It Happened One Night
Six Scandalous Novels
Grace Burrowes
Christi Caldwell
Tanya Anne Crosby
Julie Johnstone
Erica Ridley
Lauren Royal
AXEL: THE JADED GENTLEMEN © Grace Burrowes
FOR LOVE OF THE DUKE Copyright © 2014 by Christi Caldwell
THE IMPOSTOR’S KISS © Text Copyright © 2003 by Tanya Anne Crosby
MY ENCHANTING HOYDEN Copyright © 2015 by Julie Johnstone
LORD OF PLEASURE Copyright © 2017 Erica Ridley
TEMPTING JULIANA Copyright © Lauren Royal 2006, 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without written permission.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
License Notes
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Contents
Axel: The Jaded Gentlemen
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Author’s Note
More books in the Jaded Gentleman series
About Grace
For Love of the Duke
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Part II
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Epilogue
Author’s Note
More books in the Heart of a Duke series
About Christi
The Impostor’s Kiss
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Epilogue
Impostor Series
About Tanya
My Enchanting Hoyden
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Epilogue
A Once Upon A Rogue Series
About Julie
Lord of Pleasure
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Rogues to Riches series
About Erica
Tempting Juliana
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
More Books in the Chase Family Series
About Lauren Royal
Axel: The Jaded Gentlemen
By Grace Burr
owes
Acknowledgments
Axel and Abigail’s tale is a nice, big book—slightly more than 100,000 words—and the story took me in some unforeseen directions. Twining about the romance is a murder mystery, though I didn’t set out to write one of those any more than Axel Belmont set out to be a magistrate. He’s a botanist, for pity’s sake, and all he wants is to become a fellow at nearby Oxford University.
In the Regency period, the Oxford fellow was not permitted to marry. The lovely folks at the Oxford University Information Office and the Oxford University Archives responded to my inquiries regarding this curious situation, an artifact left over from the University’s medieval associations with the church. Without the University’s generous assistance on this topic, I would have disappeared down the research rabbit hole, possibly never to be seen again.
I owe another enormous debt to Joyce Lamb, my editor, who is also a RITA™-nominated author of romantic suspense novels. Any boo-boos in these pages are, of course, my own, but if the plot works, if the prose sings, it’s because of Joyce’s keen eye, and the supporting roles ably played by my proofreaders, Sarah and Cora.
And now, on to the romance… and the roses!
Chapter One
“Any neighbor who turns up deceased in the middle of a frigid January night has exhibited the height—the very zenith—of bad form.”
Axel Belmont announced this thesis to his horse, for Ivan had never been known to contradict one of the professor’s opening statements.
“Said bad form,” Axel went on, “would be surpassed only by a fellow who has the effrontery to complain of the inconvenience resulting from that neighbor’s poorly timed death.”
Even if that fellow had been summoned from his late-night glass of wine among his dearest companions, all of whom hailed from the family Rosaceae.
“The part about being magistrate I detest the most,” Axel muttered as he guided Ivan up the Stoneleigh Manor drive, “is becoming privy to my neighbor’s dirty linen. Mind the footing, horse. You are laden with precious cargo.”
Precious, shivering cargo. Axel’s estate bordered the Stoneleigh property, but by the lanes, that was still nearly two miles of slow going in fresh snow. An arctic wind did nothing to improve Axel’s mood, nor did the thought of his grafts, abandoned in the warmth of his glass house not thirty minutes earlier.
He brought Ivan to a halt in the Stoneleigh stable yard, and Ambers, the Stoneleigh head groom, stomped out of the barn.
“I’ll take your horse, Mr. Belmont. Very bad business at the manor tonight. Very bad, indeed.”
“No argument there, Ambers. Hay for my intrepid steed. I don’t know how long I’ll be.” An eternity of the figurative sort at least, for a man who was cold, tired, and more interested in flowers than felonies.
Axel handed off the reins and marched across the stable yard, up the snow-covered drive to Stoneleigh Manor’s solid three-story façade. Despite the lateness of the hour, lamps on the front terrace were ablaze. The door opened before Axel had used the boot scrape on his oldest pair of riding boots.
“Come in, Mr. Belmont.” Shreve, the Stoneleigh butler bowed. “Come in, please. It’s colder than Hades out there tonight, and you’ll catch your death…oh dear lord… What I meant to say, well, begging your pardon, sir.” The old fellow bowed again, though he’d yet to close the damned door.
“Good evening, Shreve,” Axel said, pushing the door closed. “I can see to my own coat, hat, and gloves. Where is the deceased, and where is Mrs. Stoneleigh?”
Shreve gestured vaguely with an ungloved hand. “She’s in the library with the, er, with… the colonel. The late colonel.” He blinked, then stared straight ahead, as if he’d heard an odd noise of the sort butlers didn’t acknowledge.
“Might we have a tea tray in the family parlor?” Axel asked.
More blinking and bowing. “A fine idea, sir. Tea in the family parlor. I’ll see to it at once.” He’d likely forget before he reached the kitchen, not that Axel was in the mood for a perishing pot of tea.
Axel had been an occasional visitor at Stoneleigh Manor in years past, so he made his way to the study unescorted, knocked once, and let himself in.
Two impressions struck him before he’d taken a half-dozen steps into the room.
The smell of death by gunshot at close range was unmistakable—a hint of blood, metallic and acrid, and overlaying that, the faint, sulfurous stench of the discharged weapon. The second salient aspect of the room was the wintry temperature, caused by the January night air intruding through open French doors.
Axel was halfway across the room, thinking to close the doors, when a single word stopped him.
“Don’t.”
Mrs. Stoneleigh remained so still in the shadows beside the hearth, Axel hadn’t detected her presence. She rose with a rustle of skirts and stepped from the shadows.
“If we lay my husband out in here, the room should remain unheated. Thank you for heeding my summons, Mr. Belmont.”
“Mrs. Stoneleigh.” Axel took her cold hand, bowed over it, and examined her as closely as manners and firelight would allow. She was tallish for a woman, though still a half foot shorter than Axel’s own six feet and several inches. Abigail Stoneleigh was also pretty in a quiet, green-eyed, dark-haired way.
Because she was—had been—another man’s wife, Axel’s assessment of her beauty had never gone further, though if she weren’t so perpetually aloof, if she ever once smiled, she might even be beautiful, not that he’d care one way or the other.
She had to be frozen to the bone.
“If I recall your note,” Axel said, “you begged the favor of my presence at my earliest convenience. Hardly a summons, madam.” Her penmanship had been elegant, though the groom who’d delivered the note had nearly babbled the news of Stoneleigh’s death.
Axel led her over to the hearth, where a dying fire was losing the battle with winter’s chill.
“I should warn you, Mrs. Stoneleigh, I am here in the capacity of magistrate as well as neighbor.”
“To come at this hour was still considerate of you.”
The woman’s spouse was crumpled over the desk, not fifteen feet away, her only defense against the frigid air was a plain brown wool shawl, and she was offering pleasantries?
Everybody coped with death differently. Caroline’s passing had taught Axel that.
He took off his jacket and draped it around Mrs. Stoneleigh’s shoulders. “Why don’t we repair to the family parlor? I’ve asked Shreve to bring the tea tray there.”
Mrs. Stoneleigh’s gaze swung away, to the darkness beyond the French doors. “My—the colonel would not want to be alone.”
Wherever Stoneleigh’s soul had gone, the life had departed from his mortal remains. Wanting or not wanting to be alone no longer came into it. Axel knew better than to argue reason at such a time, though.
“Nothing in this room,”—such as a dead body, for example—“can be moved until I’ve looked the situation over more closely, Mrs. Stoneleigh. I would prefer privacy to do that.”
“You may have your privacy, but I’ll send Ambers to stay here thereafter. I’ll await you in the parlor.”
As imperious as a bloody queen—a pale, bloody queen. “You don’t want Shreve with the colonel, or perhaps the colonel’s valet?”
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