How Not to Chaperon a Lady--A sexy, funny Regency romance Read online

  The Talk of the Beau Monde

  Three unconventional sisters for three infamous lords

  As the daughters of a famous portrait artist, sisters Faith, Hope and Charity Brookes are regular features at the best balls and soirees—and in the gossip columns!

  Daring to follow their dreams of being an artist, writer and singer means scandal is never far away, especially when they each fall for titled—and infamous—gentlemen who set the ton’s tongues wagging!

  Read Faith’s story in

  The Viscount’s Unconventional Lady

  Read Hope’s story in

  The Marquess Next Door

  And Charity’s story

  How Not to Chaperon a Lady

  All available now!

  Author Note

  The Brookes sisters have been part of my life for a year now, so I am sad to say goodbye to them as I release the final book of my The Talk of the Beau Monde trilogy into the wild.

  I’ve had to research Regency portrait painting and European diplomacy for Faith and Piers’s book (The Viscount’s Unconventional Lady) and the nineteenth-century publishing industry and private lunatic asylums for Hope and Luke’s (The Marquess Next Door). For this one, Charity and Griff’s story, it has been the trials and tribulations of opera singing, regional theaters, steam engines and onion fairs.

  Yes—you did just read that last sentence correctly, but I won’t spoil the story by telling why anybody bothered to have an onion fair!

  Charity Brookes has been a delight throughout the previous two installments. She’s loud, extroverted, exuberant, mischievous and flirtatious. A real bundle of fun whose opera star began to rise in the first book and then shine in the second. Now we see her embark on a sold-out solo tour of the north, but with every Brookes busy, she gets the worst possible chaperon—her childhood nemesis, Gruff Griff the Fun Spoiler...

  VIRGINIA HEATH

  How Not to Chaperon a Lady

  When Virginia Heath was a little girl, it took her ages to fall asleep, so she made up stories in her head to help pass the time while she was staring at the ceiling. As she got older, the stories became more complicated—sometimes taking weeks to get to their happy ending. One day she decided to embrace her insomnia and start writing them down. Virginia lives in Essex, UK, with her wonderful husband and two teenagers. It still takes her forever to fall asleep...

  Books by Virginia Heath

  Harlequin Historical

  His Mistletoe Wager

  Redeeming the Reclusive Earl

  The Scoundrel’s Bartered Bride

  Christmas Cinderellas

  “Invitation to the Duke’s Ball”

  The Talk of the Beau Monde

  The Viscount’s Unconventional Lady

  The Marquess Next Door

  How Not to Chaperon a Lady

  Secrets of a Victorian Household

  Lilian and the Irresistible Duke

  The King’s Elite

  The Mysterious Lord Millcroft

  The Uncompromising Lord Flint

  The Disgraceful Lord Gray

  The Determined Lord Hadleigh

  Visit the Author Profile page

  at Harlequin.com for more titles.

  For Rebecca Silverman

  Soprano extraordinaire

  Contents

  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

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Excerpt from Lord Grantwell’s Christmas Wish by Diane Gaston

  Chapter One

  As the magnificent masterpiece that is The Marriage of Figaro enters its final week, I have it on the highest authority, Dear Reader, that its youngest and brightest star, Miss Charity Brookes, has already secured another lucrative singing engagement. As soon as the final curtain falls at Covent Garden, the vivacious young soprano will head north to delight the musically starved masses there...

  Whispers from Behind the Fan

  —April 1815

  ‘I am not saying he isn’t a perfectly nice gentleman.’ Charity patted her friend’s arm in the hope it banished the wounded expression now etched in her face. ‘Nor am I saying Captain Sinclair isn’t a thoroughly decent sort either, as he is undeniably both of those things. But there are gentlemen and there are gentlemen, Dorothy, so granting him both waltzes simply because he was the first to ask for them tonight isn’t sensible, as it sends a clear message to all the other gentlemen here that you are taken.’

  ‘But he was waiting at the door...specifically for me.’

  ‘Which is all rather lovely and hugely flattering, yet you still shouldn’t have blithely allowed him both. The waltz is...’ An incredibly significant dance as far as the three Brookes sisters were concerned, when she considered that both Faith and Hope had fallen head over heels in love after their first waltzes with their now besotted husbands. ‘Well...it’s special, that is all because a gentleman only asks a lady to waltz if he has designs on her. Everybody knows that. Giving one out makes a statement—but two! And to the same man, then you might as well give up all hope of anyone else asking you to dance ever again.’

  ‘So I shouldn’t dance with him at all?’ Now Dorothy looked crestfallen after thoroughly misinterpreting all her friend’s sensible advice, staring mournfully at the Captain across the ballroom as if the sun rose and set with him. ‘Even though I desperately want to?’

  ‘Of course, you should dance with him. He is both charming and handsome and you will look very striking together on the dance floor. But only once at any ball. Those are the rules and they aren’t just my rules either, Dorothy. Everyone knows what two waltzes mean. Simply tell him that you made a mistake and that he can have the first waltz but that you had previously promised the second to another. That keeps him keen and your options open.’ Which was the whole point of Charity’s cautionary advice in the first place, as in the last month her friend had rather worryingly nailed her colours firmly to Captain Sinclair’s mast. ‘And it also gives Lord Tevitt the opportunity to ask you too. The poor man has been staring at you longingly since you arrived.’

  ‘Dance with who you want to, Dottie.’ Typically, at that moment Griffith Philpot decided to stop ignoring them to interfere and purposely contradict her. ‘If my brotherly opinion is worth anything, I much prefer Captain Sinclair over the chinless Lord Tevitt and always have. And so what if everyone makes assumptions about the pair of you? Particularly if those assumptions are correct.’ As his sister smiled he shot Charity a withering glance before running more interference. ‘Sinclair is a sensible man of substance.’

  Such a typically Gruff Griff answer. Charity rolled her eyes. ‘There is substance and substance. And while it is true that the good C
aptain is almost as eminently sensible as Griffith here...’ she pulled a face to ensure that her best friend’s reliably irritating elder brother knew she found him as dull as dishwater ‘...there are plenty of other sensible gentlemen here too and a great many of them also have other more attractive attributes to recommend them.’ It was second nature to always pull him down a peg or two, especially for his lack of breeding. A petty retribution for his canny knack of always making her feel less than perfect.

  ‘Like stately piles and ancient titles, I suppose?’ As usual, he stared back at her as if she was talking utter rot, making her feel six years old again and doomed to never pass muster. ‘You would have my sister compromise her future happiness to chase such shallow attributes, Charity?’

  That was his stock-in-trade answer because he always thought her shallow, which of course meant that she had to prove she didn’t give two figs for his lowly opinion. ‘While a captain is better than a mere mister—’ like Mr Griffith Philpot, for example ‘—a captain is no match for an earl, and whether you approve of that or not, Griff, even you cannot deny that such an elevation in station would inevitably give Dorothy a much better life in the long run than Captain Sinclair ever could.’

  Both her sisters had flourished since marrying their lords—in their private lives and in their careers. Faith’s portraits were now almost as sought after as their father’s and Hope’s first book had positively flown off the shelves and there was already huge anticipation of the second. And, of course, they were suddenly welcomed and lauded everywhere. Although in fairness to her sisters, their success would have likely happened irrespective of whom they had married but she wouldn’t state that part in front of Griff because it would make him right even though she secretly agreed with him.

  He shook his dark head with no attempt to disguise his blatant irritation. ‘My sister is an heiress who can well afford that better life for herself, as you well know, and that irrefutable fact is at the root of Lord Tevitt’s sudden attraction to her. Whereas Captain Sinclair was partial to her before he took his commission and long before my father decided to make her a target for fortune hunters last year by announcing to the world she came with fifty thousand pounds.’ A decision which had caused much consternation in the normally harmonious Philpot family between father and son which they still locked horns over, and which had turned Griff into the most annoyingly overprotective brother on earth who had returned to town on the back of it. ‘Therefore, not only is that mere Captain a sensible man of substance, but a genuine one to boot. One who has an honest affection for my sister. I would be remiss in my duty as her brother not to point that out.’

  When he put it like that, drat him, there was no real arguing the point. A title was all well and good, but it was no substitute for character. There were good lords, like her sisters’ husbands Luke and Piers, but there were twice as many bad ones. She didn’t trust Lord Tevitt’s motives either, so he had been a very poor example to use to illustrate her point.

  If he hadn’t been Griffith Philpot, the only man in the world who had never shown the slightest bit of interest in her and had been her disapproving tormentor since she had been six, then she would have conceded it. However, since his return to Bloomsbury last year, he tolerated her less now that she was a grown woman than he had when he had been ten, therefore hell would have to freeze over before she ever agreed with him on any subject when he was digging his supercilious heels in.

  ‘As an heiress, Dorothy has the pick of the crop, Griff, and she deserves the chance to peruse the entire harvest before she makes a hasty decision which will affect the rest of her life and her future happiness. Captain Sinclair has only just returned after two years away, during which time even you must concede he failed to send her one single letter. Therefore, I am not as convinced of his honest affection as you seem to be and I would be remiss in my duty as her oldest and dearest friend if I did not point that out too.’

  Griff scowled, which was a sure sign he didn’t have an immediate answer to her hastily cobbled together argument, so she patted herself on the back for her quick thinking despite knowing it wasn’t entirely true. Any fool with eyes could see that the painfully shy Captain Sinclair was hopelessly in love with Dorothy and always had been, the poor thing. It was that shyness which had prevented him from making a declaration before he went off to war in his dashing regimentals. More worryingly, and no doubt selfishly, Charity was becoming increasingly convinced her best friend now shared the sentiment. Which was likely one of the main reasons why she was trying to slow things down between them, because now that both her sisters were deliriously settled, if Dorothy sprinted headfirst into marriage any time soon she would be the only single lady left from their close-knit childhood circle.

  That uncomfortable truth niggled.

  Because of course she wanted her friend to be happy, just as she had wanted Faith and Hope to be happy, and as a hopeless romantic at heart, not to mention the product of two happily married parents, she really did want that to be with a man who adored Dorothy. But Charity had also dreamed of the same for herself, desperately wanting a happily ever after as perfect as her sisters had found. She wanted a spiritual connection with a man who gazed at her with the same mutual adoration as Piers looked at Faith and Luke looked at Hope. It really made no difference if that man were a peer or a pauper as long as she loved him and he loved her back. Unfortunately, that heady state continued to elude her as the prime candidate she had selected was proving to be terribly slow on the uptake and no closer to falling in love with her now than he had been a year ago when she had first singled him out.

  Against her better judgement and as her friend scurried off to break the bad news to her Captain, she allowed her eyes to wander to where Lord Denby, the handsome and charming heir to the Duke of Loughton, laughed with his usual gang of cronies. Despite eleven months of determined flirting, coincidental encounters and the occasional stolen kiss, he still hadn’t made any more of a public declaration of intent towards her than the occasional dance. Usually when she had chivvied him into it. In private, however, he was beyond keen and made no secret of his fervent desire for her. Which meant that she was starting to think she had nailed her colours to entirely the wrong mast herself as her future duke didn’t seem the least bit inclined to properly court her and likely wouldn’t even know she was here tonight unless she purposely bumped into him again.

  Too late, she realised Griff was watching her. Not only was he watching her, the wretch had angled his big body to face Lord Denby, his fingers tapping his annoyingly square chin as if pondering a great mystery. ‘I suppose he’d be an entirely acceptable candidate to bestow both waltzes on? Assuming, of course, that by your mercenary rhetoric a captain is better than a mere mister and an earl is no match for a future duke.’ He huffed out an unconvincing sigh as he shrugged. ‘If only you weren’t largely invisible to him, Charity, no matter how hard you throw yourself at him.’

  She smiled knowingly, not wanting Griff to realise he had read the depressing situation entirely correctly. ‘If that is what everyone thinks, then we are clearly doing a very good job of hiding things.’ Denby was all over her like a rash if they were alone, and while she had hoped granting him a few liberties might make him yearn for more, the only thing he seemed to yearn for was taking her to bed.

  ‘Oh, so he’s purposely ignoring you, is he?’ He was amused now rather than convinced, forcing her to suppress the urge to knock the smug smile from his face as she used to do as a child when he riled her to breaking point and instead summon every bit of her acting prowess to remain suitably unperturbed. Let him think what he wanted, it would be a cold day in hell before she allowed him to see the truth. ‘What restraint the besotted fellow has if he possesses the willpower to avoid even glancing your way after all the trysts you have engaged in.’

  Sometimes Griff’s intuitiveness really grated. ‘You know what the gossip columns are like. Or at least you w
ould know if you were interesting enough for them to want to write about you.’

  ‘True.’ He took an unoffended sip from the customary glass of champagne he had been nursing for at least the last half an hour to ensure he avoided having to dance with anyone. ‘It’s either that or my lack of effort at courting them which keeps my name blessedly out of the things. But then, I do not require the constant attention and admiration of the masses that some individuals do to feel content about myself.’

  The barb stung, exactly as it was intended to, but she shrugged it off exactly as she always did, wishing she didn’t care that he disapproved of her so when she had always craved his approval most of all. An unfortunate character trait which had only got worse in the year since he had returned, no matter how much she tried to fight against it. ‘That is just as well, really, Griff, isn’t it? Because you would feel disappointed for ever if you did.’

  As the last bars of the dance played, she made a great show of consulting her full-to-the-brim card ensuring that he could see all of the names of the gentlemen who had clamoured to be on it and tried not to feel relieved to see her next, and decidedly lacklustre, titled partner cutting a swathe through the crowds to fetch her from the one man who always saw too much. ‘But as scintillating as your company continues to be this evening, I fear you must excuse me.’ She managed to time her about-turn perfectly to coincide with her partner’s arrival and used every drop of her theatrical training to beam at him as she curtsied. ‘Lord Rigsby—what perfect timing.’ Because once again, Griff had left her feeling unsettled, uncertain and not quite good enough. The least impressive Brookes out of the supremely talented Brookes clan, not that she had ever admitted that to anyone, and the trailing third place in the three-person race that had always been her life.

  * * *

  It galled that he kept watching her.

  Despite promising himself he would fully immerse himself in the company of others this time, Griff’s uncompliant eyes continually drifted towards Charity of their own accord exactly as they always did. In fact, tonight they had been particularly wayward to such a ridiculous extent he could probably recite each one of her many dance partners from the lovelorn Lord Rigsby to the illustrious Lord Denby she put so much stock in and who was currently twirling her around the floor in a waltz. And by the dreamy look in her big, blue eyes, the blighter was thoroughly charming the minx in the process.