The Outrageous Lady Felsham. Louise Allen
Join favorite author
Louise Allen
as she explores the tangled love lives of
THOSE SCANDALOUS RAVENHURSTS
First you traveled across war-torn Europe with
The Dangerous Mr. Ryder
Now you can accompany Mr. Ryder’s sister,
The Outrageous Lady Felsham, on her quest for a hero.
Coming soon
The Shocking Lord Standon
The Disgraceful Mr. Ravenhurst The Notorious Mr. Hurst The Piratical Miss Ravenhurst
Author Note
My exploration of the lives and loves of THOSE SCANDALOUS RAVENHURST cousins began with the story of Jack Ryder and his Grand Duchess, Eva, in The Dangerous Mr. Ryder.
At one point Jack’s sister Bel intervened in their romance—with almost disastrous results—so I thought it was time for Bel to have her own story. As the widow of a man known as the most boring member of the ton, Lady Belinda Felsham knows something has been missing from her life—specifically an exciting, handsome lover. And she knows, too, that she is far too well behaved ever to go out and find one.
But then Major Ashe Reynard, Viscount Dereham, arrives on her hearthrug at one in the morning, and Bel realizes she has found the man of her fantasies. Ashe is only too ready to oblige—for, after all, neither of them wants more than a commitment-free affaire. Or do they?
I had a great deal of fun, and some heartache, following Bel and Ashe through their tangled path to true love, hindered on the way by a polar bear, a bathing machine and a formidable aunt. I hope you enjoy the journey, too.
Coming next will be The Shocking Lord Standon—not that Gareth Morant, Earl of Standon, wants to be shocking. But sometimes a gentleman just has to make a sacrifice for the ladies in his life.
For the wonderful Terry and Peter at the equally wonderful Margate Museum, with grateful thanks for all their kind and generous help and all the information anyone could ever hope to find on the subject of bathing machines.
Louise Allen
THE OUTRAGEOUS LADY FELSHAM
Available from Harlequin® Historical and Louise Allen
The Earl’s Intended Wife #793
The Society Catch #809
Moonlight and Mistletoe #830
A Most Unconventional Courtship #849
Virgin Slave, Barbarian King #877
No Place for a Lady #892
*The Dangerous Mr. Ryder #903
*The Outrageous Lady Felsham #907
Other works include
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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
Late July 1815
Iwant a hero. The words stared blackly off the page into her tired eyes. ‘So do I, Lord Byron, so do I.’ Bel sighed, pushed her tumbled brown hair back off her face and resumed her reading of the first stanza of Don Juan. She and the poet did not want heroes for the same reason, of course. The poet was despairing of finding a suitable hero for his tale; Belinda, Lady Felsham, simply yearned for romance.
No, that was not true either. Bel marked her place with one fingertip and stared into space, brooding. If she could not be honest in her own head, where could she be? Her yearnings were not simple, they were not pure and they certainly were not about knights errant or romance.
Bel rolled over on to her back on the white fur rug and tossed the book aside, narrowly missing one of the candelabra which sat on the hearth and lit her reading. It was well past two in the morning and the candles were beginning to gutter; in a few minutes she would have to get up and tend to them or go to bed and try to sleep.
She stretched out a bare foot, ruffling the silken flounces around the hem of her nightgown, and with her toes stroked the ears of the polar bear whose head snarled towards the door of her bedchamber. ‘That’s not what I want, Horace,’ she informed him. ‘I do not yearn for moonlight and soft music and lingering glances. I want a gorgeous, exciting man who will be thrilling in bed. I want a lover. A really good one.’
Horace, unshockable, did not respond, but then he never had, not to any of the confidences that had been poured into his battered and yellowing ears over the years. At the age of nine she had fallen in love with him, wheedled him out of her godfather’s study and moved him into her bedchamber. He had stayed with her ever since.
Her late husband—Henry, Viscount Felsham—had protested faintly at the presence of a vast and motheaten bearskin on his wife’s chamber floor, but Bel, otherwise biddable and compliant with every stricture and requirement of her new husband, had stuck