Secrets of an Accidental Duchess

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A Preview of
Confessions of an Improper Bride

A Preview of
Pleasures of a Tempted Lady

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For L, who hasn’t yet gotten his wish that I’d add more epic battles and characters with superhero powers into my books, but who apparently still loves me anyway.

Many thanks to my editor, Selina McLemore, who always helps me find the way through the cobwebs of plots in my head. And to my agent, Barbara Poelle, who’s stuck by my side since Day One. Thanks also to my good friends and readers Kate McKinley and Anya Richards, who offer me endless support. I’m lucky to have all of you!

S
he was an angel.

Maxwell Buchanan, the Marquis of Hasley, had observed many beautiful women in his thirty years. He’d conversed with them, danced with them, bedded them. But no woman had ever frozen him in place before tonight.

He stood entranced, ignoring people who brushed past him, and stared at her, unable to tear his gaze away. With her slender, slight figure, delicate features, and crown of thick blond hair, she was beautiful, but not uncommonly so, at least to the other men populating the ballroom. As far as Max knew, the only head that had turned when she’d entered the room was his own.

The difference, he supposed, the singular element that clearly set her apart from the rest of the women here, was in the reserved way she held herself. There was nothing brazen about her, but nothing diffident or nervous, either. It was as though she held a confidence within herself that
she didn’t feel any desire to share with the world. She didn’t need to display her beauty like all the other unattached ladies present. She simply was who she was, and she made no apologies for it.

Her small, white-gloved fingers held her dance partner’s, and Max’s fingers twitched. He wanted to be the man clasping that hand in his own. He wanted to know her. He would learn her name as soon as possible. He would orchestrate an introduction to her and then he would ask her for a dance.

“Lovely, isn’t she?”

Max whipped around to face the intruder. The man standing beside him was Leonard Reece, the Marquis of Fenwicke, and not one of his favorite people.

“Who is lovely?” he asked, feigning ignorance, curling the fingers of his right hand into a fist so as not to reach up to adjust his cravat over his suddenly warm neck.

Fenwicke gave a low chuckle. “The young lady you’ve been staring at for the last ten minutes.”

Damn. He’d been caught. And now he felt foolish. Allowing his gaze to trail after a young woman, even one as compelling as he found this one, was an imprudent enterprise, especially at Lord Hertford’s ball—the last ball of the London Season. If Max wasn’t careful, he’d find himself betrothed by Michaelmas.

The dance ended, and the angel’s dance partner led her off the floor toward another lady. The three stood talking for a moment before the man bowed and took his leave.

“Most people believe her sister is the great beauty of the family,” Fenwicke continued conversationally. “But I would beg to differ with them. As would you, apparently.”

“Her sister?”

“Indeed. The lady she’s speaking to, the one in the pale yellow, is the youngest of the Donovan sisters.”

Max looked more closely at the woman in yellow. Indeed, she was what most people would consider a great beauty—taller than her sister, and slender but rounded in all the proper places, with golden hair that glinted where the chandelier light caught it.

“The Donovan sisters?” he mused. “I don’t know them.”

“The lady in yellow is Jessica Donovan.” Fenwicke murmured so as not to be heard by anyone in the crowd milling about the enormous punch bowl. “The lady in blue is her older sister, Olivia.”

The angel’s name was Olivia.

Due to his position as the heir of a duke, Max was acquainted with most of the English aristocracy perforce. Yet from the moment he’d caught his first glimpse of the angel tonight, he’d known he’d never been introduced to her, never seen her before. He’d never heard Olivia and Jessica Donovan’s names, either, though their surname did sound vaguely familiar.

“They must be new to Town.”

“They are. They arrived in London last month. This is only the third or fourth event they’ve attended.” Fenwicke gave a significant pause. “However, I am quite certain you are acquainted with the eldest Donovan sister.”

Max frowned. “I don’t think so.”

Fenwicke chuckled. “You are. You just haven’t yet made the connection. The eldest sister is Margaret Dane, Countess of Stratford.”

That name he did know—how could he not? “Ah. Of course.”

A year ago, Lady Stratford had arrived from Antigua engaged to one well-connected gentleman, but she’d ended up marrying the earl instead. Like a great stone thrown into the semi-placid waters of London, the ripples caused by the splash she’d made had only just begun to subside. Even Max, who studiously avoided all forms of gossip, had heard all about it.

“So the countess’s sisters have recently arrived from the West Indies?”

“That’s right.”

Max’s gaze lingered on Olivia, the angel in blue. Fenwicke had said she was older than the lady standing beside her, but she appeared younger. It was in her bearing, in her expression. While Jessica didn’t quite strut, she moved like a woman attuned to the power she wielded over all who beheld her. Olivia was directly the opposite. She wore her reserved nature like a cloak. She stood a few inches shorter and was slighter than her sister. Her cheeks were paler, and her hair held more of the copper and less of the gold, though certainly no one would complain that it was too red. It was just enough to lend an intriguing simmer rather than a full-blown fire.

Olivia’s powder-blue dress was of an entirely fashionable style and fabric—though Max didn’t concern himself with fashion enough to be able to distinguish either by name. The gown was conservatively cut but fit her perfectly, and her jewelry was simple. She wore only a pair of pearl-drop earrings and an austere strand of pearls around her neck.

Her posture was softer than her sister’s, whose stance was sharp and alert. However, their familial connection was obvious in their faces—both perfect ovals with full
but small mouths and large eyes. From this distance, Max couldn’t discern the color of her eyes, but when Olivia had been dancing earlier, she’d glanced in his direction, and he’d thought they must be a light shade.

God. He nearly groaned. She captivated him. She had from the first moment he’d seen her. She was simply lovely.

“… leaving London soon.”

Fenwicke stopped talking, and Max’s attention snapped back to him.

Fenwicke sighed. “Did you hear me, Hasley?”

“Sorry,” Max said, then gestured randomly about. “Noisy in here.”

It was true, after all. The orchestra had begun the opening strands of the next dance, and laughing couples were brushing past them, hurrying to join in at the last possible moment.

Fenwicke gazed at him appraisingly for a long moment, then motioned toward the ballroom’s exit. “Come, man. Let’s go have a drink.”

If it had been an ordinary evening, he would have declined. He and Fenwicke had a long acquaintance, and Max had always found the man oily and unlikable. They’d been rivals since their school days at Eton, but they’d never been friends.

He glanced quickly back to the lady.
Olivia.
At that moment, she looked up. Her gaze caught his and held.

Blue eyes. Surely they were blue.

Those eyes held him in her thrall, sweet and lovely, and sensual too, despite her obvious innocence. Max felt suspended in midair, like a water droplet caught in a spider’s web.

She glanced at Fenwicke and then quickly to the floor, and Max plopped back to earth with a
splat.
But satisfaction rushed through him in a warm wave, because just before she’d broken their eye contact, he’d seen the first vestiges of color flooding her cheeks.

“Very well,” he told Fenwicke. Tonight he didn’t politely excuse himself from Fenwicke’s company, because tonight Fenwicke appeared to have information Max suddenly craved—information about Olivia Donovan.

He turned away from her, but not before he saw another gentleman offering her his arm for the dance and a bolt of envy struck him in the gut. Thrusting away that irrational emotion, Max followed Fenwicke down the corridor to the parlor that had been set aside as the gentlemen’s retiring room. A foursome played cards in the corner, and an elderly man sat in a large but elegant brown cloth armchair in the corner, blatantly antisocial, a newspaper raised to obscure half his face. Other men lounged by the sideboard, chatting and drinking from the never-ending supply of spirits.

Fenwicke collected two glasses of brandy and then gestured with his chin at a pair of empty leather chairs separated by a low, glass-topped table but close enough together for them to have a private conversation. Max sat in the nearest chair, taking the glass Fenwicke offered him as he passed. He took a drink of the brandy while Fenwicke lowered himself into the opposite chair.

Holding his glass in both hands, Fenwicke stared at him. “I gather you haven’t had the pleasure of observing the Miss Donovans prior to tonight.”

“No,” Max admitted. “Do they plan to reside in London?”

“No.” Fenwicke’s lip twisted sardonically. “As I was saying in the ballroom, I believe they’re leaving before the end of the month. They’re off to Stratford’s estate in Sussex.”

“Too bad,” Max murmured.

But then a memory jolted him. At White’s last week, Lord Stratford had invited a few men, including Max, to Sussex this autumn to hunt fowl. He’d turned down the offer—he’d never been much interested in hunting—but now…

Fenwicke gazed at him. The man had always reminded Max of a reptilian predator with his cold, assessing silver-gray eyes. “You,” he announced, “have a tendre for Miss Donovan.”

It was impossible to determine whether that was a question or a statement. Either way, it didn’t matter. “Don’t be absurd. I don’t even know Jessica Donovan.”