Devilish Lord, Mysterious Miss

Devilish Lord, Mysterious Miss
ANNIE BURROWS

Is she his lost love? With his dark, haunted eyes and forbidding expression, the menacing Lord Matthison has the reputation of the devil. Living on the fringes of polite society, he has still to get over the death of his one true love seven years ago.But Cora Montague’s body has never been found… So when he encounters a fragile-looking woman, the image of his betrothed, working in a London dressmakers, Matthison is convinced Cora is still alive. But what should he do to claim her…?

‘You will feel better still once you have got out of your wet clothing and had something to eat,’ Matthison said.

‘You have no idea what will make me feel better!’

How could he stand there so calmly, talking about eating, when her life lay in ruins?

Because he did not care. He had brought her to this. He had betrayed her! Held her in his arms and kissed her, when all the time…

She lurched to her feet on a wave of anguish and fury. Her fists were already raised before she knew how badly she wanted to hit him. But she did not manage to land a single blow. He caught hold of her wrists, his reactions lightning-swift.

She flailed out at his imprisoning hands, kicking ineffectually at his booted legs. His eyes widened in horror, then narrowed with grim purpose as he lifted her off her feet.

Annie Burrows has been making up stories for her own amusement since she first went to school. As soon as she got the hang of using a pencil she began to write them down. Her love of books meant she had to do a degree in English literature. And her love of writing meant she could never take on a job where she didn’t have time to jot down notes when inspiration for a new plot struck her. She still wants the heroines of her stories to wear beautiful floaty dresses and triumph over all that life can throw at them. But when she got married she discovered that finding a hero is an essential ingredient to arriving at ‘happy ever after’.

Recent novels by Annie Burrows:

HIS CINDERELLA BRIDE

MY LADY INNOCENT

THE EARL’S UNTOUCHED BRIDE

CAPTAIN FAWLEY’S INNOCENT BRIDE

THE RAKE’S SECRET SON (part of Regency Candlelit Christmas anthology)

Also available in eBook format in Mills & Boon® Historical Undone:

NOTORIOUS LORD, COMPROMISED MISS

DEVILISH LORD,

MYSTERIOUS MISS

Annie Burrows

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

Author Note

When I was a little girl I loved reading fairy stories. One of my favourites was The Sleeping Beauty. The prince had to hack his way through a thicket of thorns to get to the castle where Aurora lay, bound by the wicked witch’s spells. He would have got cut and bruised, probably ending up with half a forest’s worth of leaves stuck all over his clothes and in his hair. He must have been quite a sight to wake up to!

I always hoped that the first thing the Princess would do would be to bathe his wounds…

Lord Matthison is convinced he has to fight his way through a thicket of thorns to rescue his own lady love from the spell that seems to hold her in its grip. But is she the one who is bound by a spell, or is he the one who is really under a witch’s curse?

For Peter and Ruth,Steadfast Friends

Chapter One

Lord Matthison reached for the area railings to steady himself, blinking up at the façade of the house where Miss Winters lived.

With her ambitious mother.

And her ruthless father.

He had no idea how he’d fetched up on Curzon Street, at the house of the scheming jade who had stripped him of his last vestige of hope.

He was drunk, of course. He had been drinking steadily since just before midnight. Any man who’d had the week he’d just had would have done exactly the same—made for the nearest gin shop and called for a bottle. Though he had assiduously avoided taking the road that led to oblivion during the past seven years, when the cards had turned against him, and he’d gone down to the tune of five hundred guineas for the third night in a row, he’d had to accept it was over.

‘Cora,’ he moaned, as the pain of her loss struck him with an intensity he had not felt since the first day she’d gone. Gin was so deceitful! It promised to relieve all woe, but all it had done was strip him of the ability to pretend he did not care. He’d assumed he would have found at least a measure of respite, before coming round in some gutter. Possibly even staggering back to his own lodgings. He’d never dreamed he would turn out to have such a hard head, he would still be on his feet by dawn. Or that those wayward feet would have brought him to the last place on earth he would willingly have gone.

‘But I won’t marry you!’ he yelled, shaking his fist at the shuttered windows.

A milkmaid who was passing eyed him with suspicion, and gave him a wide berth. He scarcely noticed her as he straightened up with renewed resolve. What did he care if Miss Winters was ruined!

He had not lured her into her father’s study, tousled her hair, and torn the bodice of her gown. No, she’d done all that herself. Then launched herself at him just as the door swung open, making it look as though they had been locked in a passionate embrace.

Not that she wanted to marry him so much now, he laughed mirthlessly. He’d soon wiped that triumphant smile from her face!

‘So, you want to dance with the devil, do you?’ he had mocked, seizing her by the upper arms when she would have broken free.

‘You are hurting me,’ she had protested, beginning to look a little uncertain.

‘But that is the kind of man I am,’ he had answered. ‘Have you not heard the rumours? Damsels of a sensitive nature practically swoon with fright whenever I walk into a room. With good reason, wouldn’t you say?’

The confusion in her eyes had made him wonder if she really did not know. It was just possible. Her family did not mix in the best circles. Her mother had no intimates privy to the type of gossip circulating about him. They might have managed to secure a house at a fashionable address, but Miss Winters was never going to receive vouchers for Almack’s.

‘Or were you fooled by the fact that I still get invited everywhere?’ he had mused. ‘That was naïve of you. But as you do not seem to understand the ways of the ton, I will explain. Some of them ignore my reputation, because of the vast amount of wealth I have accrued since I made my pact with the devil. They claim not to care how I came by it, because my birth is sufficiently exalted for them to turn a blind eye. But they would never let me near any of their daughters.

‘And there are others who are fascinated by the aura of evil I carry with me. They get quite a thrill from telling people they’ve been daring enough to ask the man who murdered his fiancée to attend one of their insipid gatherings. Oh,’he’d said, when a look of horror had spread across her face. ‘So you had not heard? That I had made a pact with the devil, or that I had been engaged, long ago? To the innocent and unsuspecting Miss Montague…’

Suddenly it had felt like a kind of blasphemy, to speak her name aloud while he was holding another woman in his arms. He had flung the trembling Miss Winters from him, but kept between her and the door. He had not finished with her yet!

‘They never found her body,’ he relished informing her, ‘so they could never bring me to trial. But, since it was my best friend, the man who had known me since childhood, who brought the accusation against me, I must have done it, must I not?’

Miss Winters had begun to rub at the spot on her arms where he’d been holding her, but he’d felt not one ounce of remorse. He deliberately discarded the ice-cold persona he had adopted to disguise his state of mind, expressing all the bitterness that he normally held in check, through his next words.

‘Since the day she disappeared, I have had phenomenal luck at the tables. Is that not proof that I have stained my soul with the blood of a virgin? I often wonder,’ he’d grated, ‘why people still sit down to play cards with me, when they know I can’t lose. Just as I wonder—’ he had paced slowly towards her, his fury unchecked ‘—why you expected this little charade to have any effect upon me. You do not suppose a man whose soul is as black as mine, is going to send off a notice to the Morning Post just because someone saw me in a compromising position with a virgin, do you?’

He had thought that would have been an end to it. Last thing he’d seen of her, she’d fled from the room, sobbing, and flung herself into her mother’s arms. His mouth twisted into a cynical sneer as he recalled what a short distance she’d had to go. Her mother had been hovering right outside the door.

Anyway, he shrugged, she had definitely changed her mind about wanting to marry him.

Her father, though, was made of sterner stuff.