The Accidental Elopement
Scandalous Miss Brightwell Series (Book 4)
By Beverley Oakley
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A seven-year secret. A
tragic misunderstanding. Can love outwit fate in this twisted tale of
misadventure and thwarted dreams?
Earl Quamby’s niece,
Katherine, and Jack, a foundling home lad adopted by a local family, have been
loyal friends for as long as they can remember.
As
Jack is about to leave England to make his fortune and Katherine is being
courted by two eligible suitors, they unexpectedly realise their friendship has
blossomed into passionate love. A love, they are warned, that has no future.
Despite
a brave attempt to defy the forces keeping them apart, tragedy results and the
pair is separated.
When
chance throws them together seven years later, Katherine, newly widowed, is
being pressured into a marriage not of her choosing to avoid scandal and Jack
feels he must honour his pledge to the worthy Odette whom he met in India and
whose father is dying.
Katherine knows that revealing a
long-held secret may win Jack to her but she also knows conflicting obligations
from past and present may tear him apart.
Can master matchmakers, Fanny,
Antoinette and Bertram Brightwell, outwit fate in its latest attempt to keep
these star-crossed lovers apart and deliver them the happiness they deserve?
This is Book 4 in the Scandalous Miss Brightwell series
but it can be read as a stand-alone.
Order The
Accidental Elopement now
for the special price of $2.99 and you'll get an ecopy of Scandalous: Three Daring Charades in the
Pursuit of Love. Just
send a screen shot of proof of purchase to beverley (at) eikli.com and she'll send you the link for
your free book.
Excerpt:
In this excerpt, Katherine is hiding in a dark corridor to
avoid dancing with someone she has no wish to see during her first ball as a
newly arrived London debutante. She then receives a rude shock!
No one had thought to
light a candle sconce and this second corridor turning she’d taken was as black
as a dungeon. Katherine couldn’t even see her hand but she wasn’t frightened of
the dark. No, Katherine was not fainthearted.
Yet she did squeal when,
taking another step, her progress was impeded by a very large object and, with
no warning at all, she found herself flying through the air, landing with a
painful jarring of her wrists upon the cold, hard flagstones.
“Good Lord!” came a
disembodied young male voice in the dark before a groping hand located a piece
of Katherine – namely a hank of hair – which caused her to shriek even louder
when it was quite unnecessarily tugged. Whether this was to establish who or
what she was, she had no idea – and perhaps neither did the tugger for
immediately a profound apology was issued before the groping hand was operating
with complete abandon in the dark.
This time it found
Katherine’s breast just as the voice said in tones of utter mortification,
“Forgive me! Are you hurt? Here, let me help you. That’s what I was trying to
do, I promise. I didn’t realise you were on the ground? Take my hand. Really, I
can’t apologise enough.”
Katherine had made one
unsuccessful attempt to stand but it was a struggle in her flounced skirt and
multiple corded petticoats. She swatted away the supposedly helping hand and
hissed something unintelligible – somehow unladylike language seemed less of an
offence when she couldn’t see to whom she was speaking.
But when the disembodied
groping hand entered her orbit once more – in fact, brushing the bare flash
above her garter and getting in a good squeeze of her thigh flesh, her temper
which had never been one of her strong points, snapped and she lashed out with
a sharp slice through the inky air.
A loud yelp made her
realise she’d perhaps been a little peremptory and certainly too violent in
this unladylike action and even though she felt disinclined to apologise she
did say, ungraciously, “I’m sorry I hit you but a lady can only take so much of
all this groping in the dark. I mean…what were you doing?”
“I could ask you the
same thing,” came the response, now at ear level. In fact, she could feel the
soft whisper of breath against her cheek which made her step back, saying, “I
asked first.”
“I was chasing a cat.
Bending down in fact. And then something crashed into me. Or on top of me.”
“That was me.”
“Yes, of course it was
you. There’s no one else here, is there?”
Katherine bridled at his
tone. She was unused to being spoken to as if she were at fault when, in this
case, she most certainly wasn’t. “I think that’s a very rude response,” she
told him. “Just as it was very thoughtless of you to crouch down where anybody
could simply trip over you.”
“Anybody – or rather,
anybody else – would be carrying a
candle. I think I have every reason to be deeply suspicious of the motives of
anyone who is not.”
“Well, you don’t have a candle. And I would
suspect the truth of anyone hiding away in the dark, claiming they were
crouching over an imaginary cat,” huffed Katherine. “In fact, I’d wager there
was no cat here at all. I would have heard it. No, you were sneaking away from
something, weren’t you?”
“And if I was, what
business of yours? Whoever you are.”
Katherine could not
imagine the audacity. “You certainly are no gentleman to speak to a lady in
that fashion.”
“Since that lady hasn’t
bothered to declare herself, I think I could be forgiven.”
“A gentleman would have
declared himself first,” Katherine said hotly. “What were you sidling away
from? There’s a noisy ball going on in the next room. If you were a gentleman,
wouldn’t you be gallantly asking the ladies to dance instead of hiding in the
dark? Perhaps there’s someone you’re afraid of seeing? A lady who has
expectations of you behaving towards her as a gentleman.” Katherine said this triumphantly before elaborating on
her theme. “My guess is that you’ve given some poor young lady the idea that
you’ll dance with her all night and now you’ve changed your mind and are
sneaking away.”
“Since you put forward the
idea, I’d suggest the reason you’re here is exactly the same. You’re trying to
sneak away from a gentleman to whom you’ve already promised two dances.
Meanwhile he, poor fellow, is searching for you vainly in the ballroom while
you’re here making a mockery of him.”
“He can do that all by
himself,” Katherine sniffed. “But I never promised him anything and I never
will.”
“Ha! I was right.” The
voice sounded very pleased with itself. “Well, I feel sorry for this fellow
without even seeing what you look
like, miss. Poor fellow!”
“Poor fellow, indeed.
George can pine til the cows come home. I’d even suffer talking to you than have to spend another five
minutes with his sweating hands squeezing mine and his moon eyes boring into
me…and his horrible, putrid breath choking me and his—”
“Poor George! I was just
starting to feel sorry for him until you described the exact George I, too, am
so at pains to avoid tonight.” The voice became more confidential and the mood
relaxed.
Katherine crossed her
arms and waited for him to speak again for she was rather interested in his
George and then quite amused when the voice began to describe the very George
against whom she railed.
“Well, you have
described my cousin to a very fine point,” she laughed. “And if you are as well
acquainted with him as you seem to be, then you obviously know exactly why I am
here in the dark.”
There was a small
silence. And then, “Your cousin?”
“In my family there are
two Georges: Young George who is the son of my aunt and her husband, Lord
Quamby, and Odious George who is his uncle, George Bramley.”
“Then we’re talking
about the same George!” The voice sounded stunned.
A quick gasp from both
of them was followed up by a delighted cry in unison.
“Jack!”
“Katherine!”
Other
Books In The Series:
Rake's
Honour (Book 1)
Beautiful, impoverished Fanny Brightwell has a few scores
to settle—and a heart to win—before she can secure the wealthy, aristocratic
husband her ambitious mama demands.
Pick up
a free copy here!
Rogue's
Kiss (Book 2)
Would a potential suitor be bolder if he were told the
lie that the maiden he desires has only six months to live?
Devil's
Run (Book 3)
A rigged horse race - with a marriage and a lost child
riding on the outcome.
~*~*~*~*~
About
the Author:
Beverley Oakley was seventeen when she bundled up her
first her 500+ page romance and sent it to a publisher. Unfortunately drowning
her heroine on the last page was apparently not in line with the expectations
of romance readers so Beverley became a journalist.
Twenty-six years later Beverley was delighted to
receive her first publishing contract from Robert Hale (UK) for a romance in
which she ensured her heroine was saved from drowning in the icy North Sea.
Since 2009 Beverley has written more than thirteen
historical romances, mostly set in England during the early nineteenth century.
Mystery, intrigue and adventure spill from their pages and if she can pull off
a thrilling race to save someone’s honour – or a worthy damsel from the noose –
it’s time to celebrate with a good single malt Scotch.
Beverley lives with her husband, two daughters and a
Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy the size of a pony opposite a picturesque
nineteenth-century lunatic asylum. She also writes Africa-set adventure-filled
romances tarring handsome bush pilot heroes, and historical romances with less
steam and more sexual tension, as Beverley Eikli.
You
can get in contact with Beverley at:
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