CATHERINE GEORGE - Reform of the Rake

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Excerpt “I intend both to have this baby, and keep it.” Adam stared down at her, his eyes oddly blank. “I see. It’s ultimatum time.” He shrugged. “All right. You leave me with no choice. We get married.” “Oh, please, ” she said scathingly. “Right from the beginning you made it clear that marriage and a family are the last things you want. Besides, shotgun weddings are a bit out-of-date, Adam. Please don’t trouble yourself. I’ll manage on my own.” Adam’s mouth tightened. “You’re being stupid again, Lowri. There’s nothing else for it. I’ll arrange a quiet wedding as quickly as possible.”

Dear Reader Dear Reader, A special delivery—our bouncing baby series. Every month we’ve been bringing you your very own bundle of joy—a cute and delightful romance by one of your favorite authors. This series is all about the true labor of love— parenthood and how to survive it! Because, as our heroes and heroines have been discovering, two’s company and three (or four…or five) is a family! This month, with the last arrival in our series, comes a triple (or should that be triplet) helping of pleasure—a baby, a miracle for Christmas and a new story set in Pennington, Catherine George’s delightful English town. Season’s Greetings! Harlequin Romance

Title Page Reform of the Rake Catherine George www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Copyright

Adam stared down at her, his eyes oddly blank. “I see. It’s ultimatum time.” He shrugged. “All right. You leave me with no choice. We get married.”

“Oh, please, ” she said scathingly. “Right from the beginning you made it clear that marriage and a family are the last things you want. Besides, shotgun weddings are a bit out-of-date, Adam. Please don’t trouble yourself. I’ll manage on my own.”

Adam’s mouth tightened. “You’re being stupid again, Lowri. There’s nothing else for it. I’ll arrange a quiet wedding as quickly as possible.”

Dear Reader,

A special delivery—our bouncing baby series. Every month we’ve been bringing you your very own bundle of joy—a cute and delightful romance by one of your favorite authors. This series is all about the true labor of love— parenthood and how to survive it! Because, as our heroes and heroines have been discovering, two’s company and three (or four…or five) is a family!

This month, with the last arrival in our series, comes a triple (or should that be triplet) helping of pleasure—a baby, a miracle for Christmas and a new story set in Pennington, Catherine George’s delightful English town.

Season’s Greetings!

Harlequin Romance

www.millsandboon.co.uk

LOWRI gave her distinguished, grey-haired male customer a friendly, courteous smile, her amusement well hidden as she gift-wrapped expensive scraps of sexy underwear so very obviously intended for someone other than his wife. When he’d gone she exchanged a grin with her nearest colleague.

‘End of the lunchtime rush?’ She cast a hopeful eye round the suddenly deserted underwear department.

‘Give it five minutes, then it’ll be the afternoon surge of mothers and daughters.’

‘Plain cotton for school,’ agreed Lowri, tidying a rack of lacy silk teddies. ‘I wish I hadn’t taken early lunch— I’m starving already.’

‘Then you’d better have tea with me later,’ said a voice with a familiar, attractive lilt, and Lowri looked up in astonishment to meet a pair of blue eyes bright with accusation.

‘Sarah!’

‘In person. And I hope that blush is guilt, Lowri Morgan,’ said her cousin, plainly incensed. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’

‘Working,’ said Lowri lamely.

‘I managed to puzzle that out for myself,’ retorted Sarah. ‘When did all this happen, may I ask? And why didn’t you let me know?’

Lowri cast a hunted eye at some approaching customers. ‘I meant to soon, cross my heart. Look, I can’t talk now. I get a tea-break at three. Could you meet me upstairs at the coffee-shop?’

‘You bet I could—ask for extra time.’ Sarah fixed her young cousin with a steely eye. ‘You’ve got some explaining to do, young lady. In the meantime I’ll take one of these in thirty-four. And I’ll come back to collect you at three. Be ready.’

Lowri found the required size quickly, wrapped the purchase and took her cousin’s money, promising to see her later, then dealt with a pack of skinny, black-clad girls in leather jackets, all demanding the same make of maximum-bounce, minimum-price bra. For the next hour or so Lowri sold underwear of every category from sensible cotton sports to shameless see-through numbers of the type she’d never possessed herself nor ever dared to. It was some time before she got the chance to beg an extra ten minutes to add on to her tea-break. She hurried back to her post afterwards to attend to a tall man who was contemplating a display of astronomically pricey trifles with no hint of the dogged embarrassment most male customers displayed in the same circumstances.

‘May I help?’ said Lowri, in her usual friendly manner.

He smiled down at her, gold-flecked hazel eyes glinting under a pair of thick, ruler-straight eyebrows. ‘I’m sure you can,’ he said in a deep, drawling voice which flowed over Lowri like warm honey. He waved a hand at the exquisite lace bras. ‘I want two of these things, and the other bits to go with them—one set in thirty-six C, the other in thirty-two E.’ He cast an assessing eye over the display. ‘The first lot in that pinkish colour, I think, and the other one black. Mmm, yes, definitely black.’

Lowri swiftly located the required sizes, riven with envy for the recipients. ‘The knickers come in two styles, sir, the brief and this type.’ She pointed out a sexy lace G-string.

He grinned lazily. ‘The brief in pink, the non-existent one in black.’ He raised one of his distinctive eyebrows. ‘You approve?’

Lowri nodded, pink-cheeked. ‘A popular choice, sir. Would you like them gift-wrapped?’

Her customer, as she’d expected, not only wanted them gift-wrapped, but clearly marked as to which was which, a male request familiar to her after four hectic weeks in the underwear department. And normally Lowri prided herself on deftness and speed at gift-wrapping, but under the bright, amused scrutiny her fingers changed to thumbs, a condition which worsened as Sarah bore down on them, tapping the watch on her wrist.

Lowri threw her an apologetic smile, but Sarah was staring at the man tucking his credit card back into his wallet.

‘Adam!’ she said in surprise. ‘What are you doing here?’

The man grinned and kissed her on both cheeks. ‘What do you think I’m doing, Sarah? I’m buying underwear.’ He shot a look at Lowri. ‘And damned expensive it is in this place.’

Sarah raised an eyebrow at the tempting packages. ‘I bet I know exactly what you chose, too.’

‘The same stuff Rupert buys you, I imagine,’ he said, the grin wider, and looked at his watch. ‘Let me ply you with tea and sinful cakes upstairs.’

‘Not today, thanks, Adam. I’m just about to feed my young cousin, Lowri, here. Lowri, this is Adam Hawkridge.’

Adam Hawkridge turned the bright gold eyes on Lowri again and held her hand rather longer than necessary as he gave her a white, mega-watt smile. ‘How do you do, Lowri—a pleasure dealing with you. Let’s all have tea together.’

To Lowri’s intense disappointment Sarah refused briskly, telling Adam this was a girls-only bun-fight and she’d take a raincheck for another time. Wistfully, Lowri murmured something polite as Adam took his leave, then raced after him with the packages he’d forgotten.

‘Your parcels, Mr Hawkridge!’

He swung round, smiling. ‘Thank you. Pity about tea,’ he added in an undertone. ‘Another day, perhaps?’

Lowri blushed again, said something incoherent and hurried back to Sarah.

‘Wow!’ she said breathlessly. ‘What a gorgeous man.’

Sarah shook her head emphatically. ‘Not for you, love. Gorgeous he may be, but he’s a notorious heartbreaker.’

‘I wasn’t thinking of marrying him,’ said Lowri tartly. ‘I’ll just get my bag.’

Once they were settled at a corner table in the coffee-shop Sarah fixed her cousin with a commanding blue eye.

‘Now,’ she ordered. ‘Talk! When did all this come about? Have you quarrelled with your father? Why haven’t you been in touch—where are you living?’

Lowri bit into a profiterole with enthusiasm. ‘I came up here a month ago, but no quarrel with Dad, since you ask. I’m squashed in with four other girls in a flat in Shepherds Bush pro tern, and I intended making contact soon, Sarah, really I did, but I—I wanted to get my bearings first.’

‘Which doesn’t explain why someone with perfectly good secretarial skills is selling underwear to earn a crust, Lowri Morgan,’ said her cousin severely. ‘I thought you had a steady job in Newport.’

‘So did I. But my boss took early retirement, and bingo, no place for little Lowri.’

‘Surely you could have found something in the same line?’

‘Not easy. Besides—’ Lowri shrugged, smiling wryly.

‘It gave me the ideal excuse to get away. Right away.’

Sarah poured tea, frowning. ‘You said no quarrel, but are there problems at home?’

‘Only for me. Dad’s in seventh heaven.’ Lowri sighed guiltily. ‘I keep telling myself my father’s only forty-seven and very attractive and perfectly entitled to a second wife only a few years older than me. And I adore Holly. Really I do. But sharing a house with two newlyweds who can’t keep their hands off each other—particularly when one of them is your father—is pretty hard to take, Sarah. I got a nice little cheque from my old firm in Newport, Dad gave me a bit more, and one of the girls I worked with knew someone who needed another flatmate up here, so I left the land of my fathers and managed to get this job pretty quickly, thank goodness. It’s only part time, but it’s financing me while I do some serious job-hunting.’

Sarah eyed her narrowly. ‘And are you enjoying life more?’

Lowri pulled a face. ‘I didn’t at first. I was even feeble enough to feel homesick for a while. But I’m settling down now.’

‘How did my favourite uncle take to the move?’

‘Torn between objections to the idea, and euphoria at the prospect of privacy and solitude with Holly.’

‘Are you jealous?’

Lowri thought it over. ‘Not of Holly,’ she said slowly. ‘Only of what they’ve got together, I think. And Mum’s been dead a long time. Dad deserves his happiness. Only I just couldn’t stand playing gooseberry.’ She smiled cheerfully. ‘Anyway, enough about me. Tell me about Dominic and Emily—and that scrumptious husband of yours.’

‘Rupert’s the same, only more so.’ Sarah smiled wryly. ‘Up to his ears in his latest book and prone to vile moods when the flow doesn’t flow, as usual. My son seems to have some of his father’s brains, but a far sunnier disposition, thankfully, while Emily sails through life happy in the belief that everyone loves her.’