When the Scoundrel Sins

Book 2: Capturing the Carlisles

by Anna Harrington

Genres: Regency Romance

Synopsis

In the New York Times bestselling tradition of Elizabeth Hoyt, Grace Burrowes, and Madeline Hunter, comes a sexy Regency trilogy about the Carlisle brothers—three rakes forced to become respectable gentlemen when family tragedy strikes.

A Most Indecent Proposal

Annabelle Green needs a husband—and quickly. To inherit the only home she’s ever known, she must be married by her twenty-fifth birthday. But finding a suitor has been next to impossible after a reckless rogue named Quinton Carlisle seduced her into a scandalous midnight tryst. Her reputation in ruins, Belle now needs a rather large favor. And she knows just who to turn to…

Quinn can hardly believe that the shy bookish girl he teased as a child has grown into such a brazen beauty. The very idea of marrying Belle to right the wrongs of his past is downright shocking … and deliciously tempting. Too bad marriage, convenient or otherwise, is the last thing Quinn wants. He’ll help Belle find a husband and be on his way. But if he can’t control his attraction to the bride-to-be, this marriage could go up in flames—of wicked desire.

Release date: August 29, 2017

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 384

Sample

PROLOGUE

    

Mayfair, London
April 1816

Eyes widening, eighteen-year-old Annabelle Green stepped back from Quinton Carlisle, against whose hard front she’d just so scandalously pressed herself. She brought her hand against her lips. Swollen, hot, wet…Oh heavens, he’d been kissing her.

Dear God, she’d let him!

She bit back a groan of self-recrimination. Let? She’d practically jumped into the scoundrel’s arms to be kissed.

“Annabelle?” he asked softly with concern. The noise from the Countess of St James’s crowded ball barely reached them beneath the thick rose bower at the rear of the garden, where dark shadows cocooned them together.

She stared at him, for the life of her not knowing what to say. A few minutes ago, she’d slid out the library terrace door to escape the crush of the party, to take a short turn around the garden. To give herself a few minutes of peace when she wasn’t the object of whispers and laughter from the other ladies at the ball who thought she was overreaching. She was only a lady’s companion, after all, with no real right to wear silk and jewels or to dance with eligible gentlemen.

But she’d come across Quinton Carlisle in the shadows. And then she’d found herself in his arms, being given the most incredible kiss imaginable.

“Are you all right?” he pressed. From the expression on his shadow-darkened face, he was just as bewildered as she was.

“You—you kissed me,” she whispered around her fingers, still pressed to her mouth.

“I certainly did.” A devilish grin quirked at this lips. “And you kissed me back.”

“I did not!”

He arched an amused brow at that wholly obvious lie.

Annabelle groaned. It hadn’t been only a kiss, either. It had been a full-out embrace, eager and hungry, with nibbles and sucks and wandering hands—

“I’d like to do it again.” He stepped forward to close the distance between them. His hot gaze dropped to her mouth. “Very much.”

Her hand fell away from her lips, not to encourage him but because she was utterly confused. What on earth had come over them? “But we don’t even like each other!” she squeaked out.

Well, he didn’t like her, at any rate.

He was Quinton Carlisle, for heaven’s sake. She’d known him since she was ten. He had a quick smile that always set butterflies swirling in her belly and a golden handsomeness she was certain would have made Adonis jealous. One of London’s most charming scoundrels, he turned the heads of bored society widows and wives everywhere he went, even at just twenty-one. Belle would have had to be dead or eighty not to be attracted to him.

But he was also the bane of her existence. He never seemed to tire of teasing her, just as he had since they were children. They were friends, certainly, but this season he seemed to take great delight in angering her until flames could have shot out of her head. While she might have fantasized about him, he certainly never gave a second thought about her.

Until tonight. When his arms had been around her. His hard body had pressed against her soft one, and his lips had played over hers, teasing kiss after kiss from her until she thought she might explode from the throbbing ache he spun through her.

Oh, what a delicious mouth he had! No wonder all those women in the ton practically threw themselves at him. When he knew how to kiss like that, why would they care about his reputation as one of the wild Carlisle brothers?

But Belle cared. Her reputation already hung by a thread, simply because of who she was. Nothing but the homeless daughter of one of Lord Ainsley’s former housekeepers whom he and Lady Ainsley had pitied enough to take in, a penniless companion whose mother was dead and whose convict father was serving in prison. Despite Lord and Lady Ainsley’s attempts to bring her into society’s graces, not one person inside that ball tonight was willing to accept her. And all of them let her know it, too. Repeatedly.

Now she’d put even that tenuous position into jeopardy. Heavens, how could she have gotten herself into this situation? With Quinton Carlisle, no less! Her head swam with it.

“But I do like you, Belle,” he corrected in a deep and husky voice.

Then her head practically whirled itself right off her neck. He…liked her?

His mouth hovered just above hers, close enough that she felt the heat of his breath shiver across her lips. “I can show you how much if you don’t believe me.”

She pressed her hand flat against his chest to keep him away, although her traitorous fingertips curled into the brocade of his waistcoat to keep him right there. “Why did you kiss me like that?”

He lowered his head, to briefly bring his lips to hers. Yet that kiss was so much more than a peck. It held promises of all kinds of wicked things he’d do to her if she let him…all kinds of deliciously tempting things. “Because I wanted to.”

He grinned at her in the shadows, then leaned in to kiss her again, this time with clearly more in mind than a mere touch of lips—

Her hand flew up to his shoulder, stopping him. “Why did you kiss me, Quinton?”

He shifted back at that, perplexed. Then he answered softly, “Honestly? I don’t know.”

Oh, that was exactly the last thing a young lady wanted to hear after giving away her first kiss! He couldn’t even come up with a good lie to explain himself, or some affectionate compliment that he was so expert at giving to other ladies.

Apparently she didn’t even merit empty flattery.

His eyes gleamed. “Annabelle, you’re definitely not the sort of woman I normally end up with in the shadows.”

The raw honesty of that burned into her chest. But he chuckled, as if he found their predicament humorous.

She blinked but couldn’t clear the gathering tears from her eyes. “Was this only a joke to you?” Just another way for him to tease and torment her? She knew he was a rascal, but she never thought he’d stoop so low as this!

His expression grew serious beneath the shadows. “At first, yes,” he admitted. “But it didn’t end that way.”

Anger and shame pulsed through her. With a soft cry, she shoved him back. She turned to hurry out from beneath the bower—

And tripped.

Her toe caught on a root, and she fell forward. Off-balance and unable to stop herself, she hit her shoulder on the post framing the entrance. The loud rip of tearing fabric sounded in her ears only heartbeats before her knees hit the dirt. For one moment, she could do nothing in her stunned shock but rest there on her hands and knees, her head hanging with mortification and her bodice sagging loose.

“Belle!” Quinton knelt beside her and reached for her arm. “Are you hurt?”

Squeezing her eyes shut against the hot tears, she shook her head. A lie. Because her heart had shattered.

He helped her to her feet. With her arms clamped tightly over her bodice to keep it in place, as if she could also physically fight back the embarrassment pouring through her, she wrestled her arm free from his grip. Her vision was too blurred with tears and shadows to see his face clearly—oh, she was glad of it! She couldn’t have borne to see his pity. The humiliation would have killed her.

“Are you all right?” he quietly demanded, taking her shoulders in both hands so she couldn’t pull away again.

A sob choked from her. “My dress…” She’d ruined the expensive ivory and pearl silk gown that Lady Ainsley insisted she wear for her first ball. Her ripped bodice gaped open over her breasts, the skirt stained with dirt.

“Let me help.” He reached for her.

“Go away!” She twisted away from him. “Haven’t you done enough to me tonight?”

He stared at her incredulously, his lips parting at her angry rebuke. Then his eyes narrowed. “I’ve done nothing—”

“Carlisle!” A man’s voice rang out through the quiet of the garden, followed by a jarring laugh. “There you are!”

“Christ,” he snapped out, then tried to remove his jacket for her. But it was too late.

Two men came upon them in the dark garden, with lit cheroots and glasses of whiskey in their hands. They froze when they saw Belle in her torn dress and Quinton half out of his jacket. Then lecherous grins spread across their faces, their teeth gleaming in the moonlight.

“And he’s busy,” the first man drawled.

The second one looped his arm over his friend’s shoulders and tapped his glass against the man’s chest. “Deliciously so.”

Fresh humiliation cascaded through Belle, and she cringed at the lascivious looks the two men gave her, slowly raking their gazes over her from her dirtied hem to her torn bodice. She turned away, but it was too late. They’d surely recognized her, even in the shadows. And what they must have thought she and Quinn had been up to—

“Go away,” he growled, stepping between her and the men. His hands drew into fists at his sides.

The first man tsked his tongue. “And let you have all the fun?”

Belle recognized him—Burton Williams, Viscount Houghton’s youngest son. Her stomach sickened. Oh God, not that scapegrace and male gossip!

“I never would have figured you for a piece like this, though,” Williams muttered disdainfully.

Belle’s chest tightened so hard that she couldn’t breathe, that she was certain her heart would stop beneath the pressure of it. She lowered her head to hide her face as the first tear slid down her cheek.

“Go away,” Quinton repeated in a snarl through gritted teeth. “This isn’t your concern.”

Ignoring that, Williams laughed. He was having far too much fun chiding Quinn and humiliating her to leave. “Tore your dress, did you, pet?”

The other man slapped Williams on the shoulder and gestured toward her skirt. “Before or after she was on her knees, do you think?”

Quinton’s broad body stiffened with anger so intense that it pulsed palpably on the midnight air. “Leave,” he ordered. “And don’t say a word about this to anyone.”

“Or what?” Williams taunted, throwing his glass away into the bushes to empty his hands to fight.

Amusement fled from the two men. Their faces turned hard, and they pulled themselves up straight. Tension sizzled like electricity in the air.

“Quinn, don’t.” She rested her hand on his right arm to stop the fisticuffs that were about to occur. Because if a fight broke out in the garden, then everyone in the ballroom would surely come pouring outside to see. All of London would find her looking like this and make the same assumption about her and Quinton that Williams and his friend had. “Just walk away. Please.”

His eyes flashed like brimstone. “And let them get away with insulting you?”

“Yes!” she choked out, afraid she would burst into sobs. “It doesn’t mean any—”

“Tupping a bluestocking?” The friend laughed. “That’s desperate.”

“Unless bluestockings taste like blueberries. Do they, Carlisle?” Williams took a step toward Quinn. “Is she a ripe juicy blueberry, ready to pop on a man’s tongue?”

Quinn’s arm muscles tensed beneath her fingertips as she felt his simmering anger flame into rage.

“Quinton, don’t do this,” she begged. “Please.”

But he shrugged her hand away and stepped forward, fists clenched and heading straight into the fight. In an instant, punches hurled between all three men, followed by the sickeningly dull thuds of landed fists.

Panic surged inside her. She couldn’t be caught out here, not looking like this! Not with one of Mayfair’s favorite rakes bare-knuckle brawling over her.

Without thinking, only knowing she had to get away before she was seen, she ran toward the house. She was desperate to find the retiring room, to hide there until Lady Ainsley could rescue her and put an end to this nightmare.

“Belle, wait!” Quinn called out. She glanced over her shoulder only long enough to see him land a punch that sent Williams reeling. “Stop!”

But the last thing she would do was face him in her disgrace, or watch him get himself beaten up over her. When she heard him running toward her, the fight abandoned to chase after her, she hurried faster through the dark shadows toward the terrace door. Her shaking hand grabbed for the door handle—

“Annabelle, no!”

She flung open the door and rushed inside. Then halted in mid-step to suck in a soft scream of surprise when she saw four of the ton’s biggest busybodies sitting in the library. They stared at her, as if she belonged in the mews rather than in the grand town house with them. Then their gazes roamed slowly over her, taking in the torn and sagging bodice, the dirt stains on her skirt…Oh God.

Quinton arrived at her side a heartbeat later, looking disheveled and mussed from the fight. Knowing smiles spread across the women’s faces, and their eyes gleamed like hyenas relishing a feast. A scoundrel and a woman they considered too ill-bred to ever be one of them—

He shed his jacket and placed it over her shoulders to cover her, but it was too late. The damage had been done. Her ripped and dirty dress provided all the proof—and ammunition—they needed to ruin her.

CHAPTER ONE

    

Cumbria, England, Near the Scottish Border
September 1822

Annabelle paused as she walked with Lady Ainsley through the gardens at Castle Glenarvon, glancing up at the late afternoon sun as it slowly lowered toward the horizon. Another day gone.

Her chest tightened painfully as she whispered, “Only one month left.”

The dowager viscountess wrapped her arm around Belle’s and gave a resolute nod as she patted her arm. “There’s still plenty of time.”

Belle wasn’t so certain. Hadn’t the last four years passed in the blink of an eye, only for her to still be unmarried one month before her birthday and the deadline for her inheritance?

Drawing in a deep breath, she looked across the gardens to the sweeping views of the Cumbria estate she loved, with its river and glen, and farther out across the fields of heather leading away to the blue mountains in the distance. Given as a gift to a favorite of the crown during the English civil war, the estate had been created to hold the border against Scottish invasion. It had passed down through the late Lord Ainsley’s family as a treasured, if financially meager, property located so far north that a strong wind could have toppled it over into Scotland.

Yet Annabelle loved every rock-strewn, heather-tufted inch of it. After a childhood spent moving from place to place, sometimes in the middle of the night to flee her father’s creditors and often not knowing when the next meal would be, the peace and permanence of Glenarvon still seemed like a dream to her. And in one short month, when she turned twenty-five, the property would be hers.

If she married.

Or she would lose it forever if she didn’t. The estate would go to the Church, and Belle would lose everything…the mountains and the wilderness, the darling sheep and their pastures, even the little pond where she swam on summer evenings. The only true home she’d ever known.

That was the unbearable situation she found herself in. Just as she knew that it was all the fault of love.

Sensing her distress, the dowager added quietly, “We only wanted the best for you, my dear.”

“I know.” Belle squeezed her arm affectionately and turned away before Lady Ainsley could see the hint of tears in her eyes.

Lady Ainsley and her late husband were fond of Belle and always had been, ever since she came to live with them when she was ten. Her mother had died of fever, and her father, who had never been a part of her life except to cause misery, had been sentenced to prison two years earlier. She’d had no relatives to take her in.

Because her mother had once worked for the viscount, Lady Ainsley wanted to help by raising her to be her companion, since the viscountess had no children of her own. So they welcomed her into their lives and treated her as well as they would have their own daughter. Truly, as well as Lord Ainsley’s three daughters from his first marriage, with a wonderful education, all the dresses and accessories she wanted, and a safe and stable home. They also wanted her to be well-protected for the rest of her life. So Lord Ainsley had willed Castle Glenarvon to her, held in trust by the new viscount—but only if she married by the time she turned twenty-five. Then, the property would have been overseen by her husband and untouchable by her thief of a father.

But the road to hell was paved with good intentions, and by trying to protect her, they’d inadvertently harmed her. Because her twenty-fifth birthday was now only a month away, with no husband in sight.

“We have a plan, and it will work,” Lady Ainsley reminded her, referring to the series of teas and parties they’d planned on hosting. All of the area’s most eligible gentlemen would be invited, to give Belle a chance to meet them and decide if any might do for a husband. A rushed season in miniature.

Of course, the time had finally come to also reveal that Castle Glenarvon formed her dowry. With the viscountess’s permission, Belle had always kept that secret, except from a few trusted persons who held a vested interest in the property…the estate foreman, the family solicitor, and Sir Harold Bletchley, who owned the neighboring estate. She’d feared being inundated by fortune hunters who wanted the land more than they wanted her and terrified that she’d end up in a marriage like her mother’s. One in which her husband’s lack of love for her would turn the union into a nightmare.

But now, with a looming deadline and a dearth of suitors, she had no choice but to reveal her dowry. And no choice but to consider a marriage of convenience.

“There is always Sir Harold,” Lady Ainsley tossed out offhandedly. “He would make a fine husband.”

Belle stiffened, certain Sir Harold would make a fine husband. Just not for her. Not if she wanted to enjoy any conversations with her husband other than those about hunting and hounds.

Oh, Sir Harold wasn’t a villain by any stretch. But neither was he the kind of man she suspected would make her happy. One who saw his wife as a true partner in marriage, one equal to the task of running the estate and deserving of his respect.

Lady Ainsley ticked off his qualifications as if she were reading an entry in Debrett’s. “He has his own property and a goodly amount of wealth, the respect of the aristocracy, a fine family history.…By all accounts, he would be quite an advantageous match for you. You should reconsider his offer.”

Belle fought back the urge to cry. Lady Ainsley was being helpful, in her own way. And she wasn’t wrong. A young lady with Belle’s pedigree—or rather, lack of one—would never have been able to marry a gentleman any other way except by bringing an estate as her dowry. But Belle had never cared about social rank or her place in society, except to please Lord and Lady Ainsley. Whether society spurned her for the rest of her life or welcomed her with open arms, she couldn’t have cared less. She’d turned her back on them six years ago when they’d all turned their backs on her. The only thing that mattered to her now was that she be allowed to keep living right here in the home she loved, surrounded by the people she cared about.

She just hadn’t planned on being forced into a marriage she didn’t want in order to do it.

“I do not believe that he and I are well-suited,” she countered before Lady Ainsley considered her silence to be an acquiescence. “I believe I should look elsewhere.”

“As long as you keep looking,” Lady Ainsley warned with all the worry and affection of a true mother. “I fear you’ve grown opposed to marriage.”

“I’m not against marriage,” Belle defended herself. “It’s a perfectly fine institution.” But neither had she ever been one of those young ladies who eagerly sought it out, who spent all their waking hours preening and plotting to snare the best husband, one of high rank and large fortune. “But I want a marriage based upon respect, friendship, shared interests…love.” Then she added softly, certain the dowager could hear the admiration in her voice for the two people who had become a second set of parents to her, “The kind of marriage you and Lord Ainsley shared.”

Marrying for love was a quaint notion, to be sure, one that certainly flew in the face of modern convention, when affection was the last consideration for a marriage match among ladies of the ton. Yet Belle had seen firsthand with her own mother what could happen to a wife who had trapped herself with a man who cared nothing for the true partnership a marriage should be.

Belle wasn’t brilliant at math, but she could certainly count to nine months and knew that her untimely arrival had forced her parents into marriage. There was no love between them, and Marcus Greene thought he had the right to control his wife, if not by direct orders and insults than by his fists. He’d never provided a sound roof over their heads or adequate coin with which to buy bread and cloth—often none at all—preferring instead to spend his nights drinking and his days drifting from job to job, unable to keep one for longer than a few weeks. His wife and child had been dragged along in his wake, without means of escape. The drunkenness became worse, the beatings fierce and frequent, the debts higher…until he was arrested for theft and sent to prison. His gaol sentence had been his family’s path to freedom.

But while her mother’s situation exemplified the misery that a marriage could be, Belle had also witnessed the true partnership that Lord and Lady Ainsley had shared. Oh, they certainly fought. Angry words had been exchanged, once with the viscountess refusing to leave her boudoir for a week until Lord Ainsley apologized. But the viscount would never have cursed her or raised his fists in anger. They both dearly loved the other, and that love made all the difference.

It all came down to love, Belle was certain.

Or to the lack of it.

Given all she’d witnessed, if faced with the choice of marrying a man who did not love her or remaining unmarried, Belle would have gladly become a spinster.

But she could never utter that last aloud for fear it would break the dowager’s heart. And in her current situation, with her home hanging in the balance, it seemed she no longer had a choice.

“I want a good marriage for you, too,” Lady Ainsley agreed. “Which is why I sent for Quinton Carlisle.”

Belle tripped.

Stumbling to regain her balance, she turned to stare at the viscountess, her eyes wide as saucers and her mouth open. She struggled to find her voice in her shock, finally squeaking out, “Why?”

Lady Ainsley kept her gaze straight ahead. “To assist in your search for a husband, of course.”

Belle gaped at her, stunned. That rascal, to help her find a suitable husband? What did he know about husband hunting, except for how to avoid the marriage shackles for himself? Good Lord. It was a measure of how desperate they’d become that Lady Ainsley felt compelled to invite that devil here.

Oblivious to Belle’s deep breaths to regain her composure, the viscountess led her forward through the garden. “I tucked in a note to him when I wrote to his mother last month, to congratulate Elizabeth on finally marrying off one of her sons without scandal. Rather,” Lady Ainsley corrected, “with little scandal. Trent married the niece of one of his tenant farmers, after all. I am certain tongues were wagging all the way to Cornwall over that.”

Belle hadn’t seen that note, or she certainly would have burned it. Which was most likely why the viscountess hadn’t told her about it until now.

Dread pinched her stomach at the thought of seeing him again. “But why Quinton?”

“Because we need his help.” The dowager turned to gaze across the glen in the distance. “If anyone can sort suitable husbands from the undesirables, it will be my great-nephew.”

Ha! The only help Quinton would give would be to cause problems. Just as he’d always done for her.

In the past, whenever they’d met on those rare occasions when Annabelle accompanied Lord and Lady Ainsley to London, that scoundrel had taunted her mercilessly. Like one of those boys in the schoolyard who enjoyed pulling a girl’s braid just to capture the attention of her ire. Over the years, the torment only grew, and it seemed that the more aggravated she became, the more he enjoyed it.

Until her London season, when he’d finally gone too far.

“You know what happened between us, my lady,” she whispered, struck by how painful that memory was, even now. The very last person Belle needed interfering in her life was the man who was responsible for driving the final nail into her reputation’s coffin.

“Yes.” Lady Ainsley’s lips pressed into a tight line. “Which is another reason I asked him here. This is his last opportunity to apologize to you.”

Not likely. The Carlisle brothers never apologized for the havoc they wrought, and she doubted Quinton had changed so much in the past six years that he’d become remorseful.

Besides, she didn’t want an apology. Forced contrition on Quinn’s part wouldn’t begin to make up for the trouble he’d unleashed upon her life. Thanks to that ill-fated night in St James’s garden, she had no proper s. . .