LITMIR.BIZ

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      AUTHOR NOTE

      Sometimes a minor character grabs your imagination and won’t let go, intriguing you so much that you know you will have to uncover the rest of her story. Such was the case with the mysterious Madame Lefevre, the woman who lured Max Ransleigh into friendship at the Congress of Vienna in order to set up an assassination attempt on Lord Wellington in the first book of The Ransleigh Rogues mini-series, THE RAKE TO RUIN HER.

      Where had she come from? What drove her to participate in the plot? What happened to her afterwards? As I explored the answers to those questions I discovered a unique and intriguing woman—a French emigrée whose family was destroyed by the Revolution, a survivor dragged along by the turbulent historical forces that catapulted France in one generation from monarchy to republic to empire and back. Taught by remorseless circumstance to depend only on herself, Elodie trusts no one and expects nothing.

      Who could I pair with such a resourceful and determined heroine? Though I’d originally intended a different story for him, only one man could match her: Will Ransleigh, Max’s illegitimate cousin. Cast into the London slums on the death of his mother, a clergyman’s daughter seduced and abandoned by Max’s uncle, Will survived by his wits on the streets for six years before Max’s father plucked him from Seven Dials and sent him to his country estate, instructing Max and his cousins to make a proper Ransleigh out of this gutter rat.

      I hope you will enjoy Will and Elodie’s story.

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       Chapter One

       Barton Abbey—late spring, 1816

      ‘I wager I could find her.’ Smouldering with anger against the woman who had destroyed his cousin Max’s diplomatic career, Will Ransleigh accepted a glass of brandy from his host.

      ‘Welcome back to England,’ Alastair Ransleigh said, saluting Will with his own glass before motioning him to an armchair. ‘Far be it from me to bet against “Wagering Will”, who never met a game of chance he couldn’t win. But why do you think you could find her, when Max, with all his official contacts, could not?’

      ‘I never had much use for officials,’ Will observed with a grimace. ‘Would have transported me for stealing a loaf of bread to feed myself and my starving mates.’

      ‘You’ve cleaned up so well, I sometimes forget you were once gallows-bait,’ Alastair said with a grin. ‘But to be fair, where would one expect to look? Madame Lefevre was cousin and hostess to Thierry St Arnaud, one of Prince Talleyrand’s top aides in the French delegation at the Congress of Vienna. The family’s quite old and well known, even if they did turn out to be Bonapartists.’

      ‘That may be. But it’s those in the serving class who really know what goes on: maids, valets, cooks, grooms, hotel employees, servants at the Hoffburg, keepers of public houses. I’ll use them to track Madame Lefevre.’

      ‘When I visited Max at his wife’s farm, he insisted he was content there.’ Alastair laughed. ‘He even claimed training horses is rather like diplomacy: one must coax rather than coerce. Except that horses don’t lie and their memories are short, so they don’t hold your mistakes against you.’

      ‘Just like Max to make light of it. But all of us—you, me, Dom—knew from our youth that Max was destined to be one of England’s foremost politicians—Prime Minister, even! Would he choose training horses over a brilliant government career, if he truly had a

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