The School for Heiresses: 'Wed Him Before You Bed Him Read online

  Dear Reader,

  This has been a tumultuous time for me. Cousin Michael and I have ended our correspondence, after he grew angry at my repeated attempts to determine his true identity and said he would no longer write.

  His silence has nearly destroyed me. I never realized how much I depended upon his advice until he withdrew it, along with his friendship. But how could he abandon me, especially with the school in need right now? You see, my next-door neighbor, Mr. Pritchard, is determined to sell his property to a man who will build a racecourse there, and I cannot have such a scandalous enterprise so close to my girls. I don’t know where to turn. My cousin had helped me when it seemed that Mr. Montalvo had had a similar aim, but now that I am truly in trouble, he is nowhere to be found .

  To make matters worse, someone else has come back into my life who has me quite flustered. You see, my friend, I was once in love with a young man, and it ended very badly. I did something unforgivable to him. Now I find, with his sudden renewed interest in me, that my feelings for him are as deep as they once were. But can I trust his reasons for pursuing me? He should hate me for what I did. So is he courting me because of some secret, belated need to revenge himself on me? Or is he telling the truth when he says that he has put our past behind him?

  Oh, how I wish I could turn to Cousin Michael for advice on this matter. But I fear that is no longer a choice—even my most imploring letters go unanswered. I am on my own…

  Or am I? I simply don’t know what to think!

  Desperate for answers,

  Charlotte Harris,

  Owner and headmistress of

  Mrs. Harris’s School for Young Ladies

  “Anyone who loves romance must read Sabrina Jeffries!”

  —New York Times bestselling author Lisa Kleypas

  Praise for New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Sabrina Jeffries and her delightfully enticing series, THE SCHOOL FOR HEIRESSES

  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 (41/2 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

  ONLY A DUKE WILL DO

  “Bringing together a bold heroine and a scarred hero while incorporating political scandal into a tightly woven romance, Jeffries once again proves her mettle as a first-rate Regency author.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Marvelous, powerful, and sensual…. Jeffries fans will devour this treat.”

  —Romantic Times

  “Politics and passion prove to be a particularly potent combination…. Expertly crafted and delectably sexy.”

  —Booklist

  NEVER SEDUCE A SCOUNDREL

  “Jeffries delivers lively lovers in an entertaining, sensual historical romance.”

  —Booklist

  “Jeffries carries off this cat-and-mouse game of mutual seduction so cleverly that you’ll be turning the pages at lightning speed…. Warm, wickedly witty, and brilliantly plotted, this is a must for anyone who just wants a fast, intelligent read.”

  —Romantic Times

  Also by Sabrina Jeffries

  THE SCHOOL FOR HEIRESSES SERIES

  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 Books

  A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  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 © 2009 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, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4391-6359-7

  ISBN-10: 1-4391-6359-6

  Visit us on the Web:

  http://www.SimonandSchuster.com

  To the English teachers who encouraged my writing:

  Dr. Anita Tully, Dr. Rosanne Osborne, and Ms. Saluja

  And to my son’s wonderful teachers, too many to name,

  who have made such a difference in our lives—

  thank you for hanging in there.

  WED HIM BEFORE YOU BED HIM

  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 Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  Richmond, England

  November 1824

  Charlotte Harris, headmistress and owner of Mrs. Harris’s School for Young Ladies, sat at her desk and reread—twice—the pleading letter she had composed to Cousin Michael, her anonymous benefactor.

  Then she tore it up. What was the point of writing him, when every letter she sent to his solicitor was returned unopened?

  She wiped her clammy hands on her skirt. He had to know what desperate straits the school was in—he knew everything. And until six months ago, he had always told her everything he knew. But after she had pressed him so hard about his identity, he had ended their correspondence. There had not been a word from him since.

  The hollow fear that gripped her so often these days made her stomach clench. All right, so perhaps he had good reason to be angry at her. She had agreed not to press him about his anonymity.
>
  Still, how could he abandon them after all this time? He had been part of the school’s inception fourteen years ago. Indeed, without him there would be no school. She would probably still be languishing as a teacher at the school in Chelsea, dreaming of the day when she could open her own institution governed by her own curriculum and her own rules.

  Now their idiot neighbor, Mr. Pritchard, was about to sweep it all away. He was rumored to be on the verge of selling Rockhurst, the estate adjoining the school’s property, to the owner of a racecourse in Yorkshire. She could just see it—rough men flocking to bet on the races, spilling onto the school’s lawn and accosting her girls.

  How could Cousin Michael stand by and let it happen? He owned this property. Did he not care if she was forced out?

  She sucked in a breath. That was what hurt the most—the possibility that he was letting it happen so he could gain higher rents. From the beginning, her rent had been lower than that charged by other landlords in Richmond, and now, with property values in the area soaring, it was ridiculously low. In all these years, her mysterious cousin had never raised it. Why, she wasn’t sure. Perhaps because he realized she could only afford a modest increase?

  That was especially true now that enrollment had fallen off, fueled by the scandals dogging her pupils in the last year. If rumors about a possible sale of the property next door proved true, it would make matters even worse.

  She would have to fight it. When she had thought that Rockhurst was about to be bought months ago, she and her friends had come up with several good ideas for thwarting Mr. Pritchard’s plans. They could set up a petition to the licensing board again, or—

  “Beg pardon, madam.”

  She looked up to see her personal footman in the doorway. “Yes, Terence?”

  “Lord Kirkwood is here to see you.”

  A pounding began in her chest. David? Here? No, that could not be. What possible reason could he have now that his wife, a former pupil of the school, was dead?

  She thrust her shaking hands under the desk to hide them from her too-perceptive servant. “Are you sure it’s Lord Kirkwood?”

  “The one who married Miss Sarah Linley, right?”

  She nodded. “Did he say what his visit concerns?”

  “I asked, but he told me it was private.” Terence, always protective of her, crossed his arms over his meaty chest. “So I told him that men aren’t entitled to privacy when they visit a girls’ school.”

  “Terence!”

  His lip twitched. “And he said he wasn’t in the habit of giving up his privacy for the amusement of impudent footmen.”

  She gave a rueful laugh. “That does sound like something he would say.”

  Terence looked perplexed. “You know him, then? I didn’t think he had ever been here, not even after he married Miss Linley.”

  “I know him socially through Lord Norcourt.”

  That was both an overstatement and a vast understatement of her association with David Masters, the Viscount Kirkwood.

  She was fortunate he was even civil to her on the few occasions they met in society. Considering the great wrong she had committed against him and his family years ago, she would not fault him for giving her the cut direct.

  Indeed, she had been afraid of his doing exactly that when she had attended poor Sarah’s funeral months ago. But despite knowing how uncomfortable her presence would make him, Charlotte had felt compelled to make an appearance.

  She and David had exchanged the barest of greetings, though he had been surprisingly cordial for a man who must despise her. Why, just remembering the summer of the Great Debacle made her cringe.

  So what on earth had brought him here? She could not imagine a more awkward situation. In all these years, she and David had never been alone together, never spoken of what she had done to him.

  “Should I send him packing?” Terence asked.

  For a second, she was tempted. But something important indeed must have brought him to visit the woman who had once wronged him so horribly. “No. Just show him in.”

  After Terence left, she checked her appearance in the mirror to make sure her auburn curls were not too badly askew and her face not too pale. Perhaps it was foolish, but she wanted to look her best before him, of all people. She scarcely had time to smooth her skirts and pinch her cheeks before he was ushered into her office, bringing her face-to-face with the man she had nearly married so long ago.

  Pasting a smile on her lips, she walked forward with her hand extended. “Lord Kirkwood. How nice to see you again.”

  His eyes flashed with some hidden emotion. “Charlotte.” He took her hand and pressed it briefly before releasing it.

  Charlotte. Not Mrs. Harris, but Charlotte, spoken in the husky tone that had made her heart flip over when she was eighteen and he nearly twenty.

  No, she must not think of that. Those days were gone forever, lost in the pages of their pasts. Time and her own mistakes, as well as his, had changed them both irrevocably.

  Nothing proved that more than the dusting of gray at his temples, the lines of care worn into his brow. At thirty-seven, David was still uncommonly handsome, with the aggressively masculine features of a man who had always commanded attention, from the sharp blade of his nose to the cleft in his chin. His coloring reminded her of the forest—his eyes a leafy green and his thick, wavy hair the dark brown of walnuts and bark and rich tilled earth.

  And his body…

  She turned sharply and hurried behind her desk, afraid she might blush. At eighteen, she had noticed his body in the vague way of a virgin unfamiliar with sensual delights. But now, as a widow of some years, she noticed it with an awareness bordering on pain.

  Since Sarah had been dead for six months now, he wore half-mourning, with some white blended in with his black. Ebony trousers encased the lean hips and muscular thighs of a man who kept himself fit, while his finely tailored morning coat of jet black saxony showed off his broad shoulders. And she could well imagine those large gloved hands, one of which gripped the handle of a leather satchel, playing over a woman’s body with the surety of experience…

  Heavens, she had to stop this. Terence was eyeing her from the door with rank curiosity, obviously hanging about to make sure David did not harm her.

  She frowned at him. “Thank you, Terence. You may go.”

  With a grunt the man left.

  “Rather a rough sort for a footman,” David said dryly.

  “He used to be a pugilist.”

  “Why on earth would you hire a boxer as a lady’s footman?”

  Bristling at the criticism, she said, “Because his skills are more useful to a woman going about town alone than any niceties of behavior.” She forced a smile. “But I’m sure you didn’t come here to discuss my servants, Lord Kirkwood.”

  Gesturing to the chair before the desk, she took her own seat, needing something massive between them to keep her mind from wandering to her unwelcome attraction to a man who surely loathed her.

  Yet he did not look as if he loathed her. He watched her steadily as he sat down with the easy motion of a man very comfortable in his surroundings. “Actually, I’ve come bearing good news.”

  Good news? From him? “And what might that be?”

  “In going through Sarah’s things recently, I discovered a handwritten codicil to her will. In it, she left a substantial sum of money to your school.”

  Had she heard him right? “I don’t understand.”

  “She bequeathed some of her fortune to the school.”

  “Your wife, Sarah. Bequeathed me money.”

  “Not you,” he corrected with a lift of his eyebrow. “The school.”

  “Yes, of course, the school. But…” She thought of Sarah’s snide remarks, the way the woman had behaved at the last tea she’d attended, the seeming contempt Sarah had always shown her fellow pupils. “But why?”

  He shrugged. “She always admired you and thought fondly of her days here.”

&
nbsp; “Your wife, Sarah, thought fondly of her days here.”

  “I believe we’ve already established that the woman under discussion is my late wife, Sarah,” he said dryly.

  No doubt he found her response insulting. “Forgive me. It’s just that…she never seemed to…that is…”

  “I know Sarah could be…difficult. But I believe she secretly held you and the school in high esteem.”

  Charlotte muttered, “That was a secret buried so deep as to be invisible.” Then she groaned. “I’m sorry. That was rude. It is just such a shock to think that Sarah had any particular regard for me or the school.”

  “Well, the truth of the matter lies in the size of her bequest.” He leveled her with a gaze of dark intent. “It’s thirty thousand pounds.”

  Charlotte sucked in a breath. “Oh my word. Are you sure?”

  A faint smile touched his lips. “I wouldn’t be here if I weren’t.” He removed a sheaf of papers from his satchel and placed them before her. “I took the liberty of having our family solicitor draw up a legal document that fully sets out the particulars she gave in her codicil. Feel free to have your own solicitor examine it.”

  Still unable to take in the news, Charlotte just gaped at the formal-looking papers with the name of some legal firm stamped at the top.

  “Before you read it, however,” David said, “I should warn you that there is one…er…string attached to the bequest.”

  Charlotte’s gaze flew to his. Of course there was. This had begun to seem like a fairy tale, but life was never so tidy. Sarah had been a malicious little thing, much as Charlotte hated to admit it of any of her pupils. “What sort of string?”