Spotlight & Giveaway: When the Marquess Needed Me by Lydia Lloyd

Today, HJ is pleased to share with you Lydia Lloyd’s new release: When the Marquess Needed Me

The Marquess of Leith is notorious for never keeping a mistress longer than two weeks. While society views his rule as evidence of his depravity, he sees it as the best way of ensuring that his personal affairs remain neat and tidy. Therefore, when his best friend, Montaigne, asks Leith to take Miss Beatrice Salisbury as his next mistress, everything in him protests. Beatrice is too rustic, too opinionated, and far too shrewd.

Ever since she was ruined six years ago, Beatrice Salisbury has been living happily in the country with her mother and siblings, free from the constraints of society. But now financial calamity has struck, and her ancestral home is in jeopardy. So she turns to the only money-making scheme within her grasp: becoming a courtesan.

From the beginning of their stint as man and mistress, nothing goes according to plan. Leith is not at all the libertine Beatrice imagined, and her appetites awaken wild desires that he has long denied. Soon, their physical entanglement has become so much more—but will they be able to make their love last for more than a fortnight?

Enjoy an exclusive excerpt from When the Marquess Needed Me 

Chapter One
London, England

May 1820

Thirteen Years Later

Miss Beatrice Salisbury was far too wild.

No, wild didn’t do her justice.

She was unkempt.

That was the Marquess of Leith’s first thought when he laid eyes on the unfamiliar young woman sitting in the drawing room of his best and oldest friend, the Earl of Montaigne, and his wife, Olivia, the very new Lady Montaigne.

In fact, he realized, as he surveyed Miss Salisbury, she was all wrong. Yes, he supposed to some, she would be pretty, but not to him, certainly. Her dark hair, long and wavy, was barely held back by its pins. Between her two front teeth, a gap drew the eye. Her dark eyes, almost black, slid around the room with mercenary interest, as if assessing the value of everything they alit on. She had the air of a caged animal, a woodland creature who someone, for some reason, was trying to domesticate.

Not to mention, her gown was so out of fashion that she might as well have been wearing the costume of a different century.

Monty had told him before this meeting that the chit came from a respectable gentry family in Somerset that had fallen on hard times.

As it turned out, in fact, she was a distant relation of Monty’s.

Miss Salisbury was his third cousin.

Monty had always been a bit…earthy in his sensibilities. And the Carringtons as a family did not always have a strictly proper consideration for decorum.

But they were still the height of fashion. And highly respectable.

Miss Salisbury, however, was another thing altogether.

Unfortunately, for complex reasons, it appeared that he and Miss Salisbury were only at the beginning of their acquaintance.

“He is acceptable, cousin,” Miss Salisbury said, once Monty had made the requisite introduction, as if she were the one doing him a favor.

“Are you sure, Miss Salisbury?” Monty said. “Please know my offer still stands.”

“Indeed,” said Olivia. “I must repeat that we would much prefer you accept our offer.”

Really, he was right here. They were speaking as if a fortnight with him were a fate worse than death. He knew many highly desirable women who would give their baby toe to be his mistress for such a span of time.

But he said nothing. Once, he wouldn’t have thought twice about voicing his objections to this characterization.

But these days, with Monty, he had to be more circumspect.

A few months ago, right before Monty’s marriage to Olivia, Leith’s most shameful secret had come to light. Now his friends and their wives knew that years ago, when Monty and Olivia had first met and fallen in love, Leith had been the means of parting them. He had written Olivia a note, pretending he was Monty, and broke off the attachment. It had been thirteen years before Olivia and Monty had met again—and only by chance at that. Luckily, they had been able to come to an understanding and had married. Leith had never seen his best friend so happy.

When the secret of his past conduct had been exposed, Leith had feared losing Monty forever.

He had been practically a boy back when he had penned that letter. He had not meant to be malicious. He had feared for Monty’s feelings, given how attached he had been to Olivia, and her just a servant girl, with everything to gain from an association with an earl. He had thought Monty would forget her soon enough. But, soon after Olivia’s departure, Leith had seen the gravity of his error—but there had been no way to fix it.

Fortunately, Olivia was not a vindictive woman. In fact, as far as Leith could see, she was a veritable angel. She had forgiven Leith.

And Leith had done everything he could to make it right. Before Olivia and Monty had married, he had held a ball to celebrate their engagement. That event had played no small part in cajoling society to support their relationship, despite the fact that Olivia had once been a maid in this very home.

So, technically, peace had been restored to his relationship with his best friend.

Except it hadn’t been.

Not by half.

And, so, he was here, ready to do anything to set their relationship to rights again.

And apparently that was to involve Miss Salisbury.

Who was currently shaking her head.

“I thank you for your generosity, cousin, but I cannot accept your charity. Our connection is, I know, not the type to be presumed upon in such a way. And I too well love my independence. My mother and brother also must be considered. I have others I need to support, not just myself.”

“Miss Salisbury,” Montaigne said, shaking his head. “Please know that we would do anything you needed. You do not need to take such an action.”

Really, Leith swore to himself, he knew he had lost credit with his best friend, but did he truly regard him as such a desperate measure?

“You forget, cousin,” Miss Salisbury said, “that I was ruined long ago. There is no fine match for me to gain. No wealthy gentleman would ever be able to take me off your hands. Not through matrimony at least.”

The woman nearly smirked, the corner of her mouth tugging upwards. Most gently bred women would be blushing furiously or in tears discussing such a matter. Miss Salisbury’s expression, however, was entirely placid. She appeared bored.

He hadn’t known that she was ruined. Monty hadn’t mentioned that.

“Surely,” Olivia began, “there is some way—perhaps with a dowry—”

“Please,” Miss Salisbury said, her tone now acid, her composure beginning to slip. “What is the difference in auctioning myself off in marriage, with your funds, or selling myself to men by the twelvemonth? At least in the latter case, a bad alliance can come to an end.”

Olivia blanched. “I am not suggesting, Miss Salisbury, that you would have to marry.”

Monty took his wife’s hand. “We only want you to know that you have other choices.”

“This is my choice,” Miss Salisbury said, her momentary frustration gone, her expression bored once more. “I ask that you respect it.”

Monty nodded. Olivia frowned.

And Leith could bear this display of Monty and Olivia’s decency no longer. The woman had made her preference clear.

“A fortnight, Miss Salisbury,” he broke in. “Will that be sufficient? I never keep a lady for longer, but, under the circumstances, I am willing to be…” he looked over at Monty, whose expression was stony “…flexible.”

“Do you believe that a fortnight is long enough to catch the notice of other gentlemen? Men with whom I could find a more lasting arrangement?”

“Certainly.”

Her dark eyes met his own. They were totally opaque to him. He didn’t understand how a woman of her upbringing could appear so calm at such a moment—although he supposed that was a silly thought. Plenty of courtesans came from respectable, if not wealthy, families. It was just that he had only known them after their decision to forgo respectable life, that was all.

“My cousin tells me that you are a tastemaker in these matters.”

Usually, Leith was proud of this status. It was true that, once he kept a woman, she became fashionable. And he knew he could identify a special quality in a woman—that his patronage was not given without reason.

But, under the eyes of Miss Salisbury, he felt, instead of proud, uncomfortable. Itchy. He had esteemed himself for years on his ability to make distinctions when it came to women. Now, however, he struggled to access that feeling—and it made him irritable.

“Yes,” he managed. “As I said, I do not form long-standing attachments. But the women who have favored me with their affections often later find men looking for such arrangements. Indeed, not a few are married now, although not within our sphere.”

“One is,” Olivia said. “Lady Killston.”

Ah, yes, Leith thought, without amusement. Fanny. She had been his for a fortnight three years ago. She was a stunningly beautiful woman, cultured, intelligent, whom he had been lucky to find just as she entered London intent on following in her older sister’s footsteps. For her, he had briefly considered breaking with his usual proclivities.

He hadn’t and, instead, Lord Killston, a Scottish earl, had taken a fancy to her. He was no longer accepted in most of good society, but Leith had heard he did not regret his choice of wife.

Leith himself was not the kind of man who could live with such a choice. Still, if there was one woman who might have tempted him, it would have been the now Lady Killston.

He turned his gaze once more to Miss Salisbury. The comparison between her and Fanny—well, it was cruel.

“Lady Killston is a singular woman indeed.”

“I assure you that I do not aspire to such accession,” Miss Salisbury drawled. “I merely need funds to keep my family estate from the auction house.”

“Such modest aspirations are doubtlessly wise.”

Her eyes burned with that shrewd gaze he found so unbecoming. Yet he sensed, from her expression, that she was no more impressed with him than he was with her.

Had she ever even before met a marquess? He doubted it. And yet she was treating him as if he were a ragamuffin asking to shine her boot.

“It is not a matter of modesty, I assure you. I have no more desire to be a lord’s lady than I do to be leeched.”

“And here I thought it was my purse that was being sucked dry.”

She startled at his words, but then her expression settled. Indeed, she gave a little prim close-lipped smile.

“Quite right, my lord.”

Leith took a breath. Monty shot him a glance of warning from across the room. He couldn’t offend this chit, for his best friend’s sake. That was the whole point of this.

“Let us talk terms, then. I want to make sure that the cousin of my best friend is being treated fairly.”

“Five hundred pounds. Seven public outings. And the education that I will need in the bedchamber.”

Leith felt his mouth fall open. He didn’t know where to start—with the audacity of the sheer price that she was demanding or her lack of scruples about alluding to their future tupping in front of Monty and Olivia. Really, he was beginning to understand how Arnold, his steward’s prize bull, felt during breeding season.

Yet another glance over at Monty reminded him why he was complying. The terms hardly mattered.

“Very well. I assent.”

“Excellent,” she said, sweeping up from her seat. “I understand you have a set of rooms in St. James’s. I will meet you there this evening.”

“Really, Beatrice, are you sure you would not rather stay here?” Monty pressed.

“No, cousin. I really would not. Until this evening, Lord Leith.”

She was not beautiful, Leith thought, re-examining Miss Salisbury once more.

No, he supposed that was unfair.

More than lacking beauty, she was far from how he preferred his women. Her wildness, more than her person, repelled him. He could imagine fewer handsome women less suited to his tastes.

And yet she had absolutely dominated him, as no other women ever had, not even the inimitable Lady Killston. Not because of her charm or her comeliness but because of Monty.

With one last, long opaque look, she swept from the room.

His fate was sealed.

Excerpt. ©Lydia Lloyd. Posted by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.
 
 

Giveaway: Winner will receive one ebook copy of WHEN THE MARQUESS NEEDED ME plus one additional ebook of the winner’s choice from Tule Publishing.

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Meet the Author:

Lydia Lloyd writes high-heat historical romance set during the Regency period. She enjoys creating love stories between roguish heroes and complex heroines that are driven by authentic conflict and steamy encounters. Lydia holds a PhD in nineteenth-century British literature and, when she isn’t writing historical romance, works as a teacher and scholar.

https://tulepublishing.com/books/when-the-marquess-needed-me/