SNOWED BY THE WALLFLOWER #NewRelease #RevengeoftheWallflowers
It’s release day for Snowed by the Wallflower, by Caroline Warfield!
Belinda Westcott doesn’t want to injure the Earl of Ridgemont. She merely wants to humiliate him. After all, one good prank deserves a payback. How could she anticipate that it would go so terribly wrong, or that he would turn out to be nothing like she expected?
Skilled in both chemistry and cooking, Belinda happily hides in her aunt’s kitchen rather than risk embarrassment at the ongoing house party. The unexpected appearance of the earl and a skating party present the perfect opportunity to embarrass him in front of some snooty society miss. Unfortunately, his partner is Belinda’s cousin, and even worse, the cousin drinks the hot chocolate—laced with emetics—meant for the earl.
As plain Major John Conlyn, John had sunk into a morass of dissipation wen first released from the army. Neither his actions nor his companions make him proud. The death of a beloved cousin shocked him back to sense. It also made him an earl and the heir to his grandfather, a duke. He’s been ordered to find a wife and settle down. He wouldn’t mind, but now he’s surrounded by flighty debutantes and their grasping mothers. The one woman who interests him avoids him. She acts as if she despises him. Is it possible he did something when out of control that he ought to apologize for, something he can’t recall?
Excerpt
“Look at them. Throwing themselves at him as if he were a prize stallion and they the farmer’s least favored mares,” the old lady grumbled.
“He’s the biggest prize this year, Mabel,” another matron replied. “Duke’s heir. This bunch hopes to get the jump on the fillies coming up next Season.”
She means the much-vaunted earl, of course. She wondered how the earl would feel being compared to a breeding horse. It would serve him right. Being ogled as if she were a brood mare on auction had soured Belinda on the whole Marriage Mart business. Then again, it might puff up his male ego.
She glanced at the men at the end of the room, recognizing only a few of the older gentlemen. Which might be the earl? One rotund man going thin on top looked a likely candidate. So did the chinless fellow next to him. No eager misses clustered around either of them, however. There was no sight of Cecil either.
Two ladies moved, and she caught sight of Sophie smiling up at a tall gentleman while her friends stood, wide-eyed, nearby. If that was the earl, he was far from the faded roué Belinda expected. When he tipped his head to listen to Sophie, candlelight reflected off the thick honey-gold waves of his hair. Sophie obviously found him enthralling, and, peering at his broad shoulders and strong back, Belinda could see why a naïve young thing might be infatuated. She tamped down her own unbidden and unwanted jolt of attraction, swallowing the sudden lump in her throat.
Dinah Beckwith sailed over to Sophie’s circle. The Season’s diamond two years ago, she had turned down two younger sons, a viscount, and baronet. Belinda thought her a harpy who would settle for no less than a duke or a marquess—or the heir to one. Poor Sophie.
Doors to the dining room opened on the far right. “Dinner is served.” Carlton’s announcement woke Belinda from her absorption in Sophie’s companion just as he turned and she saw his face.
That is no earl! Belinda’s stomach curdled. John Conlyn, author of Belinda’s greatest humiliation, the fiasco at the Duchess of Haverford’s charity Venetian outing, stood across the room, as gloriously handsome and untrustworthy as ever. He had been absent the previous season, along with Cecil’s circle of reprobates; she’d hoped he was gone for good.
That man can’t be the earl. Can he?
While Belinda watched, Aunt Violet took Conlyn’s arm, “As highest-ranking guest…” she trilled, gazing up and him and parading toward the dining room. Belinda’s lunch threatened to make a reappearance.
Buy link: https://books2read.com/snowedbywallflower
Snowed by the Wallflower is Book #48 in the Revenge of the Wallflowers multi-author series.