Regency Sins. Bronwyn Scott
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Название: Regency Sins

Автор: Bronwyn Scott

Издательство: HarperCollins

Жанр: Короткие любовные романы

Серия: Mills & Boon M&B

isbn: 9781408975305

isbn:

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      Don’t miss these other Regency delights from Mills & Boon® Historical romance’s bestselling authors!

      REGENCY PLEASURES

      Louise Allen

      REGENCY SECRETS

      Julia Justiss

      REGENCY RUMOURS

      Juliet Landon

      REGENCY REDEMPTION

      Christine Merrill

      REGENCY DEBUTANTES

      Margaret Mcphee

      REGENCY IMPROPRIETIES

      Diane Gaston

      REGENCY MISTRESSES

      Mary Brendan

      REGENCY REBELS

      Deb Marlowe

      REGENCY SCANDALS

      Sophia James

      REGENCY MARRIAGES

      Elizabeth Rolls

      REGENCY INNOCENTS

      Annie Burrows

      REGENCY SINS

      Bronwyn Scott

      About the Author

      BRONWYN SCOTT is a communications instructor at Pierce College in the United States, and is the proud mother of three wonderful children (one boy and two girls). When she’s not teaching or writing, she enjoys playing the piano, travelling—especially to Florence—and studying history and foreign languages. You can learn more about Bronwyn at www.nikkipoppen.com.

       Regency Sins

       Pickpocket Countess

       Notorious Rake, Innocent Lady

      Bronwyn Scott

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      MILLS & BOON

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       Pickpocket Countess

      For Jeff and Diane Clausen and Ellen Holt,

      who are great fans and even better friends.

      As always, for my awesome family.

       Chapter One

       Near Manchester, England, Early December, 1831

      Even in the darkness, he could sense the subtle alteration of the chamber. The room had been disturbed. Brandon Wycroft, the fifth Earl of Stockport, muttered curses under his breath. Damn, The Cat had been here.

      The irony of the burglary was not lost on him. While twelve distinguished men of the district met downstairs in his library, smoking his fine cigars, drinking his expensive brandy and plotting how they’d catch the latest menace to the peace, that very menace had prowled free upstairs, daring to invade his most private sanctum: his bedroom.

      It was only due to his keen hearing and the location of his rooms over the library that he had heard the faint scraping of a chair on the floor at all and had gone upstairs to investigate.

      Curtains stirred at the window, calling his attention to the source of the winter chill permeating his quarters. The window was open. A slight movement behind the curtains gave away the intruder.

      Brandon’s eyes narrowed. His body tensed. He amended his earlier thought. Not ‘had prowled’ but ‘was prowling’. Standing in the doorway of his chambers, he knew his instincts were right. The Cat was still in the room.

      Brandon’s dissatisfaction transformed itself into a sense of vindication. After a month of burglarising the wealthy of Stockport-on-the-Medlock and other potential investors in Manchester who supported the proposed textile mill, The Cat’s reign would come to an abrupt end tonight. He would catch The Cat right now and be done with the blustering investors downstairs who had been more interested in kowtowing to the nobleman in residence than concocting a worthy plan. Then he could get back to Parliament and the controversial reform legislation that awaited him in London. But first, he had to catch the man behind the curtain.

      A figure emerged from the shadow of the heavy curtains. The figure did not bolt as Brandon expected, but stood brashly at the sill, letting the moonlight outline her silhouette.

      Her? The Cat, the daring intruder who stood between him and the success of the mill, which he needed to save Stockport-on-the-Medlock from the ignominy of agricultural penury, was unmistakably a woman. A provocatively dressed woman at that, Brandon conceded, raking his gaze over her form.

      Loose folds of a dark shirt draped over the swell of promising breasts. Glove-tight black breeches showed off a slender waist, encasing shapely hips and long-booted legs.

      The woman was alluring, but that didn’t change the fact she was a thief intruding on his private domain and now she was entirely at his mercy. Brandon crossed his arms and affected an air of negligence. He leaned against the door frame, letting his tall form fill the space as an obvious blockade.

      There would be no escape through the door as long as he lounged there. The only other option was the impossibly high window that dropped two storeys to the ground, begging the question of how the thief had managed to gain entrance to the house and make her way unnoticed upstairs to his bedroom.

      ‘I am afraid I have cut off your escape route. That is unless you favour the window.’ Brandon drawled the last with a touch of sarcasm, knowing full well how inaccessible it was, set thirty feet from the ground. He could not conceive of a way anyone could gain access to it, let СКАЧАТЬ