When the Duchess Said Yes

Informationen zum Autor Isabella Bradford Klappentext The romantic escapades of the irrepressible Wylder sisters continue in Isabella Bradford's fun! charming! and breathtakingly passionate series-as the wildest of the Wylders turns an arranged marriage into a game of desire to tame a wayward duke. Notorious for her free-spirited antics! Lady Elizabeth Wylder revels in attention-but not the sort that leaves her humiliated when her future husband! the Duke of Hawkesworth! fails to appear for their much-anticipated first introduction. So when a chance encounter leads to a sizzling kiss with a dangerously handsome stranger! she nearly succumbs. The shock of finally meeting her betrothed only to come face to face with her rakish would-be seducer inspires fury-and fans the flames of a fire that both Lizzie and the Duke acknowledge is a most agreeable way to start a marriage. In her husband's arms! Lizzie knows she has found love. But is the passion that accompanies endless nights of erotic discovery enough to persuade a duke whose scandalous lineage and lifestyle prevent him from giving his heart completely? 9780345527318|excerpt Bradford / WHEN THE DUCHESS SAYS YES 1 London April 1762 It was duty that had drawn the Duke of Hawkesworth back to England. More specifically, duty, and lawyers, and a woman he’d never met but was bound to marry. Bored already, Hawke sprawled in his chair in the playhouse box, pretending to watch the abysmal opera before him. He’d been away nearly ten years, long enough that he suspected those in the other first-­tier boxes were desperately trying to decide who he must be. It wouldn’t be easy. He knew he’d changed, grown from a schoolboy to a man, and he’d grown into both his broad frame and his title. Thanks to a long-­ago Mediterranean grandmother, he had dark hair and dark eyes, and his face was so unfashionably tan after the long voyage that those in the other boxes had likely all decided he was swarthy, even foreign. The thought made him smile. Well, let them peer at him with their opera glasses and whisper behind their fans. They’d all come to recognize him soon enough. “Those two dancers with the scarlet stockings,” whispered the Marquis of Petershaw, an old friend and the first to welcome him back to London. “The ones with the golden hair. A delectable pair, eh? Sisters, I’d wager. Should I send our compliments for a late supper, the way we did in the old days?” “We were randy schoolboys in those ‘old days,’ Petershaw, ready to mount anything female that didn’t kick us away,” Hawke said, bemused. “We weren’t exactly discerning.” Petershaw’s round face fell. “I judged them a fine pair of doxies.” “They are, they are,” Hawke assured him, not wanting to belittle his friend’s tastes. But the truth was that Hawke’s own tastes had changed with the rest of him, and in comparison to the vibrant, voluptuous women he’d left behind in Naples, English females seemed pale, bland, and thoroughly insipid, just as English food now tasted underseasoned and overcooked. “I’m not in the humor for such entertainment, that is all.” “You, Hawke?” His friend’s brows rose with disbelief. “I’ve never known you to refuse feminine company.” “You forget my reason for returning,” Hawke said, as evenly as he could. “I am to be wed, and my days with that manner of strumpet are done.” “Perhaps on your wedding night,” Petershaw said, “but not forever. Not you.” Hawke only smiled, letting his friend think what he pleased. Petershaw would anyway, regardless of what Hawke told him. “No, not you,” Petershaw declared with a suggestive chuckle that also managed to be admiring. “Not at all! I’m going to send a note down to the tiring room for those little dancers, and I’ll wager you’ll change your mind before the evening’s done.” He went off in search of a messenger before...

Product details

• Authors: Isabella Bradford
• Publisher: Ballantine
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 25.09.2012
• EAN: 9780345527318
• ISBN: 978-0-345-52731-8
• No. of pages: 336
• Dimensions: 106 mm x 175 mm x 24 mm
• Series: Wylder Sisters; Wylder Sisters
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature