Like a man and a maid in love for the first time, they helped each other dress, with Will touching, kissing, laughing with Elodie as she donned her simple maid’s gown. He knew once they reached Paris she would try to slip away from him, but he felt too light and euphoric to worry about it. Happiness was fizzing in his chest like a freshly opened bottle of champagne.
He’d had many an adventure … but never one like this. Never with a woman who was a companion as uncomplaining as a man, as resourceful as any of the riding officers with whom he’d crept through the Spanish and Portuguese wilderness, working with partisans and disrupting the French.
Their liaison was too fragile to last, but for now he’d be like his Elodie and suck every iota of joy from an already glorious day that promised, once he’d taken care of provisions for the morrow and found her a room with a bed, to become even more wonderful.
He twined his fingers in hers as they went back to their horses. ‘How glad I am to be out of those monk’s robes! I’ve been dying to touch you as we travel.’
‘Good thing,’ she agreed. ‘Since you’re grinning like a farmer who’s just out-bargained a travelling tinker. I doubt anyone could look at us now and not know we are lovers.’
He stopped to give her a kiss. ‘Do you mind?’
‘No. I’m grateful for each moment we have together, Will. One never knows how many that may be.’
About the Author
JULIA JUSTISS wrote her first plot ideas for a Nancy Drew novel in the back of her third-grade notebook, and has been writing ever since. After such journalistic adventures as publishing poetry and editing an American Embassy newsletter she returned to her first love: writing fiction. Her Regency historical novels have been winners or finalists in the Romance Writers of America’s Golden Heart™, RT Book Reviews Best First Historical, Golden Quill, National Readers’ Choice and Daphne du Maurier contests. She lives with her husband, three children and two dogs in rural east Texas, where she also teaches high school French. For current news and contests, please visit her website at www.juliajustiss.com
Novels by the same author:
THE WEDDING GAMBLE
THE PROPER WIFE
MY LADY’S TRUST
MY LADY’S PLEASURE
MY LADY’S HONOUR
A SCANDALOUS PROPOSAL
SEDUCTIVE STRANGER
THE COURTESAN
THE THREE GIFTS
(part of A Regency Lords & Ladies Christmas anthology)
THE UNTAMED HEIRESS
ROGUE’S LADY
CHRISTMAS WEDDING WISH
(part of Regency Candlelit Christmas anthology)
THE SMUGGLER AND THE SOCIETY BRIDE* A MOST UNCONVENTIONAL MATCH WICKED WAGER FROM WAIF TO GENTLEMAN’S WIFE SOCIETY’S MOST DISREPUTABLE GENTLEMAN THE RAKE TO RUIN HER†
*Silk & Scandal Regency mini-series †Ransleigh Rogues
Did you know that some of these novels are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk
The Rake to
Redeem Her
Julia Justiss
MILLS & BOON
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AUTHOR NOTE
Sometimes a minor character grabs your imagination and won’t let go, intriguing you so much that you know you will have to uncover the rest of her story. Such was the case with the mysterious Madame Lefevre, the woman who lured Max Ransleigh into friendship at the Congress of Vienna in order to set up an assassination attempt on Lord Wellington in the first book of The Ransleigh Rogues mini-series, THE RAKE TO RUIN HER.
Where had she come from? What drove her to participate in the plot? What happened to her afterwards? As I explored the answers to those questions I discovered a unique and intriguing woman—a French emigrée whose family was destroyed by the Revolution, a survivor dragged along by the turbulent historical forces that catapulted France in one generation from monarchy to republic to empire and back. Taught by remorseless circumstance to depend only on herself, Elodie trusts no one and expects nothing.
Who could I pair with such a resourceful and determined heroine? Though I’d originally intended a different story for him, only one man could match her: Will Ransleigh, Max’s illegitimate cousin. Cast into the London slums on the death of his mother, a clergyman’s daughter seduced and abandoned by Max’s uncle, Will survived by his wits on the streets for six years before Max’s father plucked him from Seven Dials and sent him to his country estate, instructing Max and his cousins to make a proper Ransleigh out of this gutter rat.
I hope you will enjoy Will and Elodie’s story.
I love to hear from readers! Find me at my website,
www.juliajustiss.com, for excerpts, updates
and background bits about my books,
on Facebook at www.facebook.com/juliajustiss
and on Twitter @juliajustiss
Chapter One
Barton Abbey—late spring, 1816
‘I wager I could find her.’ Smouldering with anger against the woman who had destroyed his cousin Max’s diplomatic career, Will Ransleigh accepted a glass of brandy from his host.
‘Welcome back to England,’ Alastair Ransleigh said, saluting Will with his own glass before motioning him to an armchair. ‘Far be it from me to bet against “Wagering Will”, who never met a game of chance he couldn’t win. But why do you think you could find her, when Max, with all his official contacts, could not?’
‘I never had much use for officials,’ Will observed with a grimace. ‘Would have transported me for stealing a loaf of bread to feed myself and my starving mates.’
‘You’ve cleaned up so well, I sometimes forget you were once gallows-bait,’ Alastair said with a grin. ‘But to be fair, where would one expect to look? Madame Lefevre was cousin and hostess to Thierry St Arnaud, one of Prince Talleyrand’s top aides in the French delegation