GENTLEMAN? by Diane Gaston
About the Author
As a psychiatric social worker, DIANE GASTON spent years helping others create real-life happy endings. Now Diane crafts fictional ones, writing the kind of historical romance she’s always loved to read. The youngest of three daughters of a US Army Colonel, Diane moved frequently during her childhood, even living for a year in Japan. It continues to amaze her that her own son and daughter grew up in one house in Northern Virginia. Diane still lives in that house, with her husband and three very ordinary housecats. Visit Diane’s website at http://dianegaston.com
Previous novels by the same author:
THE MYSTERIOUS MISS M
THE WAGERING WIDOW
A REPUTABLE RAKE
INNOCENCE AND IMPROPRIETY
A TWELFTH NIGHT TALE
(in A Regency Christmas anthology) THE VANISHING VISCOUNTESS SCANDALISING THE TON JUSTINE AND THE NOBLE VISCOUNT (in Regency Summer Scandals) GALLANT OFFICER, FORBIDDEN LADY* CHIVALROUS CAPTAIN, REBEL MISTRESS* VALIANT SOLDIER, BEAUTIFUL ENEMY*
*Three Soldiers mini-series
And in Mills & Boon® Historical Undone! eBooks:
THE UNLACING OF MISS LEIGH
THE LIBERATION OF MISS FINCH
Did you know that some of these novels are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk
A Not So
Respectable
Gentleman?
Diane Gaston
To Amanda McCabe and Deb Marlowe, my fellow
creators of The Diamonds of Welbourne Manor and its heroes and heroines, The Fitzmanning Miscellany.
Prologue
Spring 1826
Flames.
White hot, blinding red and orange and blue. Flames roaring like a dragon, weaving through the stable, crawling up the walls, devouring everything in its path.
Leo Fitzmanning still saw the flames, felt their heat, heard the screams of his horses, as he entered the mahogany-shelved library of a London town house. The scent of smoke lingered in his nostrils and his muscles ached from battling the fire for nearly two days.
One moment of inattention, one second of carelessness, had cost him his stable and two outbuildings. He’d failed to notice the peg holding the lantern had become loose. The lantern fell, spreading flames in an instant.
He blinked the vision away and faced the man he’d waited nearly a month to see.
Mr Cecil Covendale rose from the chair and extended his hand across the paper-cluttered desk. ‘Good day, Fitzmanning.’ His manner seemed affable. That was a good sign. ‘How are you faring since the fire? You appear uninjured.’
News apparently travelled swiftly the ten miles between Welbourne Manor, on the outskirts of Richmond, and Mayfair.
‘Only minor burns, sir.’ He accepted the older man’s handshake.
The stables, his horses and two outbuildings would cost a great deal to replace, a fact of which Covendale was, no doubt, aware.
‘Word is you almost lost the house.’ Covendale’s expression showed only concern, not the disdain Leo expected in response to his failed enterprise. ‘What a pity that would have been.’
Not for those who would rejoice at seeing Welbourne Manor destroyed. Recompense for its scandalous past, they would say, although Leo aspired to revise its reputation. To Leo and his siblings, Welbourne Manor was a beloved place. He would never have forgiven himself if he’d lost their safe haven, the house where they spent their unconventional childhood.
‘The house is untouched.’ Leo shrugged. ‘The rest can be rebuilt.’
If one had the money, that is. Would Covendale guess nearly all Leo’s funds had been invested in the stud farm, now nothing but ashes?
His mind reeled with all the tasks he’d left undone by keeping this appointment. Finding stables for the few surviving horses. Making arrangements for his stable workers, who had suddenly lost the roof over their heads and all their worldly possessions. He’d left them at the Manor, raking through the ashes, making certain that no glowing embers hid beneath the debris, hungry for more destruction. He ought to be working beside them, preparing to rebuild.
But nothing would have kept him from this appointment with Covendale. The man had already put him off for weeks. Some matters were even more important than