Candace Camp - A Lady Never Tells

It doesnt get any better than this.
The Romance Reader

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author

CANDACE CAMP

HER REGENCY ROMPS ARE

DELIGHTFUL. Publishers Weekly

DELECTABLE. Booklist

SPIRITED. Publishers Weekly

CAPTIVATING. Romantic Times

ENGAGING. All About Romance

ENTERTAINING. The Best Reviews

This talented craftswoman (All About Romance), who is renowned as a storyteller who touches the hearts of her readers time and again (Romantic Times ), presents Willowmere, a sparkling new Regency series featuring three noble English bachelors, raised as brothers, who are suddenly saddled with four American cousins, all girls of marriageable age! Scrapes, romantic complications, and misunderstandings cannot fail to ensue .

Look for more of the Willowmere series from
Pocket Books in the months to come!

A Lady Never Tells is also available as an eBook

CANDACE CAMP

The sale of this book without its cover is unauthorized. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it was reported to the publisher as unsold and destroyed. Neither the author nor the publisher has received payment for the sale of this stripped book.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2010 by Candace Camp

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books Subsidiary Rights Department,
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

First Pocket Star Books paperback edition May 2010

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Designed by Jill Putorti

Cover illustration by Alan Ayers
Hand lettering by Ron Zinn

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

ISBN 978-1-4391-1797-2
ISBN 978-1-4391-5770-1 (eBook)

For my grandmother, Lula Lee Bibby Irons,
who was never too busy to join in a game of make-believe

This book would never have come into being without the help of my agent, Maria Carvainis, who often supplies me with a handy backbone.

Thanks, too, goes to my editor, Abby Zidle, for her invaluable insight and suggestions.

And most of all, I would like to thank my husband, Pete Hopcus, and my daughter, Anastasia Hopcus, who provide great sounding boards for all of my (often-tangled) ideas.

Mary Bascombe was scared. She had been frightened beforeone could not have grown up in a new and dangerous land and not have faced something that set ones heart to beating double-time. But this wasnt like the time they had seen the bear nosing around their mothers clothesline. Or even like the way her heart had leapt into her throat the day her stepfather had grabbed her arm and pulled her against him, his breath reeking of alcohol. Then she had known what to dohow to back slowly and quietly into the house and load the pistol, or how to stomp down hard on Cosmos instep so that he released her with a howl of pain.

No, this was an entirely new sensation. She was in a strange city filled with strange people, and she had absolutely no idea what to do next. She felt lost.

Mary took another glance around her at the bustling docks. She had never seen so much noise and activity or so many people in one place in her life. She had thought the docks in Philadelphia were busy, but that was nothing compared to London. All around them were piles of goods, with stevedores loading and unloading them, and people hurrying about, all seemingly with someplace to be and little time to get there.

There were no women. The few whom she had seen disembark from ships had been whisked away in carriages with their male companions. Indeed, all the passengers from their own ship were long gone, only she and her sisters still standing here in a forlorn group beside their small pile of luggage. The shadows were beginning to lengthen; it would not be long until night began to fall. And though Mary might be a nave American cast adrift in London, she was smart enough to know that the London docks at night were no place for four young women alone.

The problem was that Mary didnt know what to do next. She had expected there to be an inn not far from where they left their ship. But as soon as they disembarked, she had realized that the area around these docks would not house an inn where a respectable group of young women could stay. Indeed, she was reluctant for them even to walk through the narrow streets she could see stretching out in front of her. A few hacks had come by and Mary had tried to stop one or two, but the drivers had simply rolled past, ignoring her. No doubt they presumed from the rather ragtag pile of luggage that Mary and her sisters would not be a good fare.

They could not stay here. Unless a carriage happened by soon, they would be forced to pick up their bags and walk into the narrow, dingy streets beyond the docks. Mary glanced uncertainly around her. Several of the men loading the ships had been casting their eyes toward Mary and her sisters for some time. Now, as her gaze fell on one of them, he gave her a bold grin. Mary stiffened, returning her most freezing look, and pivoted away slowly and deliberately.

She studied her three sistersRose, the next oldest to Mary and the acknowledged beauty of the family, with her limpid blue eyes and thick black hair; Camellia, whose gray eyes were, as always, no-nonsense and alert, her dark gold hair efficiently braided and wrapped into a knot at the crown of her head; and Lily, the youngest and most like their father, with her light brown, sun-streaked hair and gray-green eyes.

All three girls gazed back at Mary with a steadfast trust that only made the icy knot in her stomach clench tighter. Her sisters were counting on her to take care of them, just as Mama had counted on her to get the girls away from their stepfathers house after their mothers death and across the ocean to London, to the safety and security of their grandfathers home. Mary had managed the first part of it. But all of that, she knew, would be for naught if she failed now. She had to get her sisters someplace safe and proper for the night, and then she had to face a grandfather none of them had ever metthe man who had tossed out his own daughter for defying his wishesand convince him to take in that same daughters children. Instinctively, Mary clutched her slender stitched-leather satchel closer to her chest.