A Lady Dares. Bronwyn Scott

       Dorian softened his tone. ‘A lady doesn’t build ships. Therefore Miss Sutton isn’t a lady. Indeed, she can’t be a lady by the very definition of what Society says a lady is. Do you see my point?’

      A furrow of twin lines formed between her eyes, the look not unattractive. It stirred him to want to do something about it, to erase the consternation. He wasn’t used to such chivalrous feelings.

      ‘I understand your meaning quite well and I respectfully disagree.’ Elise’s chin went up a fraction in defiance.

      ‘You will have to choose,’ Dorian insisted. ‘My being here or not is the least of your worries if you’re thinking about your reputation. Building your yacht is enough to sink you in most circles. No pun intended.’

      Instinctively, he moved close to her, his hands going to her forearms in a gentle grip to make his point, to make her see reason.

      She swallowed nervously, the pulse at the base of her throat leaping in reaction to his nearness. ‘Again, I disagree,’ she said with quiet steel. ‘I think this yacht will be the making of me.’

      ‘If it is, it will be the making of a lady most improper.’ Dorian gave a soft chuckle, breathing in the tangy lemongrass scent of her just before his mouth caught hers.

      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*

      HOW TO RUIN A REPUTATION*

      HOW TO SIN SUCCESSFULLY*

A LADY RISKS ALL**

       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

      HOW TO LIVE INDECENTLY*

†Castonbury Park Regency mini-series

*Rakes Beyond Redemption trilogy

**Ladies of Impropriety

       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

      Yachting is nearly as English as horse racing! The Royal Thames Yacht Club has a rich history. For locations of race courses and information regarding 1838 club officers I drew from the records contained in Captain A.R. Ward’s The Chronicles of the Royal Thames Yacht Club. 1838 was also an exciting year for yachting, as serious racers began transitioning from river racing to open water racing on the Solent.

      I should add a final note about locations used in the story: the Sutton Shipyards at the Blackwell Docks and the restaurant foray to the Italian trattoria. To determine the locations I consulted the excellent book London: A Life in Maps by Peter Whitfield. This is one of my favourite books and I consult it over and over. The Blackwell Docks had become the West India Docks by 1838, but were often still referred to as the Old Blackwell Docks, so I did take a bit of licence there. However, Soho was indeed a thriving immigrant neighbourhood that took advantage of the ‘new’ fad to dine out. And the tavern, The Gun, where Elise first meets Dorian is real! You can still visit it today, and maybe if you’re lucky you’ll meet your own sexy ‘almost’ pirate too, just like Elise.

      Stop by my blog at www.bronwynswriting.blogspot.com to see what else is coming!

      Enjoy!

      A Lady Dares

      Bronwyn Scott

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

       DEDICATION

      For Amber and Scott in commemoration of our great day sailing Commencement Bay. And for the Lindsleys who took me on my first and only sailboat ride.

       Chapter One

      Blackwell Docks, Sutton Shipyard, London—mid-March 1839

      She was screwed! Absolutely royally screwed in the literal sense of the word; the word in question being ‘royally’, of course. Elise Sutton crumpled the letter in her hand and stared blindly at the office wall. Like the other investors, the royal family had finally withdrawn their patronage. And like the other investors, they’d politely waited a ‘decent’ interval to tell her. They were very sorry to hear of her father’s death, but the result was the same. The Sutton Yacht Company was on the brink of bankruptcy, brought to its knees by the sudden and tragic death of its founder, Sir Richard Sutton, six months earlier.

      In truth, the idea the company had survived its owner by six months was something of an illusion. It had likely died with her father, only no one had bothered to tell her that. Apparently, courtesy demanded she be allowed to rise at dawn every morning and spend the next sixteen hours a day poring over account books, cataloguing inventory and lobbying investors who had no intentions of staying. She’d worn herself out all for naught and what passed for courtesy let her do it.

      Well, courtesy be damned! It wasn’t a very ladylike thought, but according to the ton, she hadn’t been a lady for quite some time. By their exalted standards, ladies didn’t work side by side with their fathers in the family business. Ladies didn’t design yachts, didn’t spend their days adding up columns of numbers and most certainly didn’t set aside mourning half a year early to try to save sinking businesses. ladies