A Wicked Lord at the Wedding

by Hunter, Jillian

• ISBN13: 9780345503947
• ISBN10: 0345503945
• Edition: Original
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-09-22
• Publisher: Ballantine Books

Summary

What is a neglected wife to do while her husband disappears on clandestine missions and unknown gambits? Play the spy game herself, if only to fill lonely nights once flush with erotic delight. When Eleanor Prescott married the handsome infantry officer who pursued her between missions, she anticipated anything but a six-year estrangement. Now the enigmatic husband who fired her body with his sensual touch is backuto woo her, win her, and unwrap all her secrets. Sebastien Boscastle is prepared for battle when it comes to his crumbling marriage, but not to catch his wife prowling about the night in disguise. And yet Eleanor's game of espionage and seduction only heightens his devilish desire to reclaim every inch of her. From the back alleys of London to the silken sheets of the marital bed, Sebastien inflicts the sweetest of sensual assaults, ready to possess everything Eleanor is willing to surrender.

Author Biography

Jillian Hunter is the author of nineteen critically acclaimed novels, among them the bestselling Boscastle series. She has received several awards, including the Romantic Times Career Achievement Award. She lives in Southern California with her husband and three daughters.

Excerpts

Chapter One



LO N D O N
 OCTOBER 1816 

The baron’s mind was not on the masquerade ball. His brooding thoughts overshadowed a face that even in its undefended moments had been described by his admirers and adversaries alike as cruel. 

His dance partner complained repeatedly that he was not in step. It was true. 

Lord Sebastien Michael Boscastle, 1st Baron Boscastle of Wycliffe, was contemplating how to lure London’s most notorious gentleman to his bed. He hadn’t decided on the exact strategy he would use. But after three months of waiting for an invitation, he had decided that he’d waited long enough. 

Indeed, it tested his patience to walk, hop, and turn about until the two of them were re united in the ridiculous figures of the country reel. Only then, as they met, was he completely engaged. 

He couldn’t say the same of his partner. 

Of course it didn’t help that the gentleman who had captured London’s imagination happened to be his wife. She’d captured him seven years ago and held his heart to this day. Everyone understood that the husband ought to maintain the upper hand in a marriage. Still, his wasn’t the sort of problem he could discuss with the other officers at his club. God forbid anyone else found out. 

The fact that his wife had scandalized the Polite World during their six unstable years as a married couple was a consequence he’d been hoping to deal with on the quiet. Whether they had been officially estranged or not, it stung a man’s pride, however, to hear that his wicked beloved had appeared in bedchambers all over town when she had studiously avoided the one bed in which she belonged. 

His fingers flirted with the voluptuous curves of her breasts, then slid down her side, to her hip. She broke away. They made a circle. The next thing he knew, he was holding hands with a sweaty young col o nel. He shrugged in apology. 

The colonel blushed. 

The dance ended. 

Sebastien bowed, searching for his wife as he straightened. 

She was instantly encircled by chattering guests. He battled his way through the crush to her side. Unruffled, she gave him a smile that indicated she had the situation under control. 

He wished he could say the same. 

To look upon his comely baroness was to see a tall, curvaceous woman who visited libraries and attended parties, who had written one or two po liti cal pamphlets, and who wore rather outrageous costumes but who did not indulge in low gossip. Perhaps because everyone was gossiping about her. All the talk at the costume ball marking the last fortnight of London’s Little Season was of the scoundrel known as the Mayfair Masquer. His escapades had invigorated a year remarkable only for debts and hailstorms. His elusive celebrity had captured the town’s imagination at a time when Society desperately needed a distraction. 

The ladies who braved Lord Trotten’sbal masqué that foggy October night professed alarm that his sightings had become more frequent. Their escorts vowed to protect these cherished gentlewomen in the event that the blackguard appeared in one of their boudoirs. 

Which meant naturally that these gallant young defenders of virtue must first be ensconced behind the closed doors of their helpless damsels’ bedchambers in order to catch the fellow in the act. 

In the act of what exactly was not understood. The saucy rapscallion had rifled through one or two desks, a writing

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Excerpted from A Wicked Lord at the Wedding by Jillian Hunter
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