Married: The Virgin Widow

Married: The Virgin Widow
Deborah Hale

Innocent on her wedding nightHer hands bound by blackmail and duty, Laura Penrose was forced to marry her sweetheart’s ruthless uncle. Ford Barrett, Lord Kingsfold, has returned from the East Indies. The woman who betrayed him has a debt to pay – Laura owes him a wedding…and a wedding night!But the sweet widow sacrificed herself once out of duty – she won’t be taken again for revenge. But this new, dark, dangerous Ford discards her pleas… Can she tell him she never wronged him, before he discovers her more innocent secret? Gentlemen of Fortune Three men with money, power and success… Looking to share life with the right woman

Her first glimpse of Ford Barrett after seven long years had flustered her even more than she’d expected. Not that he was the same ardent, charming young man she remembered. Time had changed him in many ways.

The pitiless Indian sun had darkened his skin to the colour of a Barbary pirate’s. The wild black curls she had once loved to twine around her fingers had been cropped to short, severe stubble. His mouth, once so mobile, was now set in an unyielding line. The years had chiselled his features into a visage of stark, savage beauty. Eyes once the warm, soft green of new moss were now hard and cool as jade.

Had all those changes been wrought by the passing years and his experiences in the Orient? Or had he always been such a forceful, ruthless man, while she’d been too naïve to see it?

Part of her itched to turn and flee from this formidable man, while another part felt irresistibly drawn towards him…

Married: The Virgin Widow

Deborah Hale

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

Author Note

Welcome to the first book of my new series, Gentlemen of Fortune, about the self-made men of Vindicara Trading Company! After I wrote this story I decided to give Ford Barrett a couple of business partners. Since I needed these men to have made their fortunes while still young, I looked for a time and place when opportunities were ripe. I saw it at the end of the Regency era, when the trading post of Singapore was founded. Born of a flamboyant risk, its early existence under constant threat, the tiny settlement brought together people of very different cultures united in their drive to succeed. I have relished the opportunity to learn more about Singapore’s fascinating history and culture.

Ford Barrett, Hadrian Northmore and Simon Grimshaw all left Britain for various reasons, going halfway around the world to make their fortunes. Now, though they have money, power and success, they discover those things mean nothing without a special person to share them. As destiny throws three unique women into their paths, these driven men discover that achieving material success was easy compared to the challenge of forging a close, passionate relationship that will last a lifetime.

MARRIED: THE VIRGIN WIDOW is the story of Ford Barrett, who inherits a title and estate from his late cousin. Returning to England to put his affairs in order, he must confront his cousin’s beautiful young widow—the woman whose betrayal broke his heart and drove him into exile. Ford believes that by possessing her at last he can free his heart from her thrall. But Laura will not be possessed. Tested by hardship, she is haunted by wrenching secrets, including one that could destroy Ford and their rekindled love!

I hope you will enjoy MARRIED: THE VIRGIN WIDOW and look forward to those of the other Vindicara partners!

In the process of tracing her Canadian family to their origins in eighteenth-century Britain, DEBORAH HALE learned a great deal about the period and uncovered plenty of true-life inspiration for her historical romance novels! Deborah lives with her very own hero and their four fastgrowing children in Nova Scotia—a province steeped in history and romance!

Deborah invites you to become better acquainted with her by visiting her personal website, www.deborahhale.com, or chatting with her in the Harlequin Mills & Boon online communities.

Novels by Deborah Hale:

A GENTLEMAN OF SUBSTANCETHE WEDDING WAGERMY LORD PROTECTORCARPETBAGGER’S WIFETHE ELUSIVE BRIDEBORDER BRIDELADY LYTE’S LITTLE SECRETTHE BRIDE SHIPA WINTER NIGHT’S TALE (part of A Regency Christmas)

Look for more in Deborah Hale’s

Gentlemen of Fortune

BOUGHT: THE PENNILESS LADY

WANTED: MAIL-ORDER MISTRESS

Coming August and September 2010

Thanks to the smart, talented, generous members of Romance Writers of Atlantic Canada for their continuing support. Extra-special thanks to Julianne MacLean, Ann Cameron and Anne MacFarlane, who tutored me in the mysteries of alpha-males and romantic revenge.

Chapter One

June 1821

Ford Barrett’s spirits soared as he read the letter he had been waiting seven long years to receive. A letter he had often despaired of ever seeing. A letter that would end his long exile and allow him to reclaim everything that had been stolen from him.

Including his heart.

After a voyage of five months and many thousand miles, the letter had arrived earlier that day in Singapore. Ford and his business partners had been so busy it was after sunset before they had a chance to read their mail.

Now the three men sat pouring over their correspondence by candlelight, on the deep veranda of the wooden bungalow they’d helped build beside their warehouse. Overhead, raindrops from the south-west monsoon pattered softly on the roof, thatched with palm fronds. The distant commotion of a cockfight mingled with a haunting wail summoning the Maylays and Arabs to their evening prayers. Pungent odours of fish, mangrove swamp and burning joss sticks hung in the sultry night air.

Hadrian Northmore glanced up from one of his letters to fix Ford with a penetrating stare. “Bad news, is it? I’ve never seen you look so sour.”

Ford made a strenuous effort to relax the clenched muscles of his face into his usual neutral expression. He hated it when others could guess his true feelings—even the tough, proud man who’d helped him make his fortune.

Hadrian’s remark drew the attention of Simon Grimshaw from his own correspondence. “Not more debts, is it, Ford? I thought you paid off the last of those ages ago.”

“I did.” Ford kept his tone offhand, yet deep inside in rankled to be reminded of the debts that had driven him from his homeland to this tropical purgatory.

So much had happened since then and he had changed so much from that foolish, feckless youth, it often felt like another lifetime. But when thoughts of Laura Penrose stirred his smouldering outrage over her betrayal, it seemed like only yesterday. The letter on his lap had brought all that back like a fresh blow to an unhealed wound.

He had been betrothed to her and deeply in love. Laura knew he could not afford to wed until he inherited his cousin’s title and estate and she had agreed to wait. Then one day, Ford had received a terse note breaking their engagement and informing him she intended to wed his cousin Cyrus instead. The jilting alone had been hard enough to bear, but there was worse. By marrying his cousin, Laura had also jeopardised his expectations. If she’d borne Cyrus a son, Ford would never have inherited the title and estates that had been in his family for centuries. What tormented him worst about her betrayal was the poisonous suspicion that she had only used him to ingratiate herself with his wealthy cousin.

“If not your debts, what is it about then?” demanded Hadrian in a deep voice, rich with the cadence of his native Durham. He was a big man whose tightly coiled power and fierce nobility reminded Ford of a tiger on the prowl.

“It isn’t bad news at all.” He rubbed the edges of the thick paper between his fingers to reassure himself it was real. “Quite the contrary. This letter is from a London solicitor who begs to inform me that my cousin Cyrus died over a year ago, leaving me to succeed him as Lord Kingsfold.”

“Congratulations, your lordship!” Simon rose from his seat and bowed to Ford. Though not quite as imposing as his two partners, he had the pragmatic toughness of a tested survivor. “I say this calls for a celebratory drink.”

He headed off to fetch the bottle, favoring his left leg as he often did at the end of a long day.

Meanwhile, Hadrian stared at Ford with one dark brow arched. “I suppose from now on you’ll expect us to tug our forelocks and address you by your proper title, your lordship?”

His partner’s wry levity shook Ford from his bitter brooding. “Why, of course,” he quipped. “Though, as a token of particular favor, you needn’t fully prostrate yourselves on the floor.”

“You are too kind, exalted one.” Hadrian gave a mocking chuckle.

They were still engaged in deprecating banter when Simon reappeared bearing three glasses and a bottle of potent Batavia arrack. “I was so elated by your good fortune, Ford, I did not think to offer my sympathy on the death of your cousin. Were the two of you close?”

“Not really.” Ford took the glass Simon offered him. “Cyrus was older than my father, so I thought of him more as a distant uncle. A solitary old codger.”

Not so solitary that he’d been able to resist the flattering attention of a pretty young woman, but foolish enough not to realise she was only after his fortune. Had Laura feigned the least show of grief when her husband breathed his last? Or had she celebrated her inheritance with a glass of something more bubbly and expensive than arrack?

Simon uncorked the bottle and poured a liberal measure of clear, yellow liquor into each of their glasses. Back in England the stuff was in great demand for compounding rack punch, but Ford and his partners preferred it undiluted.

“What will you do now?” asked Hadrian as Simon handed him a glass. “Sell up and get out of trade? Sail home and forget you ever knew how to work for a shilling?”

Ford fixed his partner with a level stare. “I shall never forget that, I hope.”

Work had been his salvation—an opportunity to prove he could succeed at something. It had provided a welcome escape as well. His aim had been to work so hard every day that he would collapse upon his bed in exhausted sleep, before bittersweet memories or dashed dreams had a chance to haunt him.