The Virgin and the Viscount
(The Bachelor Lords of London #2)
by Charis Micheals
Release date: July 5th, 2016
Release date: July 5th, 2016
Publish by AVON Impulse
About THE VIRGIN AND THE VISCOUNT
In
the next sparkling romance in debut author Charis Michael’s Bachelor Lords of
London series, a proper viscount meets his match in a beguiling virgin who
can't help but break all the rules.
The
Virgin
Lady Elisabeth Hamilton-Baythes has a painful secret. At the innocent age of fifteen, she was abducted by highwaymen and sold to a brothel. After two days, a young lord discovers her and enacts a brave rescue to get her out. Now she's a grown woman, working to save other girls from the horror she saw that night and never forgetting the young man who rescued her.
The Viscount
Bryson Courtland, Viscount Rainsleigh has overcome an abusive boyhood, neglectful parents, and a bankrupt title to be one of the wealthiest noblemen in Britain. He works tirelessly to be upright and forthright and proper to a fault. Now he requires only one thing: A proper, forthright, proper wife.
The Unraveling
When a charity event puts Lord Bryson and Lady Elisabeth face-to-face, Bryson has no memory of the wounded girl of long ago. All he can see is a perfect candidate to be his future wife. Elisabeth has never forgotten him, but she worries that the brave boy who saved her so long ago has become a rich man with an unfulfilled life.
As a whirlwind courtship reveals the truth, Bryson must accept that Elisabeth is actually a shadow from his dark past, while Elisabeth must show that love is the noblest virtue of all.
Lady Elisabeth Hamilton-Baythes has a painful secret. At the innocent age of fifteen, she was abducted by highwaymen and sold to a brothel. After two days, a young lord discovers her and enacts a brave rescue to get her out. Now she's a grown woman, working to save other girls from the horror she saw that night and never forgetting the young man who rescued her.
The Viscount
Bryson Courtland, Viscount Rainsleigh has overcome an abusive boyhood, neglectful parents, and a bankrupt title to be one of the wealthiest noblemen in Britain. He works tirelessly to be upright and forthright and proper to a fault. Now he requires only one thing: A proper, forthright, proper wife.
The Unraveling
When a charity event puts Lord Bryson and Lady Elisabeth face-to-face, Bryson has no memory of the wounded girl of long ago. All he can see is a perfect candidate to be his future wife. Elisabeth has never forgotten him, but she worries that the brave boy who saved her so long ago has become a rich man with an unfulfilled life.
As a whirlwind courtship reveals the truth, Bryson must accept that Elisabeth is actually a shadow from his dark past, while Elisabeth must show that love is the noblest virtue of all.
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Where to buy THE VIRGIN AND THE
VISCOUNT
Prologue
On April
12, 1809, Franklin “Frankie” Courtland, 6th Viscount Rainsleigh,
tripped on a root in the bottom of a riverbed and drowned. He was drunk at the time, picnicking with
friends on the banks of the River Wylye.
According an account later given to the magistrate, his lordship simply
fell over, bumped into a fallen log, and sank.
It was
there he remained—“enjoying the cool,” or so his friends believed—until he became
too heavy, too slippery, and, alas, too dead to revive. But they did dislodge him; and after that,
they claimed he floated to the surface, bobbed several times, and then gently
glided downstream. He was later found
just before sunset, face down and bloated (in life, as also in death), beached
on a pebble shoal near Codford.
At the
time the elder Courtland was sinking to the bottom of the river, his son and
heir, Bryson was hunched over a desk in the offices of his fledgling shipping
company, waiting for the very moment his father would die. It had been an exceedingly long, progressively
humiliating wait. Years long—nay, decades.
Luckily
for Bryson, for his ships and his future, he was capable of doing more things
at once than wait, and while his father drank and debauched his way through all
respectability and life, Bryson worked.
It was
an unthinkable thing for a young heir and nobleman—to “work”—but Bryson was
given little choice, considering the impoverished state of the Rainsleigh
crest. He was scarcely eleven years of
age when he made first foray into labor, and not so many years after, into
private enterprise. His life in work had
not ceased since. On the rare occasion
that he didn’t work, he studied.
With his
meager earnings (he began by punting boats on the very river in which his
father later drowned), he made meager investments. These investments reaped small gains—first in
shares in the punting station; later in property along the water; later still,
in other industry up and down the river.
Bryon
lived modestly, worked ceaselessly, and spared only enough to pay his way
through Cambridge, bring up his brother, and see him educated him, as
well. Every guinea earned was
reinvested. He repeated the process
again and again, a little less meagerly each time ‘round.
By the
time the elder viscount’s self-destructive lifestyle wrought his river- and
drink-soaked end, Bryson had managed to accrue a small fortune, launch a
company that built and sailed ships, and construct an elaborate plan for what
he would do when his father finally cocked up his toes and died.
When at
last that day came, Bryson had but one complaint: it took fifty-two hours for
the constable to find him. He was a
viscount for two days before anyone, including himself, even knew it.
But two
days was a trifle compared to a lifetime of waiting. And on the day he learned of his inheritance—nay,
the very hour—he launched his long awaited plan.
By three
o’clock on the fourth day, he’d razed the rotting, reeking east wing of the
family estate in Wiltshire to the ground.
Within
the week, he’d extracted his mother from the west wing and shipped her and a
contingent of discreet caregivers to a villa in Spain.
Within the month, he’d sold every stick of furniture,
every remaining fork and dish, every sweat-soaked toga and opium-tinged
gown. He burned the drapes, burned the
rugs, burned the tapestries. He
delivered the half-starved horses and the fighting dogs to an agricultural
college and pensioned off the remaining staff.
By the six-week mark, he’d unloaded the London
townhome—sold at auction to the highest bidder—and with it, the broken-down
carriage, his father’s dusty arsenal, what was left of the wine stores, and all
the lurid art.
It was a whirlwind evacuation, a gutting, really, and no
one among polite society had ever witnessed a son or heir take such absolute
control and haul away so much family or property quite so fast.
But no
one among polite society was acquainted with Bryson Anders Courtland, the new
Viscount Rainsleigh.
And no
one understood that it was not so much an ending as it was an entirely fresh
start. Once the tearing down ceased, the
rebuilding could begin. New viscountsy, new money, new respect, new life.
It was
an enterprise into which Bryson threw himself like no other. Unlike all others,
however, he could only do so much, one man, alone. For this, he would require
another. A partner. Someone with whom he could work together
towards a common goal. A collaborator
who emulated his precise, immaculate manner. A matriarch, discreet and pure. A
paragon of propriety. A viscountess. A proper, perfect wife.
(My Thoughts)
The Virgin and the
Viscount is an
incredible, amazing Historical Romance. Elisabeth and Bryson's romance has
everything I look for in a story from this era: witty flirting, a strong
heroine, a hero that swoons me off my feet… But most of all, it's the depth of
love that I feel between both characters. Elisabeth and Bryson's romance is
heartfelt love. Theirs is the kind of beautiful romance that
strengthens and grows the person inside as their love for each other
deepens. Elisabeth and Bryson's romance grabbed ahold of my heart and made me
fall in love right along with them.
Elisabeth and Bryson
both had damaging, traumatic childhoods that changed who they became as adults.
Elisabeth suffered short-term abuse, which made her feisty and strong-willed,
and made her want to help rescue girls like her and give them different
choices in life than the brothel. Bryson's childhood abuse and the shame of
his father’s drinking and debauchery had a more damaging effect
on Bryson, causing him to be prideful, craving wealth and the respect
and propriety that money brings. Bryson had acquired all of this, but now
he needed a wife—a proper, perfect wife. Bryson wants Elisabeth, and let’s just
say Bryson gets more than he asks for in Elisabeth, but she’s exactly what he
needs in order to show him what's really important, and that's
love.
Bryson saved Elisabeth
when she needed saving and Elisabeth saves Bryson when he needs to
be saved. Bryson and Elisabeth's love story is a story of finding
the love of your heart and the true meaning to happiness. I highly
recommend The Virgin and the Viscount as a beautiful, awe-inspiring love
story with a steamy romance. It’s a must read.
5 Hearts of Love for Bryson & Elisabeth
About CHARIS MICHAELS
Charis
Michaels is thrilled to be making her debut with Avon Impulse. Prior to writing
romance, she studied Journalism at Texas A&M and managed PR for a trade
association. She has also worked as a tour guide at Disney World, harvested
peaches on her family’s farm, and entertained children as the “Story Godmother”
at birthday parties. She has lived in Texas, Florida, and London, England. She
now makes her home in the Washington, D.C.-metro area.
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