The Lies of Lord John

Fiona Monroe

Description

They have nothing in common…

Pretty, clever, and independently wealthy Margaret Bell lives just as she pleases in Regency Edinburgh’s gracious New Town, until her indulgent uncle marries a pious widow with strict ideas about how a young lady ought to behave. Only marriage can offer an immediate escape.

Lord John Dunwoodie, rakish younger brother of the Marquess of Crieff, is at the end of his tether. A family quarrel has left him homeless and penniless, and the secrets of his past are catching up with him. Only marriage to a lady of fortune can save him.

With nothing in common but desperation, can Margaret and Lord John find love together?

Publisher's Note: This Regency romance contains elements of power exchange.

Sujets

• Dark romanticism
• Alpha (ethology)
• Regency
• Rough
• Romance
• Scottish
• Rogues
• Fiction
• Highlander

Informations

• Publié par: Blushing Books Publications
• Date de parution: 03 juin 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9781645631170
• Langue: English

Extrait

What’s Inside

She did not at all like the way he was looking at her, as if she had disappointed him already. She clenched her fists and hardened her resolve, looking away so that she should not see that disapproving glare.
The bedsprings creaked, and she felt the mattress depress beside her.
Her stomach swooped with excitement and alarm. It was about to begin. The argument about the house would be swept into irrelevance. She turned to look at him with a shy but inviting smile and found herself seized bodily about the waist.
She gave a small yelp of surprise, because this was not what she had been expecting. A first, tender kiss leading to deeper, hungry kisses, and perhaps a hand caressing her breast had been the first moves she had imagined. Instead, before she knew what was happening, he had turned her face forward and upside down over his lap.
She struggled furiously as soon as she realised the position she was in, but it was too late. He had, with two or three strenuous, determined physical efforts, thrown her over one knee and was now fighting to lift up her skirts while holding her there. The strength in his arms and upper body was intense, unyielding, masculine. She tried to kick her legs and twist her body and bat at him with her fists, but he overpowered her.
"What are you doing ?" she shrieked. "Let me go !"
"No, by God." He sounded a little out of breath but grimly resolute. "You will not talk to me like that. We start as we mean to go on."
"You can't do this! I won't let you!"
"I can do this. I'm your husband. And I need to do this, or you'll never learn. Hold still, you little minx!"
"No!" she cried again and somehow managed to twist her head round and up and sink her teeth into the fleshy part of his hand.
She had the momentary satisfaction of hearing him swear, but it did not give her the opportunity to escape. It seemed to imbue him with added resolve, and he succeeded with a single final yank in pulling all her skirts high above her waist then trapping her legs hard between his thighs.
Now, she really could not move. She hung over one knee with her head almost to the floor, her hair coming undone into her eyes and her fingers scrabbling helplessly at the carpet. She felt cold air upon her backside and legs and knew that all must be exposed to his view. He laid one arm across her back, unyielding as an iron bar, to pin her down against his leg, and then with no further ado, he lifted his other arm high to bring his open palm down hard on her bare bottom.
She had no idea that a hand, on its own, could hurt so much. She scarce had time to shriek in surprise before he struck her unprotected backside again, and again, an excruciating, relentless volley of blows that soon had her bucking and twisting not in indignation but in real desperation to escape.
"Oh! No! Please! Stop! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please stop!" she pleaded, screaming to be heard above the pistol-shot cracks of hard hand on soft flesh.
The Lies of Lord John
Bonnie Brides Book Five


Fiona Monroe
Published by Blushing Books
An Imprint of
ABCD Graphics and Design, Inc.
A Virginia Corporation
977 Seminole Trail #233
Charlottesville, VA 22901

©2019
All rights reserved.

No part of the book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The trademark Blushing Books is pending in the US Patent and Trademark Office.

Fiona Monroe
The Lies of Lord John

EBook ISBN: 978-1-64563-117-0
Print ISBN: 978-1-64563-393-8
Audio ISBN: 978-1-64563-394-5
v1

Cover Art by ABCD Graphics & Design
This book contains fantasy themes appropriate for mature readers only. Nothing in this book should be interpreted as Blushing Books' or the author's advocating any non-consensual sexual activity.
Contents



Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22


Fiona Monroe

Blushing Books

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Chapter 1

"A bsolutely not. You may by no means accept the invitation. Mrs. Hamilton and her set are not the sort of people with whom I would have my niece associate."
Margaret gaped at her new aunt in dismay. Mrs. Cochrane had not even glanced at the letter in Margaret's outstretched hand, just kept her head bent over her needlework.
"But, ma'am—" Margaret looked to her uncle for support.
Uncle Cochrane was in his easy chair beside the fire, The Scotsman folded in one hand, his pipe in the other. He presented such a familiar figure that Margaret's heart gave a sudden pulse of sadness and longing for how things had been before the awful day last summer, when he had told her that Mrs. Rankine had accepted his proposal of marriage.
Mrs. Rankine, who had been the wife of the minister of a church over in Old Town, had suddenly appeared in the congregation of their own church, St George's, barely a year ago. Margaret had no idea how her uncle could have lived fifty years in the world immune to the charms of elegant and eligible young ladies, and then, in the autumn of his life, fallen under the spell of a widow with no beauty and no fortune, plus, the added burden of a daughter.
Spell, she supposed it must be, for her kindly Uncle Cochrane was now in thrall to his wife's slightest word. Margaret saw him exchange a look with her and receive a stern instruction from her glance. He shifted his glasses on his nose, shook out his newspaper, and without raising his eyes to his niece, he said, "You have heard what your aunt has to say on the matter, Margaret."
"But, Uncle—" She tried to show him the letter. "Mrs. Hamilton is entirely respectable; her husband is Mr. Hamilton, the physician, and her literary soirees are famous throughout town. I have attended many in the past, in company with Mrs. Douglas—"
She broke off as her aunt snorted, and Margaret realised that this had been just the wrong thing to say.
"Mrs. Douglas!" spat Mrs. Cochrane. "Yet another instance, if any more were needed, of the bad company that woman led you into. Well, fortunately, Mrs. Douglas is no longer with us, and since you have no chaperone, there is an end of that. Now come and join us, child, and we'll hear no more of this foolishness."
Margaret almost stamped her foot in exasperation. It was true; even if her aunt had had no objection to the acquaintance, she could not have attended Mrs. Hamilton's soiree the next evening because she no longer had anyone to accompany her.
Since coming out at the age of seventeen, Margaret had been accustomed to the constant companionship of Emmeline Douglas, who had been both a friend and a highly useful chaperone. Emmeline was scarcely two years older than Margaret and had been married for but a summer in her nineteenth year, yet those few scant weeks of matrimonial union had qualified her to escort an unmarried young lady into company. Margaret had met and become firm friends with Emmeline while Mr. Douglas still lived, and when a sudden violent ague had taken that unfortunate young gentleman and left his widow penniless, Margaret had invited her into her home to be her companion. For four years—no, close on five—she and Emmeline had been inseparable, going where they pleased and doing what they pleased. Margaret had enjoyed perfect freedom of movement under the protection of her widowed friend, almost as though they had been two young gentlemen rather than two young ladies. Her affectionate and indulgent uncle had offered no objection.
Until, alas, the thunder strike of last July.
Margaret reigned in her fury and obeyed her aunt, seating herself in the only chair left vacant in the circle by the fire. Her own rightful position, the padded armchair opposite her uncle's, nearest the fire, was now occupied by the new mistress of the house.
Instead, Margaret was obliged to sit beside her other recently acquired relation, her unwelcome step-cousin, Charity. Charity had, as was her way, appeared to pay no attention to the argument. She kept her fair head bowed over her work; her needle had not paused. But Margaret was sure she had relished every word of rebuke and was rejoicing in Margaret's frustration.
Margaret opened the slim volume she had been carrying around all morning and focused for a moment on the first page. The lines of poetry seemed to dance and swim, and she realised that it was because her eyes were filling with tears. She swallowed and blinked, disgusted with herself. She had always believed that women who cried—cried easily, at any trifling provocation—were letting down the sex.
She had to try again.
"Uncle," she said. "See, this volume here—it came for me two days ago, from Baillie and Begg—it is a wonderful poem, by a most marvellous new poet, Mr. Keats. I