Chosen by the Lieutenant. Anne HerriesЧитать онлайн книгу.
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She has his hand, but not his heart…
Amanda Hamilton’s fortune means she’s not short of marriage offers, despite her unfashionable figure! But there’s only one man she wants for her husband, the dashing Lieutenant Peter Phipps, who is in dire financial straits. Amanda knows Phipps doesn’t love her, but when he proposes, she accepts—unable to resist the chance to live her dreams.
Their burgeoning relationship surprises everyone, especially Phipps, who discovers that his sweet, sensible fiancée is also brave and passionate. Suddenly, the role of dutiful husband looks a lot more attractive!
Amanda was lost in thought.
Phipps’s kiss after he’d licked the strawberry juice from his finger was something she had never encountered before. His previous kisses had been sweet and enjoyable—but that kiss … it had shaken her to the very core of her being, arousing such a whirl of fierce passions that she had been for a moment swept quite away. She’d seen something in his eyes: an answering need that had made her feel he wanted to lay her down in the sweet meadow grass and.
There her mind stopped, for to imagine those sensations brought to fulfilment was shocking.
She realised that it was going to be harder than she’d imagined, hiding her feelings for Phipps once they were married. If his kiss could arouse such fire in her—a blazing inferno that had threatened to sweep away all barriers—what would happen on their wedding night?
Praise for
Anne Herries:
‘Pride and Prejudice meets Agatha Christie in this enthralling, captivating and wonderfully passionate Regency romance by award-winning author Anne Herries.’ —CataRomance on COURTED BY THE CAPTAIN
‘Another enjoyable romp.’
—RT Book Reviews on AN INNOCENT DEBUTANTE IN HANOVER SQUARE
Chosen by the Lieutenant
Anne Herries
ANNE HERRIES lives in Cambridgeshire, where she is fond of watching wildlife and spoils the birds and squirrels that are frequent visitors to her garden. Anne loves to write about the beauty of nature, and sometimes puts a little into her books, although they are mostly about love and romance. She writes for her own enjoyment, and to give pleasure to her readers. Anne is a winner of the Romantic Novelists’ Association Romance Prize. She invites readers to contact her on her website: www.lindasole.co.uk
Contents
Prologue
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
Amanda Hamilton looked at her reflection in the long mirror in her dressing room and sighed, for she was no beauty. Of what use to be an heiress and have three proposals from fortune-hunters in the last month when she was what could be indelicately described as overweight? And at a time when the fashion was for sylphs and girls who looked as if a puff of wind would blow them away!
If only she did not have such a sweet tooth or was some inches taller! On a taller girl her inches might have looked impressive, for she had a well-formed bust and good hips, which many gentlemen liked, but Amanda was tiny. Papa was at fault for he had spoiled her when she was a small child, giving her sweetmeats and cakes and petting her, forming her appetite for the sticky sweet things that had proved her downfall.
Although her dark hair was glossy and her grey eyes bright and fearless, what man could truly want such a dumpling for a wife? Her face was too plump and had therefore lost the pretty shape that should be hers and she thought herself plain and dowdy, despite all the money spent on her clothes. So how could she ever expect to find the man of her dreams?
Oh, there were several who paid court to her and she’d received many offers this Season, but none of the gentlemen who had spoken wanted her for herself. Nor would they have been acceptable to Papa. Lord Neville Hamilton required a gentleman who could give his daughter the lifestyle she was accustomed to, though she knew that if she’d cared for any of her suitors Papa would have given in to her wishes in the end. None of them had caused Amanda to lose a wink of sleep and that was because her heart was already given to a man she’d loved from the first time he’d smiled at her.
Lieutenant Peter Phipps: the second son of Lord Richard Piper, and quite the kindest gentleman that Amanda had ever been privileged to meet. Phipps, as his friends called him, was kind enough to dance with her at a country-house ball when she’d been sitting for more than an hour, unnoticed by most of the gentlemen present. At that time her fortune had been modest, for Amanda had an elder brother, Robert, who would naturally inherit Papa’s estate. However, just a year after that fateful affair when Amanda had lost her heart, Great-aunt Mariah Howard had died and left her entire fortune to her favourite great-niece, much to the chagrin of several other nieces and nephews who might have had hopes of Lady Howard.
It seemed that some gentlemen who had found Amanda invisible a year ago were now eager to engage her attention. Several had already proposed marriage and, if she were not mistaken, another young man was about to do so. But, perversely, the one gentleman she would have married, regardless of whether he truly loved her or not, had given her no indication that he was preparing to make her an offer—even though he was unfailingly kind and always stopped to speak to her or stood up with her if she lacked partners.
Amanda was a clever girl, something she did her best to keep hidden, because as Mama had once told her, gentlemen did not care for knowing girls. Papa might be proud of her skills at drawing, French, Latin and mathematics, as well as some knowledge of the sciences, but Mama said it was all useless learning. Mama preferred her daughter to be skilled at needlework, which