How to Woo a Reluctant Lady Read online

  “Anyone who loves romance

  must read Sabrina Jeffries!”

  —New York Times bestselling author Lisa Kleypas

  HELLIONS OF HALSTEAD HALL

  “Another sparkling series with winning potential”

  (Library Journal)

  from New York Times and USA Today

  bestselling author

  SABRINA JEFFRIES

  Praise for

  THE TRUTH ABOUT

  LORD STONEVILLE

  “Jeffries pulls out all the stops with a story combining her hallmark humor, poignancy and sensuality to perfection.”

  —Romantic Times

  “The first in a captivating new Regency-set series by the always entertaining Jeffries, this tale has all of the author’s signature elements: delectably witty dialogue, subtly named characters, and scorching sexual chemistry between two perfectly matched protagonists.”

  —Booklist

  “Lively repartee, fast action, luscious sensuality, and an abundance of humor make the first installment of the Hellions of Halstead Hall essential for libraries.”

  —Library Journal

  This title is also available as an eBook

  “The Truth About Lord Stoneville has the special brand of wit and passion for which Sabrina Jeffries is recognized, where each enthralling scene will thoroughly capture your imagination.”

  —singletitles.com

  “Sabrina Jeffries excels in the historical romance genre, and The Truth About Lord Stoneville is no exception. . . . Starts another excellent series of books which will alternatively have you laughing, crying, and running the gamut of emotions. . . . Enjoy Oliver’s transformation from unreformed rake to devoted husband, and I guarantee you will have a tear in your eye.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  More acclaim for Sabrina Jeffries and the “warm, wickedly witty” (Romantic Times)

  novels in her national bestselling series

  The School for Heiresses

  WED HIM BEFORE

  YOU BED HIM

  “Includes all the sweet, sexy charm and lively action readers have come to expect, and true love triumphs over all obstacles. . . . Bravo to Jeffries.”

  —Library Journal

  “An enchanting story brimming with touchingly sincere emotions and compelling scenarios. . . . An outstanding love story of emotional discoveries and soaring passions, with a delightful touch of humor plus suspense.”

  —singletitles.com

  DON’T BARGAIN WITH

  THE DEVIL

  “The sexual tension crackles across the pages of this witty, deliciously sensual, secret-laden story. . . . Teases readers with hints of the long-awaited final chapter, Wed Him Before You Bed Him.”

  —Library Journal

  LET SLEEPING ROGUES LIE

  “Consummate storyteller Jeffries pens another title in the School for Heiresses series that is destined to captivate readers with its sensuality and wonderfully enchanting plot.”

  —Romantic Times (4 ½ stars)

  “Scandal, gossip, greed, and old enmities spice up the pot in this fast-paced sexy romp that bubbles over with Jeffries’s trademark humor and spirit. . . . Sparkling dialogue, stirring sexual chemistry, and an engrossing story.”

  —Library Journal

  BEWARE A SCOT’S REVENGE

  “Irresistible. . . . Larger-than-life characters, sprightly dialogue, and a steamy romance will draw you into this delicious captive/captor tale.”

  —Romantic Times (Top Pick)

  “Exceptionally entertaining and splendidly sexy.”

  —Booklist

  Also by Sabrina Jeffries

  The Hellions of Halstead Hall Series

  The Truth About Lord Stoneville

  A Hellion in Her Bed

  The School for Heiresses Series

  Wed Him Before You Bed Him

  Don’t Bargain with the Devil

  Snowy Night with a Stranger (with Jane Feather and Julia London)

  Let Sleeping Rogues Lie

  Beware a Scot’s Revenge

  The School for Heiresses (with Julia London, Liz Carlyle and Renee Bernard)

  Only a Duke Will Do

  Never Seduce a Scoundrel

  The Royal Brotherhood Series

  One Night with a Prince

  To Pleasure a Prince

  In the Prince’s Bed

  Pocket Star Books

  A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2011 by Deborah Gonzales

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this

  book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books Subsidiary Rights Department,

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  First Pocket Star Books paperback edition February 2011

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  Cover design by Lisa Litwack; illustration by Jon Paul; handlettering by Iskra Johnson

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  ISBN 978-1-4391-6755-7

  ISBN 978-1-4391-6758-8 (ebook)

  To the wonderful people who help take care of

  my autistic son when he’s not in school, enabling me to write my books: my wonderful husband, Rene; our longsuffering caregivers Mary, Ben, and Wendell; our wise caseworker, Greta; and our always helpful agency liaison, Melissa. Thanks so much, all of you, for what you do!

  Dear Readers,

  I do not mean to complain, but I have reached the end of my tether with my eldest granddaughter, Minerva. She insists upon writing her gothic novels under her real name! She does it just to shock, without caring one whit that she is also shocking all her potential suitors.

  Oh, I know that she says she does not wish to marry, but that is pure poppycock. I see how enviously she watches her newly married brothers when they are not looking. Although she is a trifle opinionated, she would still make some gentleman a good wife . . . and life would never be boring with Minerva.

  But does she encourage this? No. Instead she writes about blood and villains and death. Perhaps I should find some dastardly spy to carry her off to a moldering castle. That might actually appeal to the chit, though it could give Gabe and Celia the wrong ideas about marriage.

  Minerva’s latest scheme is to interview gentlemen as potential husbands, for which purpose she advertised in a ladies’ magazine! Clearly she only did that to try my hand, but she is in for a surprise. I am not budging in my resolve, no matter how many suitors find their way to our door.

  I am a bit alarmed, however, that Mr. Giles Masters answered her advertisement. He seems bent on having her . . . and he is the only man I have ever seen her respond to with anything more than indifference. A pity that he is such a rascal, as her brothers have told me countless times.

  Then again, my grandsons were thorough rascals until they married. Is it possible that Mr. Masters is cut of the same cloth? I do hope so for Minerva’s sake, because she certainly seems fascinated by him. I wonder
if he has a moldering castle somewhere. That might just do the trick!

  I shall have to monitor this situation very closely, but one way or the other, I mean to see my granddaughter happily married. Even if it ends up being to a rascal!

  Yours truly,

  Hetty

  Prologue

  Halstead Hall, Ealing

  1806

  There were bugs on the boxwood leaves. Mama would be cross with the gardener.

  Then tears flooded nine-year-old Minerva’s eyes. No, Mama couldn’t be cross. She was in that horrible casket in the chapel. Next to the one with Papa in it.

  Huddled inside the maze, Minerva fought hard not to cry. Someone might hear her, and she couldn’t let anyone find her.

  A voice drifted through the hedges. “How could the girl disappear so quickly?”

  That was Desmond Plumtree, Mama’s first cousin.

  “This funeral is a travesty,” his wife, Bertha, complained from very near her hiding place. “Not that I blame Prudence for shooting the whoring fellow. But to kill herself? Your Aunt Hetty should be grateful that the jury found Pru non compos mentis. Otherwise the Crown would be carting off the family’s assets this very minute.”

  Shrinking beneath the hedge, Minerva prayed they didn’t come around the corner and see her.

  “Well, they couldn’t find her anything else,” Desmond said. “She clearly wasn’t in her right mind.”

  Minerva practically bit her tongue in half to keep from protesting. It had been an accident—an awful accident. Gran had said so.

  “I suppose that’s why your aunt wants the children at the service,” Cousin Bertha said, “to show people she doesn’t care what they say about her daughter.”

  Cousin Desmond snorted. “Actually, Aunt Hetty has some notion that the brats should say good-bye in person. Cursed woman never has a problem with flouting society when it suits her, no matter what it means for the rest of . . .”

  As the voices moved away, Minerva scooted out of her hiding place to flee in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, when she darted around the corner of the maze, she ran right into a gentleman. She tried to scurry away, but the man caught her.

  “Hold on now, moppet,” he cried as he struggled to restrain her. “I’m not going to hurt you. Be still, I say!”

  She was on the verge of biting him when she caught sight of who it was—her brothers’ eighteen-year-old friend Giles Masters, who’d come for the funeral with his family. Cousin Desmond had wanted to keep the gathering small, on account of the scandal, but Gran had said that the children needed their friends at a time like this.

  Perhaps since he wasn’t family, Minerva could convince him to help her. “Please let me go!” she begged. “And don’t tell anyone I’m here!”

  “But everyone is waiting on you so they can start the service.”

  She dropped her eyes, embarrassed by her cowardice. “I can’t go in there. I read what the paper said about . . . about . . . you know.” Mama shooting Papa and then herself. Her voice rose into hysteria. “I can’t bear to see Mama with a hole in her chest and Papa with . . . with . . .” No face. The very thought made her tremble again.

  “Ah.” He squatted down. “You think they’ll be lying in the casket exactly as they were found.”

  She bobbed her head.

  “You needn’t worry about that, dear girl,” he said gently. “Your father’s casket is closed, and they’ve made your mother look pretty again. You won’t see the hole in her chest, I swear. There’s nothing to fear.”

  She chewed on her lower lip, not sure if she should believe him. Sometimes her older brothers tried to trick her to get her to behave. And Gran always said Mr. Masters was a devilish scoundrel. “I don’t know, Mr. Masters—”

  “Giles. We’re friends, aren’t we?”

  “I-I suppose.”

  “How about this?” he went on. “If you come with me into the chapel, I’ll hold your hand for the service. Whenever you get frightened, you can squeeze mine as hard as you like.”

  Gathering her courage, she gazed into his face. He had kind eyes the color of forget-me-nots. Honest eyes, like Gran’s.

  She swallowed. “You promise that Mama and Papa won’t look like . . . how the paper said?”

  “I swear it.” He made an X over his chest with appropriate solemnity. “Cross my heart and hope to die.” Rising, he offered her his hand. “Will you come with me?”

  Though her heart pounded in her chest, she let him take her hand. And when he led her into the chapel, she found he hadn’t lied. Papa’s casket was closed. Though she knew what must lay inside, she pretended that Papa was as he’d always been.

  It helped that Mama looked like a sleeping, dressed-up version of herself. But what helped the most was Giles keeping hold of her hand. He clasped it throughout the service, even when Cousin Desmond’s bratty son, Ned, snickered. Every time she got scared or sad, she squeezed Giles’s hand, and he squeezed back to show that she wasn’t alone. Somehow that made everything tolerable. He didn’t release her hand until the caskets were in the ground and everyone was walking away.

  That was the day she fell in love with Giles Masters.

  London

  1816

  BY HER NINETEENTH birthday, Minerva was still in love. She knew everything about Giles. He hadn’t married, hadn’t even courted anyone seriously. Like her brothers, he lived a rogue’s life. But unlike her brothers, he had a profession—he’d been called to the bar just last year. So surely if he was to rise as a barrister, his rogue’s life would have to end soon. Then he’d need a wife.

  Why shouldn’t it be her? She was pretty enough—everyone said so. She was clever, too, which a man like him would surely appreciate. And he wouldn’t snub her for her family’s scandalous behavior, like the narrow-minded gentlemen she met in society now that she’d had her come-out. He’d been dealing with a scandal of his own ever since four months ago, when his father had killed himself. She and Giles had that in common.

  But as she gazed about at her birthday party guests—none of whom were Giles, though he’d been invited—she felt a stab of disappointment. How could she get him to see her as anything but the younger sister of his friends, when she never saw him?

  After the party was over, she went to the garden to soothe her lowered spirits and overheard her brothers talking as they smoked cigars in the mews.

  “The lads told me that the party at Newmarsh’s house starts at ten,” Oliver said. “I’ll meet you two out here around then. It’s close enough to walk, thank God, so we won’t have to mention it to the servants. You know how they are—they tell Gran everything, and she’ll lecture us about going off somewhere on Minerva’s birthday.”

  “Gran’s bound to notice us slipping out wearing costumes,” Jarret said.

  “We’ll come out one at a time to stash them in the garden until we can leave. Just be careful not to let Minerva see. No point in hurting her feelings.”

  She was on the verge of giving them a piece of her mind for going to a party without her on her birthday, when it dawned on her. If they were attending a party with “the lads,” then Giles would be there! And since it was a masquerade, she could attend without anyone being the wiser. She knew exactly what to wear, too. She and her younger sister Celia had once come across a stash of Gran’s clothes from over thirty years ago—that would be perfect.

  At nine, she slipped into the garden shed with fourteen-year-old Celia, who’d promised to help, in exchange for a full account of what Minerva saw at the ball. They fitted her into one of the old-style corsets and two modest panniers. Then she donned the elaborate gown of gold satin that Gran had worn to their parents’ wedding.

  Giggling the whole time, they stuffed her light brown hair under a powdered wig piled high in white curls. Then they covered her face with a mask and attached a patch to one cheek. The final touch was an old-fashioned blue cameo of Gran’s.

  “Do I look like Marie Antoinette?” Minerva asked,
careful to keep her voice low. Her brothers hadn’t made an appearance in the garden yet, but she was taking no chances.

  “You look splendid,” Celia whispered. “And very exotic.”

  Exotic was Celia’s new favorite word, though Minerva suspected that it actually meant “seductive.” The bodice was cut shamelessly low.

  Then again, she did want to entice Giles. “Go on now,” she said to Celia. “Before they come down.”

  Celia hurried out. Minerva then had to wait until after her brothers dressed in the gardens and headed off down the mews before she could follow them.

  Fortunately lots of people were going the same way, so she merged with the crowd on the street once her brothers had entered the house. Though she didn’t have an invitation, it proved oddly easy to get inside. Finding Giles might be difficult, since she had to avoid her brothers, so she bribed the butler to tell her what costume her quarry was wearing.

  “Mr. Masters isn’t here, love,” the servant said with shocking familiarity. “He declined the invitation on account of having to be in the country, seeing to his mother.”

  She didn’t know whether to be glad that he’d not come to her party because of his other engagement, or disappointed that she wouldn’t get her chance with him.

  “But if you’re seeking a protector,” the butler went on helpfully, “you ought to aim a bit higher. Mr. Masters is only a second son.”

  A protector? Why on earth would she be seeking a protector?

  That’s when she took a closer look at the assembly. In an instant, she realized this was no ordinary masquerade. Her “exotic” costume looked downright angelic compared to those of the other women.

  Grecian gowns and Roman togas abounded, with slits in indecent places. There was a milkmaid with a gown cut lower than any real milkmaid would wear, and a woman who wore only feathers in strategic positions. Across the room, her brother Jarret danced with a Maid Marian who was no maid, his hand slipping down her back to rest on her—

  Minerva turned away, blood heating her cheeks. Good Lord. This was a Cyprian’s Ball. She’d heard of such affairs, where women came to find protectors and men came to enjoy . . . the women. If anyone found her here, it would be disaster!