The Unlacing of Miss Leigh

The Unlacing of Miss Leigh
Diane Gaston

Disfigured in battle against Napoleon's forces, Captain Graham Veall has become a recluse, spending months alone on his estate and appearing masked in public. Yet Graham is determined not to forgo life's pleasures forever. . . especially the delight of a woman's touch. He hardly expects virginal Miss Margaret Leigh to respond to his advertisement for female company, thinking he sought a lady's companion.Still, the impoverished vicar's daughter is a surprising temptation he can't ignore. His proposition? That she live with him for two months as his mistress in exchange for supporting her and her brother for the rest of their lives.But Margaret has a secret. Graham once saved her life as a child and she has dreamed about him ever since. As he awakens her desire, she longs to soothe his inner wounds—though only two months with her damaged hero may not be enough. . . .

Diane lives in Virginia with her husband and too-many-cats. Once a mental health social worker, her days are now filled with writing fictional happy endings. Diane’s Mills & Boon Historical A Reputable Rake won the 2006 Romance Writers of America RITA

award for Best Regency Romance.

Visit her website at http://dianegaston.com.

Contact her at diane@dianegaston.com. She loves to hear from readers.

Author’s Note

There is something about a hero who feels too damaged to be loved that always tugs at my heart. Such a hero needs a heroine who sees below the surface to the man underneath. Is that not what we all want? To be loved for the person we are at our very core?

I hope you enjoy The Unlacing of Miss Leigh, my unabashed homage to Phantom of the Opera and all Beauty and the Beast stories. I’ve included a peek at characters who will appear in my next to-be-titled, to-be-scheduled book and a peek at my heroine in the Mills & Boon July 2009 Regency Summer Scandals anthology. You’ll meet Justine from Justine and the Noble Viscount at a pivotal moment in her life.

The Unlacing of Miss Leigh

Diane Gaston

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

To Patty Suchy, who always told me I’d love the

movie Phantom of the Opera. She was sooooooo right!

Chapter One

London, June, 1812

A thousand lamps blazed in the elms. Colonnades, fountains, cascades and porticos, while throngs of people of all sorts made up this night of masquerade in Vauxhall Gardens.

Amid this wonder, Margaret Leigh’s heart raced. She was here to meet a gentleman, a man who would pay for her company.

“Are you certain you wish to do this, Maggie?” Her cousin’s brow furrowed. “It is not at all proper.”

She slanted him an amused look. “You are one to speak of propriety.”

Henry had long been the scourge of the family. A schoolmaster’s son and a vicar’s nephew, Henry ran off to join a theater company when he’d barely begun to shave. Now, there was little family left to condemn him, only Margaret and her younger brother.

Henry nodded and waved a hand. “To the devil with propriety, anyway. Life is too short not to seek enjoyment where we can.”

Margaret released a nervous breath. “Well, I cannot afford either enjoyment or propriety at the moment.”

Henry pursed his lips in sympathy. Wearing horns on his head and tight-fitting green trousers and coat, his expression looked nothing more than comical.

Margaret stifled a laugh.

Henry was dressed as Puck in a costume from Covent Garden Theatre where he performed small parts. For Margaret, he had borrowed a fairy costume—a gown of palest blush, its skirts fashioned from so many layers of silk net that she seemed to float as she walked. It was quite the most beautiful gown she’d ever worn.

“Here we are.” Henry stopped at the supper boxes along the South Walk.

Margaret, an impoverished vicar’s daughter, and her cousin Henry, an actor of no renown, were to be guests of the Duke of Manning. For the festivities, the duke had engaged several boxes joined together, decorated with flowers and swags of colorful silks. Already, the boxes seemed filled with people. Most of the gentlemen wore black dominoes, but the women wore a variety of costumes, from rustic milkmaids frocks to elaborate Egyptian princesses’ gowns. The gentleman had arranged his rendezvous with Margaret to take place among the friends of the duke.

Margaret gave Henry a rueful smile. “If our parents could see us now.”

Her cousin laughed. “I envision them collectively rolling over in their graves. I can almost hear your father.” He made a dramatic gesture as if preaching from a pulpit. “…I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator…”

Tears pricked at Margaret’s eyes. “You sound just like him.”

Henry sobered. “My talent for mimicry.”

Margaret’s father had passed away of a sudden apoplexy not two months earlier and grief still overcame her at unforeseen moments. He’d been the last of that generation. They were orphans now, Margaret thought.

Henry’s sympathetic look returned, but he quickly smiled and punched her on the arm. “I daresay your father would consider the Duke of Manning improper company for you.”

“And his friend.” The gentleman she was to meet.

The notorious Duke of Manning had run off with the Earl of Linwall’s wife, set up housekeeping with her, and sired several children by her—the Fitzmanning Miscellany, the society gossips called them. In the supper box, the duke and his lady were easy to recognize, greeting their guests, both dressed in white wigs and colorful brocades that were fashionable decades ago.

Margaret turned back to Henry. “For a man and woman living in sin, they look very happy.”

“They do indeed.” Henry clasped her arm and stepped forward. “The rewards of impropriety.”

They showed their invitation to the footman positioned at the entry to the boxes. As he admitted them, Margaret scanned the gentlemen in black dominoes. His would be lined in red, he’d written to her.

She glimpsed no red.

The words in his advertisement in The Times came back to her.

Seeking an educated lady of genteel birth for companionship. Gentleman of good fortune offers generous compensation.

Margaret had answered the advertisement. She answered every advertisement for companions or governesses, the most common professions for a woman of her station. None yielded any results. When the gentleman mentioned in the ad sent a footman with a written response, Margaret’s hopes surged.

And were immediately dashed.

The companionship the gentleman sought was of a different nature entirely. He sought a mistress.

Behind his rather witty response to her had been a sense of aching loneliness. Margaret wrote back to him, even though it was highly improper to do so. She sent a polite refusal.

He wrote back.

He wrote to her again and again, charming letters of persistent persuasiveness, witty words and despairing loneliness. Each time, she sent back a refusal, but soon the greatest pleasure of her day was seeing his footman arrive at the door with the now-daily letter, then reading its contents.

Eventually, the gentleman proposed a meeting for which he would pay her twenty pounds. He suggested this masked ball at Vauxhall as the location. Twenty pounds was almost as much as she could earn in a year as a lady’s companion or governess.

She needed that money quite desperately.