Tallie's Knight

Tallie's Knight
Anne Gracie

MAGNUS HAD DECIDED TO SELECT A BRIDE!Miss Thalia Robinson, a destitute orphan, was fortunate that she had been allowed to look after her cousin Laetitia's three adorable children. Tallie usually spent her quiet life lost in daydreams, but the arrival of a house party to aid Magnus, Earl of d'Arenville, to find a wife, turned her world upside down.Magnus's cold facade had been pierced by a delightful small girl, and now he'd decided he wanted children of his own. For that, he needed a wife. But things didn't go according to Laetitia's plan, for he ignored all the debutantes that were presented to him, and, taken with Tallie's loving treatment of the children in her charge, decided that she was the one he would marry….

“DEARLY BELOVED, WE ARE GATHERED…”

Dazed, Tallie stood there listening to herself being married to The Icicle. And a very bad-tempered icicle he was, too. He was positively glaring at her. Of course, he did have reason to be a little cross, but it wasn’t as if she had meant to hit him on the nose, after all.

Mind you, she thought dejectedly, he seemed always to be furious about something—mainly with her. Toward others, he invariably remained cool, polite and, in a chilly sort of fashion, charming. But not with Tallie…It didn’t augur at all well for the future.

Anne Gracie was born in Australia, but spent her youth on the move, living in Malaysia, Greece and different parts of Australia before settling down. Her love of the Regency period began at the age of eleven, when she braved the adult library to borrow a Georgette Heyer novel, firmly convinced she would at any moment be ignominiously ejected and sent back to the children’s library in disgrace. She wasn’t. Anne lives in Melbourne, in a small wooden house that she will one day renovate.

Tallie’s Knight

Anne Gracie

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

Contents

Prologue (#uce4561d4-7e38-5154-9215-446e0cde662b)

Chapter One (#ue0ee2473-5e27-5375-af83-d095df1110ee)

Chapter Two (#u233fe997-b257-54b2-b990-29eca3aa0dd0)

Chapter Three (#u0e55fd2b-e6ee-5cda-80bc-02afdd52c2c1)

Chapter Four (#u13c428d2-7a87-5b79-ae26-df2a7bf71c24)

Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

Prologue

Yorkshire, February 1803

‘My lord, I…I am sure that Mr Freddie—’ Freddie?’ Lord d’Arenville’s disapproving voice interrupted the maidservant. She flushed, smoothing her hands nervously down her starched white apron.

‘Er…Reverend Winstanley, I mean, sir. He won’t keep you waiting long, sir, ’tis just that—’

‘There is no need to explain,’ Lord d’Arenville coldly informed her. ‘I’ve no doubt Reverend Winstanley will come as soon as he is able. I shall wait.’ His hard grey gaze came to rest on a nearby watercolour. It was a clear dismissal. The maid backed hurriedly out of the parlour, turned and almost ran down the corridor.

Magnus, Lord d’Arenville, glanced around the room, observing its inelegant proportions and the worn and shabby furniture. A single poky window allowed an inadequate amount of light into the room. He strolled over to it, looked out and frowned. The window overlooked the graveyard, providing the occupants of the house with a depressing prospect of mortality.

Lord, how unutterably dreary, Magnus thought, seating himself on a worn, uncomfortable settee. Did all vicars live this way? He didn’t think so, but he couldn’t be certain, not having lived the sort of life that brought him into intimacy with the clergy. Quite the contrary, in fact. And had not his oldest friend, Freddie Winstanley, donned the ecclesiastical dog collar, Magnus would be languishing in blissful ignorance still.

Magnus sighed. Bored, stale and unaccountably restless, he’d decided on the spur of the moment to drive all the way up to Yorkshire to visit Freddie, whom he’d not seen for years. And now, having arrived, he was wondering if he’d done the right thing, calling unannounced at the cramped and shabby vicarage.

A faint giggle interrupted his musings. Magnus frowned and looked around. There was no one in sight. The giggle came again. Magnus frowned. He did not care to be made fun of.

‘Who is there?’

‘Huwwo, man.’ The voice came, slightly muffled, from a slight bulge in the curtains. As he looked, the curtains parted and a mischievous little face peeked out at him.

Magnus blinked. It was a child, a very small child—a female, he decided after a moment. He’d never actually met a child this size before, and though he was wholly unacquainted with infant fashions it seemed to him that the child looked more female than otherwise. It had dark curly hair and big brown pansy eyes. And it was certainly looking at him in that acquisitive way that so many females had.

He glanced towards the doorway, hoping someone would come and fetch the child back to where it belonged.

‘Huwwo, man,’ the moppet repeated sternly.

Magnus raised an eyebrow. Clearly he was expected to answer. How the devil did one address children anyway?

‘How do you do?’ he said after a moment.

At that, she smiled, and launched herself towards him in an unsteady rush. Horrified, Magnus froze. Contrary to all his expectations she crossed the room without coming to grief, landing at his knee. Grinning up at him, she clutched his immaculate buckskins in two damp, chubby fists. Magnus flinched. His valet would have a fit. The child’s hands were certain to be grubby. And sticky. Magnus might know nothing at all about children, but he was somehow sure about that.

‘Up, man.’ The moppet held up her arms in clear expectation of being picked up.

Magnus frowned down at her, trusting that his hitherto unchallenged ability to rid himself of unwanted feminine attention would be just as effective on this diminutive specimen.

The moppet frowned back at him.

Magnus allowed his frown to deepen to a glare.