Unbuttoning Miss Hardwick

Unbuttoning Miss Hardwick
Deb Marlowe

Indulge your fantasies of delicious Regency Rakes, fierce Viking warriors and rugged Highlanders. Be swept away into a world of intense passion, lavish settings and romance that burns brightly through the centuriesEFFICIENT SPINSTER OR DESIRABLE WOMAN? Adopting the guise of a buttoned-up spinster is nothing new for Chloe Hardwick. But under the watchful eye of her unnervingly handsome employer, the Marquess of Marland, for the first time Chloe yearns to be unbuttoned! Yet he sees her only as his assistant, the efficient Hardwick – not as Chloe the woman.Determined to escape Braedon’s cold detachment, Chloe leaves. And when he pursues her to London, determined to entice her back, Braedon is utterly unprepared for what he finds there – the real Chloe Hardwick…

The Marquess had made his stance clear.

He was content—insistent, even—on carrying on in the same manner. Yet what else could she expect? He did not see her—but how could he? He saw only what she had shown him. What she had become—for him.

Suddenly the truth was blindingly clear. She could not stay. Could not pretend that nothing had changed inside her. The pain she felt now was nothing to what such a course would lead to. Before long she would be writhing beneath an unbearable weight of unrequited caring and burgeoning resentment.

Hardwick had no future. Not with the Marquess. Not even without him.

Yet she was more than Hardwick, was she not?

She would never find out if she stayed.

AUTHOR NOTE

Are you a collector? Although I admit to a taste for research books, I don’t have anything to rival Lord Marland’s superior weapons collection. Then again, neither have I made his mistake of pouring all my passions into a room full of ancient swords and gleaming battleaxes—or hefty tomes and old maps, as the case may be!

I’m not über-organised either—unlike Miss Chloe Hardwick. But that’s the beauty of writing romance—the chance to explore all sorts of fantasies! Uptight Chloe may seem like an odd choice to turn the Marquess away from his obsession with instruments of death and towards life, but their quest to find a mysterious spear turns into a journey of discovery for both Chloe and Lord Marland. I hope you’ll enjoy the trip along with them, as they learn to let fear and hurt drift away and hold onto love—and each other—instead.

About the Author

DEB MARLOWE grew up in Pennsylvania with her nose in a book. Luckily, she’d read enough romances to recognise the true modern hero she met at a college Halloween party—even though he wore a tuxedo T-shirt instead of breeches and tall boots. They married, settled in North Carolina, and produced two handsome, intelligent and genuinely amusing boys.

Though she now spends much of her time with her nose in her laptop, for the sake of her family she does occasionally abandon her inner world for the domestic adventure of laundry, dinner and carpool. Despite her sacrifice, not one of the men in her family is yet willing to don breeches or tall boots. She’s working on it.

Deb would love to hear from readers! You can contact her at debmarlowe@debmarlowe.com

Previous novels by the same author:

SCANDALOUS LORD, REBELLIOUS MISS

AN IMPROPER ARISTOCRAT

HER CINDERELLA SEASON

ANNALISE AND THE SCANDALOUS RAKE

(part of Regency Summer Scandals) TALL, DARK AND DISREPUTABLE HOW TO MARRY A RAKE

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

Unbuttoning

Miss Hardwick

Deb Marlowe

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

To Valiant Husband:

For braving trolls and spiders beneath decks,

for technical support, for ‘just stopping by’,

for liking my friends, for all the late pick-ups

at the gym, for not damaging my calm,

for having the best laugh and sharing it so often,

and for a thousand and one other reasons.

I know how lucky I am.

Prologue

‘Miss! He’s coming!’

Over the relentless pounding of her own heart, Chloe Hardwick caught the excitement in the maid’s tone. She inched a little closer to her desk, straightened her spine and settled her new spectacles more firmly on her nose.

Clearly this was a woefully insignificant reaction.

‘Miss!’ How was it possible for the girl to shriek and whisper at the same time? Her shivery delight grated on Chloe’s already strained nerves.

‘Oh, heavens!’ From the passageway, the maid hissed again. ‘He’s nearly here!’

Chloe swallowed an empathetic surge of panic. Her day of reckoning had come. It was time to own up to her lies, to confess her deceit to The Marauding Marquess.

It’s only a nickname.

None of his infamous conquests, reportedly gathered on the battlefields and in the bedrooms of Europe, would come into play here at Denning Castle. She repeated the reassurance in her head even as she pinned the girl with a stern stare. ‘Thank you, Daisy. That will be all.’

The disappointed maid flounced away from the door. Making a small concession to her nerves, Chloe ran a finger along the row of buttons marching down the front of her jacket. The garment might be supremely unstylish, but as always she drew strength and a sense of security from her unusual attire, as if the string of tightly spaced fasteners were a line of soldiers standing firm between her and the world. Breathing deeply, she ignored the sounds of arrival, pulled a file from the neat stack at the corner of her desk and bent over it.

‘Hardwick!’ The shout echoed from below, followed by a set of footsteps advancing up the stairs. They paused as Chloe’s unwitting employer called to an unseen servant. ‘There is a loaded wagon coming along behind. No one is to touch it until I am available to supervise. Is that understood?’

He didn’t wait for an answer. The footsteps were nearly upon her now. ‘Hardwick!’ he called again. ‘Did you get it, man?’

Chloe sensed, rather than saw, the large form that erupted into her small study.

‘Hardwick?’

This was it. The moment she’d been preparing for—and dreading—for nearly sixteen months. Nervous energy coursed through her. She closed her eyes and tried desperately to quell it. When she opened her eyes, however, she saw that the quill she held trembled in her hand. Deliberate and slow, she set it down and rose to her feet.

‘Lord Marland, welcome home,’ she said to the quill. ‘How pleased we all are to have you back.’