The Secret Mistress (with bonus short story Now a Bride)

Zusatztext “With exceptional insight and uncommon flair! [Mary] Balogh holds readers in thrall. . . . Exquisite character development! sparkling wit.”— Library Journal (starred review and Editor’s Pick)   “Balogh gifts readers with several memorable scenes! inserting wit and passion throughout.” —The Star-Ledger   “Utterly delightful! charming and intelligent—a winner!”— RT Book Reviews Informationen zum Autor Mary Balogh is the New York Times bestselling author of numerous books, including the acclaimed Slightly and Simply novels, the Mistress novels, and the five titles in her Huxtable series: First Comes Marriage, Then Comes Seduction, At Last Comes Love, Seducing an Angel, and A Secret Affair . A former teacher, she grew up in Wales and now lives in Canada. Klappentext NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER While Lady Angeline Dudley's pedigree dictates that she must land a titled gentleman, the irrepressible beauty longs for a simple, ordinary suitor. So when Edward Ailsbury, the new Earl of Heyward, defends her honor with unmatched civility, Angeline thinks that she has found true love. Persuading the earl is another matter entirely. From her unconventional fashion sense to her hoydenish antics, Angeline is the last woman on earth for Edward. And yet a stolen kiss awakens something primal within him. Naturally, being a gentleman, he does the right thing after compromising a lady: He offers marriage. The proposal is born of duty, but will Angeline cause Edward to forget about decorum behind closed doors, where sensuality and seduction play wicked games? For a proper wife by day can become a husband's secret mistress by night, when delicious desire rules. Includes Mary Balogh's "Now a Bride," featuring extra scenes from her Mistress series.Chapter 1 X Lady Angeline Dudley was standing at the window of the taproom in the Rose and Crown Inn east of Reading. Quite scandalously, she was alone there, but what was she to do? The window of her own room looked out only upon a rural landscape. It was picturesque enough, but it was not the view she wanted. Only the taproom window offered that, looking out as it did upon the inn yard into which any new arrival was bound to ride. Angeline was waiting, with barely curbed impatience, for the arrival of her brother and guardian, Jocelyn Dudley, Duke of Tresham. He was to have been here before her, but she had arrived an hour and a half ago and there had been no sign of him. It was very provoking. A string of governesses over the years, culminating in Miss Pratt, had instilled in her the idea that a lady never showed an excess of emotion, but how was one not to do so when one was on one's way to London for the Season-one's first-and one was eager to be there so that one's adult life could begin in earnest at last, yet one's brother had apparently forgotten all about one's very existence and was about to leave one languishing forever at a public inn a day's journey away from the rest of one's life? Of course, she had arrived here ridiculously early. Tresham had arranged for her to travel this far under the care of the Reverend Isaiah Coombes and his wife and two children before they went off in a different direction to celebrate some special anniversary with Mrs. Coombes's relatives, and Angeline was transferred to the care of her brother, who was to come from London. The Coombeses arose each morning at the crack of dawn or even earlier, despite yawning protests from the junior Coombeses, with the result that their day's journey was completed almost before those of more normal persons even began. The Reverend and Mrs. Coombes had been quite prepared to settle in and wait like long-suffering martyrs at the inn until their precious charge could be handed over to the care of His Grace, but Angeline had persuaded them to be on their way. What ...

Product details

• Authors: Mary Balogh
• Publisher: Dell Publishing Inc.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 31.07.2012
• EAN: 9780440245292
• ISBN: 978-0-440-24529-2
• No. of pages: 432
• Dimensions: 104 mm x 171 mm x 28 mm
• Series: The Mistress Trilogy; The Mistress Trilogy; Random House Publishing Group
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature