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Annette Blair - Scandalous Brides

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**FOUR BESTSELLERS FOR THE PRICE OF THREE!** The best of their best from New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Annette Blair, with Cheryl Bolen, Lucinda Brant, and Brenda Hiatt. Fall in love with bewitchingly scandalous brides and their dashing grooms in this box set of 4 full-length Regencies. These bestsellers average over 4.4 stars from hundreds of combined bookseller reviews worldwide. **UNFORGETTABLE ROGUE** by Annette Blair. Beauty and the Beast trade places. After being reported dead, handsome as sin Bryceson Wakefield, Duke of Hawksworth, returns home scarred and beaten by war, only to find his hoyden of a wife blossomed into a beauty and set to wed another. Can Beauty seduce her unforgettable Beast? Will the beast ever consider himself worthy? **A LADY BY CHANCE** by Cheryl Bolen. Manipulated into a marriage of convenience, Anna and Charles, the Marquess of Haverstock, question each others loyalties. But theres no question that Annas silken touch has bewitched the powerful lord who has become her husband, and no question that she craves every moment in his arms. **SALT BRIDE** by Lucinda Brant. The Earl of Salt Hendon and squires daughter Jane Despard share a secret past of mistrust, heartache, and misery. Forced into a marriage neither wants, Jane believes love conquers all; Salt will take some convincing. Can the newlyweds overcome past prejudices and sinister opposition to fall in love all over again? **SCANDALOUS VIRTUE** by Brenda Hiatt. First impressions can be most deceiving! Nessa, Lady Haughton, has been trained all her life to be a model of English propriety and virtue. Notorious rakehell and war hero Jack Ashecroft must renounce his wild ways and establish himself as a respectable member of Society. When Jack and Nessa meet, each thinks the other is exactly the ticket to the changes they are seeking; then the sparks fly! * **Annette Blair** is a *New York Times* and *USA Today* bestselling author of over forty books. She writes cozy mysteries, bewitching romantic comedies and award-winning historical romances. Annette has also stepped into the amazing world of self-publishing. Visit Annette at *annetteblair.com* * **Cheryl Bolen** is an award winning and bestselling author of more than a dozen Regency-set historical romance novels. Cheryls books have been translated into 11 languages and won numerous awards, including the Holt Medallion and Best Historical in the International Digital Awards for eBooks. Visit Cheryl at *cherylbolen.com* * **Lucinda Brant** writes award winning bestselling Georgian historical romances and crimances (crime with lashings of romance). Her novels have been described as from *the Golden Age of romance with a modern voice* and *heart wrenching drama with a happily ever after* . Visit Lucinda at *lucindabrant.com* * **Brenda Hiatt** writes sparkling romantic adventure stories and is author of six traditional Regency romances, one time travel romance, eight historical romances (most set in Regency England), one upbeat mystery, and her teen sci-fi romance launched in September 2013. Visit Brenda at *brendahiatt.com* Annette, Cheryl, Lucinda, and Brenda are proud members of the 12 **Jewels of Historical Romance** author group. Visit them at *jewelsofhistoricalromance.com*

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CONTENTS

Title Page

Copyright & License

A Gift For You

Scandalous Brides

New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Annette Blair, with Cheryl Bolen, Lucinda Brant, and Brenda Hiatt present bewitchingly scandalous brides and their dashing grooms in this boxed set of four full-length bestselling Regencies.

A Sprigleaf Publication

SCANDALOUS BRIDES by Annette Blair, Cheryl Bolen, Lucinda Brant, and Brenda Hiatt

First published, January 2014

Art, design and formatting by Sprigleaf

eISBN 9780987375285

2014 Kindle edition: ASIN B00FPQHK48

UNFORGETTABLE ROGUE 2002, 2012 Annette Blair

First published in paperback by Kensington Publishing

Cover art 200620012 Calista Taylor

A LADY BY CHANCE 2011 Cheryl Bolen

Cover art 2011 Cheryl Bolen

SALT BRIDE 2010 Lucinda Brant

Cover art 2010 Sprigleaf

To suit this edition the original prologue has been removed.

SCANDALOUS VIRTUE 1999 Brenda Hiatt

First published in paperback by HarperPaperbacks, a division of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Cover art 1999 Brenda Hiatt

Except for brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews, no part of this ebook may be reproduced in any printed or electronic form without prior permission from the publisher. Please purchase only authorized editions; do not encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of an authors rights.

This is a work of fiction; names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Resemblance to persons, businesses, companies, events, or locales, past or present, is entirely coincidental.

LICENSE: This work is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be given away to others. If you would like to share this book please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you are reading this ebook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of these authors.

This title has received a QED seal for quality in eBook design. It can be read easily on screens both large and small.

Cover

Dedication

Beginning

Bonus Preview

About Annette Blair

CHAPTER LINKS

Prologue 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

With Love to Gail Bryson.

In fond memory of our time and travels together,

Especially our trip to St. Albans, England,

Where I set this book.

I love being a writer, but I miss working with you.

The first time you walked into my office,

I knew we would be friends.

After twenty-five years,

I believe I was right.

PROLOGUE

HAWKESRIDGE AT DEVILS DYKE

ST. ALBANS, ENGLAND, MARCH 1815

BRYCESON WAKEFIELD stood less than a breath away from becoming the Fifth Duke of Hawksworth.

His father moaned. In life, I have failed.

No man should die, or live, Hawk knew, calling himself a failure. No Father, he said, Do not believe it.

The old man grasped his hand with more strength than Bryce thought possible. What do I leave behind? he asked.

Me! Bryce wanted to shout. You leave me! But he said nothing. His sire voiced no pride in an only child, though neither did he repeat his litany of disappointments. How does one deal with a parent who had not so much as touched ones hand for all of a lifetime and now clasped it to his heart?

One attempts, Bryce decided, to invoke the smallest spark of kinship. You leave me behind, Father.

Fervor brightened his sires gaze. You, Bryce, you will make me proud?

God knew he had tried. I like to think I will.

Hawks hope for approval waned with the weakening of the old mans grip. I will; of course I will. Tell me what I must

Fight Bonaparte! Obsession flared in the old mans eyes for one bright moment. Bring honor to my name. I would die proud.

A fathers last words: He would be proud if

ONE

LONDON, SEPTEMBER 1816

BRYCESON WAKEFIELD, the Fifth Duke of Hawksworth, stood at the mouth of hellnot on the field of battle, but in the vestibule of a church, gothic and empty of guests.

There, he saw from afar, his wife, a bride with her bridegroom standing before a priest and there, Hawk knew that living, again, just might kill him.

Thrice on his way to this improbable place, he had ordered the carriage turned around, and thrice he had turned it back.

Even now, he wanted to leave, rather than face Alexandra with the dreadful sight of him, scarred and battered by war, but her very presence drew him up that aisle like a beacon in a night-dark storm.

~ ~ ~

SMILE, Alexandra Wakefield told herself, as she turned to face her bridegroom, her attention captured, instead, by the bearded derelict making his lone way up the aisle, the tap of his cane a desolate echo in the vaulted church.

His bearingtall, sturdy and wide-shoulderedas he took the front pew, and the sharp, intense gaze he directed her way, sent a shiver of startled awareness through her. He made her think, absurdly, of her late husbandnot the first time Bryce came to mind todaybut the brooding stranger watching her, as if he might devour her, looked nothing like him.

Bryceson Wakefield, the Fifth Duke of Hawksworth, a rogue by nature, swarthy, charming and handsome as sin, had enraptured every female who beheld him.

Alexandra had been no exception.

Beauty and his beast, some slyly called them, but Hawk was the beauty. The day he asked for her hand in marriage had been the happiest of her life. Then she learned the real reason he married her, and it hurt.

It hurt enough for her to say yes to Chesterfields proposal of marriage, one year to the day, after Hawksworth died at Waterloo.

At the memory, a sob rose in Alex, until the Vicar cleared his throat, snapping her back to reality with a hot rush of embarrassment. Do you, Alexandra Huntington Wakefield, he was forced to repeat, take Judson Edward Broderick, Viscount Chesterfield, as your lawfully wedded husband?

Panic gripped Alex, grief, soul-deep, but she had no time to regard it, as the brooding stranger stood, his jaw rigidly set, and tapped his cane on the floor. You will pardon the intrusion, he said, his husky and familiar voice swamping her in a miasma of yesterdays, but my wife must decline.

Bryce? Alex cried, but no sound emerged from her throat, none save the sob that had been trapped there. Then the chapels ceiling tilted, and dipped, and she kissed its floor.

Hawk hastened awkwardly to his wifes side and ignored the agony of kneeling, aware that he would have the devil of a time rising again. But at that moment, he cared for nothing, no one, save Alexandra. Give us a minute, he enjoined the beleaguered Vicar, because warning her hovering bridegroom away, with even a veneer of civility, would be impossible.

I object, Chesterfield said, revoking the need for civility.

What? Hawksworth snapped. You think I will abduct her from the altar? You would have no say, even if I did.

His old adversary hissed and bared his teeth, like a hound after a bone.

She is my wife, Hawk said, as much to affirm his responsibility as to stake his claim. Mine.

Gentlemen, remember where you are, the Vicar admonished, as he took Chesterfields arm and urged him up and toward the sanctuary, nodding for the unknown groomsman to follow.

Hawk lifted and supported his wifes head and shoulders, drinking in the sight of her like a man parched, shocked that the vision before him was not the hoyden he remembered. Ah, my funny-faced minx, he said, a rasp in his voice. What were you thinking, while my back was turned, to go and blossom into a beauty, and to accept Chesterfield, of all people?

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