Introduction

As a member of the Heirs’ Club, Bray Drakestone can’t resist a challenge—when it involves money and horses. But the friendly wager takes an unexpected turn. Bray is forced to agree to marry one of his challenger’s five sisters. Now gamblers are placing bets on whether Bray will go through with it. Miss Louisa Prim, the eldest sister, doesn’t care what the reckless rogue promised her brother—she has no intention of marrying the future Duke. Bray sees her rejection as another challenge. He bets that Miss Prim will not only agree to marry him, she will propose to him! Louisa knows she can’t lose. But why is Bray so handsome and so sweetly, irresistibly seductive…

Editorial Review

No editorial review at this time.

Excerpt

Bray swore silently. “What was that sound?” he asked the girl.

“Another sister, your grace.”

“What in the name of Hades is wrong with her?”

The young lady blinked curiously. “Nothing, sir.”

“There should be something wrong if someone is going to scream like that.”

More shrieks were followed by the appealing laughter of a young lady. It was genuine amusement and happiness. It wasn’t the fake feminine delight he’d heard through the years at the hundreds of balls, dinners, and card parties he’d attended. It was more musical, more irresistible. That sound tightened his stomach.

The noise of merriment came closer. He saw a girl younger than the two he’d already met burst out of a doorway and bound down the corridor. Right behind her he caught a glimpse of a young lady reaching to grab her prey but missing just before the girl darted away.

“Give me that book right now,” the young lady called between bouts of laughter.

“No! It’s mine. You can’t have it!” The younger one screeched again and sprang across the corridor into another room with the lady on her heels. Bray didn’t think he had ever witnessed anything like it, girls running about like hoydens, banging doors and screaming in carefree delight. As an only child of two only children, his interaction with females was limited to his mother, his paramours, and simpering ladies at Society parties. He couldn’t imagine any one of them acting with such wild abandon.

Seconds later the two ran out of another room and barreled into the vestibule where he and the other Miss Prim stood.

“Oh,” the young lady said as she skidded to a halt in front of him. Before she could catch her breath and speak, the younger child, who had kept running, crashed into her from behind, knocking her straight into Bray’s arms. He caught her by softly rounded shoulders before steadying her with his hands.

“Oh,” she repeated, this time on an intake of breath.

A whiff of her fresh-washed hair swept past him and he inhaled deeply the intoxicating scent.

Her blue eyes rounded in surprise when they met his. “Excuse me, sir,” she said gasping, splaying her fingers on his chest while pushing away from him, clearly embarrassed.

Reluctantly, he let go of her.

She turned to the mischievous child behind her. “Bonnie, we owe the gentleman an apology.”

“You first.”

The older sister sighed, and looked back at Bray. “My apologies.”

The little girl then turned a beautiful set of big blue eyes on him and said, “I’m sorry that you got in my sister’s way and forced me to run into her.”

The older sister glared at her. “Bonnie.”

She folded her arms across her chest and shrugged her shoulders in a pouting stance. “Sorry, uh, sir.”

The older one groaned.

Bray couldn’t be upset with anyone who pushed a beautiful lady into his arms. “No harm done.”

He returned his attention to the young lady, undeniably fetching in her simple, pale yellow dress. “Do you always race about the house in such a fashion?”

The oldest Miss Prim’s breasts lifted and fell rapidly as she tried to calm her breathing. Her hand went immediately to her long, sunset-colored tresses. She brushed them to the back of her shoulders as if trying to make herself more presentable. There was something gentle and alluring in the way she tried to recover her composure.

Unexpectedly, he was drawn to her.

“No, of course not. We were in the book room playing games because of the rain, and, well, I had no idea we had a guest.”

If they were in the midst of such frolic when he knocked, it was no wonder they couldn’t hear him. It would be impossible to hear a musket explode with the commotion they were making. Wispy strands of amber blonde hair attractively framed her face. He couldn’t help but think that she looked as if she’d just had an exhilarating and rather satisfying tussle in bed with a lover.

If he had to marry, she might do rather nicely after all. “Apparently the winner of the game was to receive that coveted book?” He gestured to the bound copy in the youngest girl’s hands.

He watched Miss Prim swallow hard, and shyly she gave him a hint of a smile. Bray’s body tightened with the heady prickling of desire. He hadn’t expected Miss Louisa Prim to be so appealing.

Bray glanced up and saw another blue-eyed blonde haired young lady making her way toward them. And out of the corner of his eye, he saw the young Miss Prim who had shut the door in his face sneak back into the room. He did a quick count. All five Miss Prims were there.

Bray bit back an exasperated sigh and said, “I’m here to see Miss Louisa Prim.”

“I am Miss Louisa Prim,” the oldest young lady said, giving him a quizzical look.

The youngest girl, who had squealed to the high heavens, pushed in front of her sister and looked up at him and said, “I have a name. Do you want to know my name?” And without giving him time to respond answered, “It’s Bonnie.”

The girl who’d closed the door on him piped up and said, “I have a name, too. I’m Sybil and this is my sister Lillian.”

“I can say my own name, thank you very much. I’m Lillian.”

“Then I must be Gwen since I’m the only one left.”

Suddenly all the girls were laughing, except the oldest young lady, who frowned and promptly scolded them by saying, “Girls, stop this at once. This gentleman will think you have no manners.”

Too late for that, he thought.

As each girl had said her name, she smiled and curtsied prettily, even the mischievous Miss Sybil and Miss Bonnie, proving they had manners after all. Bray couldn’t help but think if someone was going to have that many daughters, they should have made it easy on themselves and named them, A, B, C, D, and E or one, two, three, four, and five.

“And who are you?” the smallest one demanded of him.

“Bonnie!” Miss Louisa Prim admonished, clearly exasperated by her little sister’s boldness.

Feeling a stab of impatience at their sport, Bray said, “Ladies,” and nodded to them before immediately shifting his attention back to Miss Louisa Prim. Bray’s mouth lifted slightly and he said, “I am the Duke of Drakestone.”

The second he said his name Louisa Prim seemed to go still. He watched her smile vanish and her breath grow shallow as her shoulders and chin lifted precipitously. She took a step away from him. Her sisters, seeming to sense the sudden change in her demeanor, moved in closer to support or to protect her. He wasn’t sure which.

Miss Prim didn’t immediately answer him. It was as if he could see her mind working. He had a feeling she was trying to think of a way to tell him to get the hell out of her house, though do it politely. That made him smile, which he could see infuriated her all the more. The other four Miss Prims were looking at him too, but not with the dire contempt he saw in Miss Louisa Prim’s expression. They were curious yet cautious.

“What do you want?” she finally asked in an unfriendly clipped tone that left him no doubt how she was feeling.

Her voice was cold and that angered him. He was here because of her uncle, not because he wanted to marry her or be responsible for the assortment of girls before him. He didn’t have a hell of an idea what to do with this bevy of females. He’d never lived with one sibling let alone five of them. What right did she have to treat him as if he was bothering her?

“I’d like a few moments of your time.”

“If I must,” she said grudgingly.

It didn’t appear she was prepared to give an inch, but then neither was he. Her four sisters stayed behind her, like a wall of blonde-haired, blue-eyed sentinels staunchly guarding their beloved captain, none of them making a move to leave. Bray cocked his brow. He couldn’t very well talk to Miss Prim about marriage with so many sets of eyes looking warily at him so he added one word. “Alone.”

After a few moments of hesitation, Miss Prim took a deep breath and said, “Very well. Gwen, please go to the kitchen and ask Mrs. Trumpington to prepare tea and bring into the drawing room. Perhaps you should help her by picking out a lovely china pattern for the duke.”

She looked him up and down with those piercing blue eyes and Bray felt a shiver of awareness rush though him even though there wasn’t a hint of seduction in her appraisal.

“His grace looks to be the type of gentleman who would appreciate a very delicate cup and saucer,” she continued. “One with plenty of colorful flowers painted on it.”

Bray’s brows twitched as she glanced from his face to his big hands. He had the feeling that somehow she knew he despised those dainty cups he was forced to use at teas and dinner parties. Too bad she didn’t know he never walked away from a challenge.

“The smaller, the better,” he shot back with a smile.

He could see that she swallowed back a glower.

“Sybil and Bonnie, it’s time for you to return to the schoolroom and continue your studies with Miss Kindred. She should have your lessons prepared by now. Playtime is over for the day.”

“What am I to do, Sister?” Miss Lillian asked.

Miss Prim seemed to study on that for a moment before saying, “Actually, I believe his grace would like to hear you play the pianoforte. A fine gentleman like him would enjoy listening to a lovely melody from a young lady as talented as you. Perhaps you could entertain him with that score you were practicing yesterday.”

“But I don’t know it very well, Sister.”

Miss Prim gave Bray a humorless smile and said, “He won’t mind. Will you, your grace?”

Hell yes, Bray started to say. He would only sit through a musical or the opera when there was absolutely no way out of the invitation for him to do so. The mere thought of hearing a child practice her lessons made him want to bolt for the door. And he was tempted to do just that. But he couldn’t resist the defiance in Miss Louisa Prim’s eyes.

“Not at all, as your sister said, I’d be delighted to hear you softly play while we talk.”

Miss Lillian scampered off. Bray was impressed at how, when Miss Prim issued the orders, the girls went scurrying to their duties without question or complaint.

“I apologize for leaving you standing in the front of the house so long, your grace.”

She might have offered an apology but there wasn’t a trace of regret in her tone or countenance. He was beginning to get the feeling Miss Prim hadn’t been pining away for him or eagerly awaiting word about impending nuptials.

No matter. She was proving to be quite intriguing.

“Would you like to come into the drawing room?” she asked in an overly- cheerfully tone.

“Where the pianoforte is, I presume?”

She smiled again and another sudden surge of desire for her rippled inside him. His lower body tightened, thickened. He had an intense urge to pull her to him and kiss her.

This visit was not turning out as he expected.

“May I take your hat, gloves, and coat that is unless you’ve changed your mind and need to leave?” She held out her hand to him palm up. “No doubt a gentleman such as yourself must be quite busy.”

Miss Prim was still smiling prettily at him, though he knew there wasn’t an ounce of sweetness in it. It was as if she could see his reluctance to stay and that she was feeling quite sure she was going to win and send him running from the house with his coattails flapping in the rain.

And once again, he was very tempted.

But Bray hesitated. He didn’t want to become involved with such a strange bevy of blonde females. He was no nanny and he certainly wasn’t a keeper of innocents.

The first sour notes on the pianoforte sounded, sending a shiver up his spine and, for a moment, he thought Miss Prim had the victory, too. But then the fighting spirit rose up in him and, and much to her regret he was sure, he handed her his damp hat. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

Can a man who is an only child, whose parents were also only children, ever find happiness in a household of young ladies?

Can minor characters steal the spotlight off the heroine and hero for you?

Do you enjoy it when authors weave real events that happened in history into romance books.

Weblinks

»	Author's web site
»	Publisher's Book Info

Book Club Recommendations

Recommended to book clubs by 0 of 0 members.

Member Reviews

There are no user reviews at this time.
Rate this book