How to Ruin a Reputation

How to Ruin a Reputation
Bronwyn Scott

ASHTON BEDEVERE: RENOWNED LIBERTINE WHO CAN RUIN A REPUTATION QUICKER THAN OTHER GENTLEMEN CAN DRINK THEIR BRANDYAfter years in Italy, honing his skills in the delicious art of seduction, Ashe returns to London’s high-class establishments – preceded, of course, by his reputation for lavish opulence and unashamed wickedness. Then his scandalous ways are abruptly ended by his father’s death.To claim what is rightfully his, notorious lothario Ashe must do the inconceivable – take a wife! But who could possibly even think about marrying such a man? Certainly not the lovely Genevra Ralston. After all, she’d be finished in polite society. Wouldn’t she? Yet Ashe’s notorious charm and practised touch could prove irresistible… Rakes Beyond Redemption Too wicked for polite society…

‘I am not looking to make a marriage.’ She might as well be clear on that matter with Ashe from the beginning.

‘Not tonight anyway.’ Ashe laughed at her defiance. ‘That doesn’t mean we can’t explore other interesting avenues of association.’

‘I decide for myself. You don’t have any claim on me,’ Genevra asserted, although her body knew the latter statement to be something of a lie. Ashe did claim her attentions—in a way that transcended their connection through the estate.

Ashe’s long fingers reached out to stroke a cheek. ‘And what have you decided, Neva? Have you decided to allow yourself the pleasure of a night? It is too late to deny it. I see the desire in your eyes. And not only tonight. I’ve seen it before, in the conservatory. I intrigue you and you intrigue me. I would gladly give you the one night your body is asking for.’

Introducing a brand-new deliciously sinful and mischievously witty trilogy from

Bronwyn Scott

Rakes Beyond Redemption

Too wicked for polite society…

They’re the men society mamas warn their daughters about…and the men that innocent debutantes find scandalously irresistible!

The notorious Merrick St Magnus knows just

HOW TO DISGRACE A LADY September 2012

The untameable Ashe Bevedere needs no lessons in

HOW TO RUIN A REPUTATION October 2012

The shameless Riordan Barrett is an unequalled master in

HOW TO SIN SUCCESSFULLY November 2012

Be sure not to miss any of these sexy men!

About the Author

BRONWYN SCOTT is a communications instructor at Pierce College in the United States, and is the proud mother of three wonderful children (one boy and two girls). When she’s not teaching or writing she enjoys playing the piano, travelling—especially to Florence, Italy—and studying history and foreign languages.

Readers can stay in touch on Bronwyn’s website, www.bronwynnscott.com, or at her blog, www.bronwynswriting.blogspot.com—she loves to hear from readers.

Previous novels from Bronwyn Scott: PICKPOCKET COUNTESS NOTORIOUS RAKE, INNOCENT LADY THE VISCOUNT CLAIMS HIS BRIDE THE EARL’S FORBIDDEN WARD UNTAMED ROGUE, SCANDALOUS MISTRESS A THOROUGHLY COMPROMISED LADY SECRET LIFE OF A SCANDALOUS DEBUTANTE UNBEFITTING A LADY† (#ulink_e22f0f57-8bca-582c-b124-cd364b5a6663) HOW TO DISGRACE A LADY* (#ulink_e22f0f57-8bca-582c-b124-cd364b5a6663)

† (#ulink_36660824-04fa-52f5-8b7a-ff67500d7b80)Castonbury Park Regency mini-series * (#ulink_36660824-04fa-52f5-8b7a-ff67500d7b80)Rakes Beyond Redemption trilogy

Look forHOW TO SIN SUCCESSFULLYComing soon!

and in Mills & Boon

Historical Undone! eBooks: LIBERTINE LORD, PICKPOCKET MISS PLEASURED BY THE ENGLISH SPY WICKED EARL, WANTON WIDOW ARABIAN NIGHTS WITH A RAKE AN ILLICIT INDISCRETION

And in M&B: PRINCE CHARMING IN DISGUISE (part of Royal Weddings Through the Ages)

Did you know that some of these novels are also available as eBooks?Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

AUTHOR NOTE

The Rakes Beyond Redemption trilogy is a chance to look at three gentlemen of the ton who are transformed for the better by crisis. In Book One, HOW TO DISGRACE A LADY, Merrick faces personal financial ruination and a test of his long-dormant sense of honour when he’s placed at the heart of a sinister wager to transform the retiring Alixe Burke into the Toast of the Season. In Book Two, HOW TO RUIN A REPUTATION, Ashe has to cope with the aftershocks of a death in the family. And in Book Three, HOW TO SIN SUCCESSFULLY, Riordan grapples with becoming an instant father when he inherits his brother’s two young wards.

These are three Regency-style crises that often served to shape families and destinies in nineteenth-century England, but their situations find echoes in modern society: economic hardship, loss and changing family structures in which more and more extended family are stepping in to raise children while parents work, often far from home, to make ends meet.

I thought this was a fitting theme, given the current economic situations around the world and what they mean to regular people like you and me. In the past few years my family, like so many others, has had to decide what’s really important to us about where our money and time are spent. What will we give up and how will we change our living habits to accommodate our needs?

In HOW TO RUIN A REPUTATION Ashe is faced with that same decision. What is he willing to change in order to keep the things and the people that are important to him? Up until now he’d envisaged and lived a fairly self-centred life. He’d never imagined a time when his father was dead and his brother no longer a bulwark of respectability to shoulder the mantle of the earldom. Now the earldom is his—if he dares to claim it. Ashe is not an ideal hero. His father, worried that Ashe might be the heir after all, has made some provisions in his will in order to protect the estate and the earldom’s legacy from the prodigal second son. Death does not make Ashe perfect—he’s not suddenly transformed into a bulwark of familial stability. He is filled with regret, and he does set out to make things right, but it’s not an easy road for him—especially with the nominally perfect Cousin Henry waiting in the wings to take over the estate should Ashe fail.

There are secrets revealed and tests to pass along the way for Ashe in his journey to recognise his true potential. Fortunately, as on any good journey, there is someone to help. For Ashe that mentor comes in the form of Genevra Ralston, an American heiress who understands his trials and failures better than he thinks because she has secrets of her own—secrets Ashe will delight in uncovering as he faces the greatest trial of all…a rake falling in love.

Happy reading—I’ll see you out there!

Drop by my blog at www.bronwynswriting.blogspot.com for updates on new titles and sneak peeks.

How to Ruin

a Reputation

Bronwyn Scott

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

DEDICATION

For my dad and Nancy,

just because it’s been a long time since I’ve dedicated a book to you.

Hugs and love to you both.

Prologue

The dim interior of the sickroom bristled with contentious silence. ‘The will must be changed.’ The old earl fairly shook in his chair with the force of his statement.

‘I heard you the first time,’ Markham Marsbury, solicitor to the Earl of Audley over the past ten years, responded with a patience born of long practice. The earl wasn’t his first client who’d had last-minute doubts about his final arrangements. But the earl’s requests might be the most irregular.

‘You disagree with my decision,’ the earl challenged, sounding more like his usual irascible self than he had in months. Perhaps it was a good sign, Marsbury thought hopefully. Perhaps the old man would get better one more time. Goodness knew the earldom could ill afford to lose him now. On the other hand, he knew better. Anyone who had been around lingering death knew the signs: a sudden rally, a brief explosion of energy that might last a day or two—then nothing.

‘Yes, I disagree, Richard.’ They’d become friends over his decade in Audley. ‘I can understand wanting to make the inheritance into a regency, a trusteeship of sorts. After what happened to Alex, it’s a logical course.’ Marsbury shook his head. ‘But to divide the governance into shares and leave fifty-one per cent to her makes no sense. You have two viable male heirs hanging on the family tree, one of them your second son. For goodness’ sake, Richard, she’s not even British. She’s American.’

‘She’s what the estate needs. She’s already proven it in the year she’s been here,’ the earl broke in with vigour, unwilling to hear his position maligned. ‘Some American thinking will rejuvenate the place and she’s become the daughter I never had.’