How to Ruin a Reputation. Bronwyn Scott
‘I am not looking to make a marriage.’ She might as well be clear on that matter with Ashe from the beginning.
‘Not tonight anyway.’ Ashe laughed at her defiance. ‘That doesn’t mean we can’t explore other interesting avenues of association.’
‘I decide for myself. You don’t have any claim on me,’ Genevra asserted, although her body knew the latter statement to be something of a lie. Ashe did claim her attentions—in a way that transcended their connection through the estate.
Ashe’s long fingers reached out to stroke a cheek. ‘And what have you decided, Neva? Have you decided to allow yourself the pleasure of a night? It is too late to deny it. I see the desire in your eyes. And not only tonight. I’ve seen it before, in the conservatory. I intrigue you and you intrigue me. I would gladly give you the one night your body is asking for.’
Introducing a brand-new deliciously sinful and mischievously witty trilogy from
Bronwyn Scott
Rakes Beyond Redemption
Too wicked for polite society…
They’re the men society mamas warn their daughters about…and the men that innocent debutantes find scandalously irresistible!
The notorious Merrick St Magnus knows just
HOW TO DISGRACE A LADY September 2012
The untameable Ashe Bevedere needs no lessons in
HOW TO RUIN A REPUTATION October 2012
The shameless Riordan Barrett is an unequalled master in
HOW TO SIN SUCCESSFULLY November 2012
Be sure not to miss any of these sexy men!
About the Author
BRONWYN SCOTT is a communications instructor at Pierce College in the United States, and is the proud mother of three wonderful children (one boy and two girls). When she’s not teaching or writing she enjoys playing the piano, travelling—especially to Florence, Italy—and studying history and foreign languages.
Readers can stay in touch on Bronwyn’s website, www.bronwynnscott.com, or at her blog, www.bronwynswriting.blogspot.com—she loves to hear from readers.
Previous novels from Bronwyn Scott: PICKPOCKET COUNTESS NOTORIOUS RAKE, INNOCENT LADY THE VISCOUNT CLAIMS HIS BRIDE THE EARL’S FORBIDDEN WARD UNTAMED ROGUE, SCANDALOUS MISTRESS A THOROUGHLY COMPROMISED LADY SECRET LIFE OF A SCANDALOUS DEBUTANTE UNBEFITTING A LADY† HOW TO DISGRACE A LADY*
†Castonbury Park Regency mini-series *Rakes Beyond Redemption trilogy
Look for HOW TO SIN SUCCESSFULLY Coming soon!
and in Mills & Boon® Historical Undone! eBooks: LIBERTINE LORD, PICKPOCKET MISS PLEASURED BY THE ENGLISH SPY WICKED EARL, WANTON WIDOW ARABIAN NIGHTS WITH A RAKE AN ILLICIT INDISCRETION
And in M&B: PRINCE CHARMING IN DISGUISE (part of Royal Weddings Through the Ages)
Did you know that some of these novels are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk
AUTHOR NOTE
The Rakes Beyond Redemption trilogy is a chance to look at three gentlemen of the ton who are transformed for the better by crisis. In Book One, HOW TO DISGRACE A LADY, Merrick faces personal financial ruination and a test of his long-dormant sense of honour when he’s placed at the heart of a sinister wager to transform the retiring Alixe Burke into the Toast of the Season. In Book Two, HOW TO RUIN A REPUTATION, Ashe has to cope with the aftershocks of a death in the family. And in Book Three, HOW TO SIN SUCCESSFULLY, Riordan grapples with becoming an instant father when he inherits his brother’s two young wards.
These are three Regency-style crises that often served to shape families and destinies in nineteenth-century England, but their situations find echoes in modern society: economic hardship, loss and changing family structures in which more and more extended family are stepping in to raise children while parents work, often far from home, to make ends meet.
I thought this was a fitting theme, given the current economic situations around the world and what they mean to regular people like you and me. In the past few years my family, like so many others, has had to decide what’s really important to us about where our money and time are spent. What will we give up and how will we change our living habits to accommodate our needs?
In HOW TO RUIN A REPUTATION Ashe is faced with that same decision. What is he willing to change in order to keep the things and the people that are important to him? Up until now he’d envisaged and lived a fairly self-centred life. He’d never imagined a time when his father was dead and his brother no longer a bulwark of respectability to shoulder the mantle of the earldom. Now the earldom is his—if he dares to claim it. Ashe is not an ideal hero. His father, worried that Ashe might be the heir after all, has made some provisions in his will in order to protect the estate and the earldom’s legacy from the prodigal second son. Death does not make Ashe perfect—he’s not suddenly transformed into a bulwark of familial stability. He is filled with regret, and he does set out to make things right, but it’s not an easy road for him—especially with the nominally perfect Cousin Henry waiting in the wings to take over the estate should Ashe fail.
There are secrets revealed and tests to pass along the way for Ashe in his journey to recognise his true potential. Fortunately, as on any good journey, there is someone to help. For Ashe that mentor comes in the form of Genevra Ralston, an American heiress who understands his trials and failures better than he thinks because she has secrets of her own—secrets Ashe will delight in uncovering as he faces the greatest trial of all…a rake falling in love.
Happy reading—I’ll see you out there!
Drop by my blog at www.bronwynswriting.blogspot.com for updates on new titles and sneak peeks.
How to Ruin
a Reputation
Bronwyn Scott
DEDICATION
For my dad and Nancy,
just because it’s been a long time since I’ve dedicated a book to you.
Hugs and love to you both.
Prologue
The dim interior of the sickroom bristled with contentious silence. ‘The will must be changed.’ The old earl fairly shook in his chair with the force of his statement.
‘I heard you the first time,’ Markham Marsbury, solicitor to the Earl of Audley over the past ten years, responded with a patience born of long practice. The earl wasn’t his first client who’d had last-minute doubts about his final arrangements. But the earl’s requests might be the most irregular.
‘You disagree with my decision,’ the earl challenged,