Hot Historicals Bundle with An Invitation to Sin, The Naked Baron, When His Kiss Is Wicked, & Mastering the Marquess

by Jo Beverley

  “And when you marry well, it will no longer be necessary for you to have to work in that deplorable bookshop any longer,” Uncle Randall stated with undisguised contempt, his dark eyes narrowing.

  “I don’t mind working in Father’s shop,” Colette said, holding her anger in check by biting her tongue. The bookshop had always been a contentious issue between them.

  Oh, if he would only leave already! Uncle Randall had no idea how much effort Colette had put into the shop, nor did she want him to know just yet. He thought her incapable of making the store a success, simply because she was a woman. His beliefs infuriated her, as most men’s did. Just as that odious Lord Waverly’s had done earlier that afternoon. One day she would show all those superior, smug males just how wrong they were about her.

  “You know how I feel about the Hamilton family being in trade,” Uncle Randall persisted. “It’s quite beneath us. It was embarrassing enough when my brother opened the shop, and now it’s even more humiliating that my nieces are running it. But I shall not delve into a discussion about it with you at this moment, Colette. I haven’t the patience for it tonight, and I’m late for a supper party with the Davenports as it is. Have all your gowns and fripperies been delivered?”

  Colette nodded. “Yes, Uncle Randall. They arrived yesterday.” She had to admit that she loved all the gorgeous new clothes that had been made for her and Juliette to wear during the Season.

  “Good. Your aunt Cecilia and I will be here at seven o’clock on Friday to escort you both to the Hayvenhursts’ ball.” Uncle Randall stared at her with a pointed glare, his balding head tipped menacingly in her direction. “And I’m counting on you, Colette, to keep your sister here in line during the Season.”

  His reference to Juliette annoyed her, for she had no more control over Juliette’s behavior than anyone else did, but Colette nodded in deference to him. She had learned long ago that if he thought she agreed with him, he left her alone. She pretended to agree with him now.

  “Yes, Uncle Randall.”

  “Good, then. I shall be on my way for the evening, ladies. Genevieve.” He nodded to her mother and took his leave after a disapproving look at Juliette.

  “Dieu merci, il est parti. He has always treated me shabbily, just because I am French.” Genevieve gave a petulant frown when the door to their living quarters above the bookshop closed and they were alone once more. “Now I have a dreadful headache.” She touched her hand to her forehead dramatically and closed her eyes with a heavy sigh.

  “He makes me so angry!” Juliette exclaimed, rising from her chair.

  At nineteen, Juliette was stunning and would no doubt have many offers of marriage during this Season. All the Hamilton sisters were beautiful, or so everyone said. Their beauty was the only reason Uncle Randall was bothering to launch them at all. Colette loved her sister and they were very close, but Juliette could be unexplainably obstinate. If only Juliette would be more accommodating once in a while…She fought against everything so much, often to her own detriment, that at times Colette had given up trying to reason with her.

  “Keep me in line, indeed!” Juliette declared adamantly, stamping her foot, her dark blue eyes flashing. “I don’t even wish to have a Season!”

  “Juliette, you should be grateful to your uncle,” Genevieve admonished in a weary voice from her position on the chaise, not even bothering to open her eyes. “Your father left us little enough to survive on. Now you have an opportunity you wouldn’t have had to make a grand marriage and live comfortably. Make the most of it. Don’t make the same mistakes I made in life. Ne sois pas insensée.”

  “I don’t want to marry some stuffy lord who will order me about and tell me what to do all the time,” Juliette complained, folding her arms across her chest and falling back into the armchair she had been sitting in for their uncle’s lecture on proper deportment during the Season. “I’m not ready to get married.”

  “Is it safe to come out now?” Lisette asked from the doorway of the bedroom and glancing around the parlor. Their comfortable home life had been interrupted by their uncle’s visit, and Lisette and the other girls had escaped to the bedroom to avoid him. “I no longer heard Uncle Randall’s voice.”

  Colette nodded in relief. “Yes, he just left.”

  Lisette entered the room with their younger sisters in tow. She immediately went to their mother’s side, helping her get comfortable and placing a small lavender-scented pillow behind her head to help ease her headache. Paulette and Yvette sat themselves beside Colette on the sofa. Yvette snuggled against her while Colette smoothed her pretty blond curls. She was almost fourteen already, but being small for her age she appeared younger than she was and they still referred to her as the baby of the family. And perhaps treated her as one far more often than they should.

  “Well…What did Uncle Randall have to say this time?” Lisette asked as she began to rub their mother’s shoulders, soothing her as only she could. Lisette had a calming quality about her, and Genevieve relied heavily on her middle daughter because of that very fact.

  “Oh, the usual marching orders. How Colette and I have to marry well or the entire family will starve on the streets and it will be all our fault,” Juliette snapped, her eyes flashing.

  Yvette stared at them with wide eyes. “Are we all going to starve?”

  “No one is going to starve,” Colette said firmly, hoping they believed her. “Least of all us. We’re not destitute.”

  Not yet, anyway. The thought nagged at her. They were not destitute yet, and with any luck they would not end up that way.

  When he died six months ago, their father had left the shop in financial chaos and Colette was barely sorting through it all. Her mother and sisters, and even Uncle Randall, had no idea how close they were to actually losing the shop, and consequently their little home above it. But they would not be forced to move in with Uncle Randall and Aunt Cecilia or thrown out on the streets, because Colette would die before she let that happen. She was not unaware of the dislike Aunt Cecilia had for her nieces, and living with her aunt would be only a drastic last resort. She had to make the shop a success and knew without a doubt she would get no help from her uncle in that regard. She had to do it all on her own.

  As much as it pained her to admit it, marrying well at this point seemed the only option open to them. She should be grateful to her uncle for providing the opportunity of a Season, not only to her but to Juliette as well, in order to double their chances. Marrying wealthy husbands would alleviate all their troubles.

  If only she had a little more time to make the shop over…

  “Everything will be fine. You’ll see,” she reiterated to her sisters, as well as to herself.

  “At least you get to wear all those pretty gowns and dance with handsome gentleman at fine parties!” Yvette exclaimed with a dreamy look on her face. “I wish I could go with you!”

  “I have no doubt that you will someday.” Lightly Colette kissed the top of Yvette’s head. Yvette had been enchanted with the arrival of Colette and Juliette’s new wardrobe and had been playing with their lace fans and walking around in their high-heeled slippers all day. “But for now, it is time for you to help set the table, sweetie. Paulette, you come help Julie and me downstairs for a little while before supper.”

  “Can I paint the signs now?” fifteen-year-old Paulette asked, her sweet, earnest face brimming with excitement.

  “Yes, you can start, though I doubt you’ll finish them all tonight.” Colette stood, eager to get back to work in the bookshop. There was so much that still needed to be done. Once she began the Season, her time in the shop would be limited to business hours. She wanted to get as much accomplished as she could before then. She left Lisette and Yvette to prepare supper and look after their mother.

  In spite of Juliette’s grumbling and mumbling about being too tired to help, she and Colette actually managed to paint two wall-length bookshelves a crisp, clean cream color. The shade did wonders for b
rightening up the store. It had always bothered Colette that it was so dark in her father’s shop, for how was anyone supposed to peruse or read books in such a dimly lit space?

  After months of penny-pinching, she had finally gathered enough money to buy the paint and supplies she needed and had set to work on her plans. With the cream-colored walls and shelves, the store was becoming a place in which one would want to sit and read comfortably. Once the shelves were dry enough, she intended to rearrange the way the books were traditionally displayed. She would place some of the books with the front covers facing out, making the titles easier for customers to read. She smiled at the prospect her changes would create.

  The three sisters worked for over an hour together, pausing only when Juliette tripped backward over some rolled canvas and fell flat on her bottom. It had taken a good five minutes before she and Paulette had stopped laughing at the ridiculous image of Juliette on the floor and got back to their painting.

  “What do you think, Colette?” Paulette proudly held up two small wooden boards, with elegantly printed letters in black paint. One read “Philosophy” and the other “History.”

  Colette clapped her hands together in glee. “Oh, that looks lovely, Paulette!” She took one of the signs from her little sister and held it up. “It’s perfect!”

  When all the signs were completed, they would designate the different areas for various subjects of books throughout the shop. Again, the signs would allow customers to search with ease for books. Paulette’s neat and uniform lettering added an element of sophistication to the plain wooden placards. The gilt-edged trim did the same as well.

  “They will look wonderful when we hang them with that green ribbon,” Juliette announced in rare accord.

  The green ribbon had been a wonderful stroke of genius on Colette’s part. While at the dressmakers being fitted for their new gowns one afternoon, she saw rolls of the most beautiful green grosgrain ribbon. Instantly knowing just how to use them in the shop, she quietly asked the dressmaker to include the rolls in their purchases. Saying a silent thank-you to an unwitting Uncle Randall for purchasing the yards of ribbon, she smiled at how tasteful and elegant the shop would look when she was finished.

  “I have to admit, Colette, that I thought you were batty to try to change this old place. But it’s beginning to look beautiful. The new paint makes it look as if it were a completely different store.”

  “Thank you.” Colette was starting to believe it, too. Her father’s shop was actually going to change. That she was the one who was making those changes thrilled her. Ever since she could remember, working in the bookshop was all she ever wanted to do.

  After years of assisting her father, Colette had discovered ways to make the shop better, more attractive, more efficient. Her father had always disagreed with her, shaking his head in a patronizing manner, dismissing her modern ideas as the silly whims of a little girl. Now that her father was no longer alive to deny her innovative proposals, Colette was finally free to do everything she had ever wanted to improve the store. The first order of business was a new coat of paint. That was, of course, after she and Paulette had thoroughly scrubbed and polished the dusty store from top to bottom.

  Pleased with the look of the wooden placards, which had turned out better than she had hoped, she hugged her little sister in gratitude.

  Just then Yvette strode into the room. “Heavens! Look at this place!” she cried in astonishment. “It looks so different!”

  “Doesn’t it?” Paulette agreed, her sweet face beaming. “And we’re not even finished yet!”

  “Well, supper is ready, so come upstairs now,” Yvette said, already losing interest in the progress of the family shop. “Lisette made popovers!” She and Juliette, who needed no extra encouragement to head up to supper, left through the door immediately.

  Paulette turned to go as well, then looked back at Colette. “Are you coming up?”

  “In a few minutes,” Colette answered, placing a paint-brush back into the bucket of paint. “I’m not hungry, so I’ll just do a few more things down here and clean up a little bit.”

  Paulette nodded with an understanding smile. “I’ll bring you down something to eat when I come back to help you.”

  “Thank you.” Colette and Paulette shared a love of Hamilton’s that their other sisters did not. In fact, it was little Paulette who for days on end had painstakingly helped her sort through, reorganizing and cataloguing, all of the books in the shop.

  Wishing the paint would dry faster so she could begin reshelving the books, but knowing she would have to wait at least until tomorrow, she began to clean up the pots of paint and the sheets of canvas. Stretching her back and wiping the paint from her hands, she recalled the strange encounter with the extraordinary man who had come into the shop earlier that afternoon.

  Lucien Sinclair, the Earl of Waverly.

  As soon as she laid eyes on him she knew his type, for she had come across them in the shop many times before: entitled, arrogant, idle young noblemen who had no need to earn a living and looked down upon those who did.

  His self-assured manner, his look of cultured breeding, and the fine cut and style of his expensive suit told her all she needed to know. He was predictably aristocratic and spoiled. Although as long as he continued to purchase some expensive books, she did not care who or what he was.

  But oh, the way he looked!

  He was unmistakably handsome. His patrician features were striking, and his dark green eyes lingered on her for longer than anyone would deem proper. His mouth had a charming dimple when he smiled, a smile that changed the hard lines of his face, warming him, and making him seem infinitely more attractive. She had had to catch her breath at the sight of him. He must lead women on a merry chase, indeed.

  And she could have sworn that he wanted to kiss her.

  That fact alone was startling enough, but what shook her to the core was that she had actually wanted him to kiss her. Well, not completely. To be fair, she had never been in such a position before. The man was a complete stranger. The most handsome stranger she had ever seen, but a stranger nonetheless.

  Yet there was something about him that unnerved her. He was condescending, of course, showing blatant disapproval of her doing what he thought should only be a man’s job, but there was something else she could not easily put to words or explain. They had stared at each other for the longest time, and for the first time in her life, she felt…Well, she didn’t know how she felt, but she had never felt that way before. He left her breathless and shaky and with a fluttery feeling in her stomach. She did not like it. Not one bit.

  She reminded herself that in spite of how he looked, Lord Waverly was an arrogant nobleman who looked down upon her, just like all the men she would meet next week at her first ball.

  That thought caused a flutter of a different kind in her stomach as well.

  She was fraught with worry over the coming Season. Having to please her aunt Cecilia and uncle Randall. Socializing with people she had nothing in common with. Needing to find a husband.

  And marriage itself troubled her. Many nights she lay awake wondering if she would be able to find a husband who would condone her working in the bookshop. Most men outright frowned upon the idea of a woman managing a store, and some even found it mildly amusing, but all of them disapproved and automatically assumed she would refrain from working in the shop once she became a wife. But Colette had no intentions of quitting, of ever giving up something that she loved in order to please a man. She loved the bookshop too much.

  And she knew she could make Hamilton’s more successful than her father ever would have dreamed. Yet she knew her family was depending on her to support them.

  If only she had more time.

  Chapter Three

  Well, Look Who It Is

  Lucien Sinclair, the Earl of Waverly, entered the Hayvenhursts’ massive townhouse with a heavy heart and a forced smile on his face.

  Usually he enjoyed
the London Season. Nights spent socializing with his good friends, playing cards, going to the theater, attending parties and balls, and critiquing the latest crop of debutantes had always put him in jovial spirits. The start of a Season was exciting and he had always looked forward to it before. But this year would be different. This Season meant business. His father was ill and dying, and the inevitable could be delayed no longer.

  As much as he hated the thought of it, he had to find a wife.

  He had put it off for too long as it was. Not that he hadn’t tried over the years to find a suitable bride. Well, perhaps that thought was not quite true, he admitted to himself. In all honesty, since his disastrous relationship with Virginia Warren, he had been avoiding the thought of marriage altogether. And for good reason.

  “Lord Waverly!” Countess Hayvenhurst welcomed him with a glorious smile, her long, white-gloved arms outstretched in his direction. “We haven’t see you in ages! I’m thrilled you could come to our little party.”

  “Our little party” consisted of over five hundred guests, an army of liveried servants, a dining room filled to bursting with rich foods and drinks of every type imaginable, two orchestras, and enough flowers to fill a cemetery for a few years.

  Lucien smiled at her warmly. “I’m happy to be able to attend, Lady Hayvenhurst. It seems you have outdone yourself yet again.”

  “Oh it’s nothing.” She dismissed his compliments with an airy wave of her hand. “I simply adore parties. Now you must tell me, how is your father getting along?”

  “He is much improved,” Lucien lied, not wishing to divulge the grim details of his father’s illness to his hostess. After years of his family being the favorite topic of gossips, he was reticent to share private information with anyone.