The Dangerous Mr Ryder. Louise Allen
Join favorite author
Louise Allen as she explores the tangled love lives of THOSE SCANDALOUS RAVENHURSTS
First, travel across war-torn Europe with
The Dangerous Mr. Ryder
Coming
August 2008
The Outrageous Lady Felsham
September 2008
The Shocking Lord Standon
2009
The Disgraceful Mr. Ravenhurst
The Notorious Mr. Hurst
The Piratical Miss Ravenhurst
Author Note
Jack Ryder first appeared—of his own volition—in No Place for a Lady, and took on a life of his own. I found myself wondering about him, what his background was, where he had come from, and I realized I needed to tell his story.
Then I discovered that Jack is not alone—he has siblings, he has cousins, and some of them have a story to tell as well. So this is Jack Ryder’s tale, but it is also the first of the stories of THOSE SCANDALOUS RAVENHURSTS, and of how they, like Jack, find the loves of their lives.
It is the start of a journey for me, and I hope you will come along and discover with me what befalls the Ravenhurst cousins.
Louise Allen
THEDANGEROUS MR.RYDER
TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON
AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND
Available from Harlequin®Historical and LOUISE ALLEN
The Earl’s Intended Wife #793
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*The Dangerous Mr. Ryder #903
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Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter One
The evening of 7 June 1815
No one had told him that she was beautiful. Jack Ryder crouched precariously in a stone window embrasure two hundred feet above the ravine river bed and stared into the candlelit room. Inside, the woman he had been sent to find paced to and fro like an angry cat.
He kept his eyes fixed on the image beyond the glass as he wedged himself more securely into his slippery niche. Below, the void beneath the castle was shrouded in merciful darkness, the faint sound of the river floating upwards. Although his whole body was aware of it, he ignored the cold fingers of fear playing up and down his spine, knowing full well that if he let his imagination have full rein he would never be able to move at all. His studded boots ground on the stone, and he froze for a moment, but the sound did not seem to reach her.
Jack gave himself a mental shake and began to work on the knot that secured the end of the long coil of rope around his waist. As it came free he gave it a jerk, flicking it outwards, and the whole length detached itself from the battlement high above and fell out of sight into the void.
Now his only way down was through that window. Despite his perilous position, Jack had no intention of going through it until he had a chance to size up the woman inside. The woman he had been sent to bring back to England by whatever means he found necessary, including force.
It was for her own good, as well as in the interests of both countries, they had explained at Whitehall. The officials had spoken with the air of men who were glad it was not they who had to attempt to convince the lady of this. They had told him a number of things about her Serene Highness the Dowager Grand Duchess Eva de Maubourg. Intelligent, stubborn, anti-Napoleonic, haughty, independent, difficult and demanding was how she had been summed up by the various men who had gathered to deliver the hasty briefing, fifteen days before. Half-French, they had added gloomily, as though that summed up the problem.
She had not left the Duchy since her marriage and was likely to be near impossible to move now, the officials added. That was all right; he was used to being asked to do the near impossible.
But there had been no mention of darkly vivid looks, of a curvaceous figure or the lithe grace of a caged panther. And Jack was having trouble believing she could possibly be the mother of a nine-year-old son. It had to be the thick glass in the window panes.
She was alone in the room; he had waited long