The Accidental Mistress

Informationen zum Autor Tracy Anne Warren is the author of the Husband Trap, Wife Trap, and Wedding Trap trilogy. After working for a number of years in finance, she quit her day job to pursue her first love–writing romance novels. Warren lives in Maryland with a trio of exuberant young Siamese rescue cats and windows full of gorgeous orchids and African violets. When she’s not writing, she enjoys reading, watching movies, and dreaming up the characters for her next book. Visit her website at www.tracyannewarren.com. Klappentext He will expose her masquerade! but she will expose his heart. To escape an arranged marriage! spirited Lily Bainbridge has staged her own death! and! disguised as a boy! she fled to London and a life of freedom. Yet her plans to live masquerade as an independent widow are thwarted by an encounter with a powerful and dangerously attractive marquis who wants to make her his mistress. Lily is afraid that if she gives him her innocence! he'll steal her heart. Having agreed to a marriage of convenience to honor his family duty! Ethan Andarton! the Marquis of Vessey! has no intention of abandoning his rakish ways. Then fate intervenes in the guise of an impetuous young lady-a woman bold enough to scheme her way to London! who tempts him with her mystery and her sensuality. Kiss after kiss! caress after tender caress! Ethan vows to discover all of Lily's hidden secrets. For beneath the layers of her clever ruse lies a burning passion that will ignite a tempestuous love neither of them can deny. Chapter One April 1814 Cornwall, England Only a few more yards, Lily Bainbridge told herself. Only a little while longer and I will be safe. I will be free. An icy wave struck her dead in the face. Gasping for breath, she pushed on, arm over arm, as she fought the unrelenting drag of the rough, rolling sea. Above her, lightning flashed against a viscous gray sky, slashes of rain hurtling downward to sting her skin like a barrage of tiny needles. Arms quivering from the strain, she put the discomfort out of her mind and kept swimming, knowing it was either that or drown. And despite the suicide note she’d left back in her bedroom at the house, she had no intention of dying, certainly not today. Many would call her insane to plunge into the sea during a storm, but regardless of the danger, she’d known she had to act without fear or hesitation. Delay would mean marriage to Squire Edgar Faylor, and as she’d told her stepfather, she would rather be dead than bound for life to such a loathsome brute. But her stepfather cared naught for her wishes, since marriage to Faylor would mean a profitable business deal for him. Slowing, she scanned the jagged shoreline, and the waves that crashed in thunderous percussion against the rocks and shoals. Although she’d swum these waters for nearly the whole of her twenty years, she’d never done so during such a seething tempest. Alarmingly, nothing looked quite the same, familiar vantage points distorted by the dim light and the churning spray of the surf. Treading fast, she fought the clinging weight of her gown, the sodden muslin coiling around her legs like iron shackles. Doubtless she would have been better off stripping down to her shift before taking to the sea, but her “death” had to look convincing, enough so that her stepfather would not suspect the truth. If she lived through this and he discovered she was still alive, he would hunt her down without an ounce of mercy. With her heart drumming in her chest, she swam harder, knowing she dare not let herself drift and be swept out to sea. A knot formed in the base of her throat at the disquieting thought, a shiver rippling through her tired limbs. What if I’ve miscalculated? she worried. What if the storm has already carried me out too far? Her apprehensions evaporated when a familiar sight came into view: a narrow fissure, ...

Product details

• Authors: Tracy Anne Warren
• Publisher: Ballantine
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 27.11.2007
• EAN: 9780345495402
• ISBN: 978-0-345-49540-2
• No. of pages: 355
• Dimensions: 106 mm x 175 mm x 23 mm
• Series: The Mistress Trilogy; The Mistress Trilogy
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature