Christmas with the Charming Earl

By Roxie Brandon

Rebecca Ingram has lost everything: her inheritance, her home, her position. Forced to become a maidservant to a Duke, she loses all hope.

Rebecca only has one option left. Without marrying the Duke, she can never hope to get back what she has lost. She can never hope to be whole again.

However, there's one breath-taking problem she hasn't considered. After meeting the Duke's handsome and salacious son, she is overwhelmed with desire that she must ignore to safeguard her secret.

What will Rebecca do when she’s faced with the risk of losing everything she has ever loved? Will she give in to the passion or will she walk away? Will this Christmas Eve spark a passion that lasts a lifetime?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Roxie Brandon
• Release date: Dec 17, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463143278

Roxie Brandon

Roxie Brandon is an author of historical and contemporary romance, beauty and fashion books.Her romances range in setting from Medieval times to the Twentieth Century.She loves walks in the countryside and having afternoon tea with family and friends.

Book preview

CHRISTMAS WITH THE CHARMING EARL

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Copyright © 2018 Roxie Brandon All Rights Reserved

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, events, and places portrayed in this book are products of the author’s imagination and are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

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Rebecca Ingram has lost everything: her inheritance, her home, her position. Forced to become a maidservant to a Duke, she loses all hope.

Rebecca only has one option left. Without marrying the Duke, she can never hope to get back what she has lost. She can never hope to be whole again.

However, there's one breath-taking problem she hasn't considered. After meeting the Duke's handsome and salacious son, she is overwhelmed with desire that she must ignore to safeguard her secret.

What will Rebecca do when she’s faced with the risk of losing everything she has ever loved? Will she give in to the passion or will she walk away? Will this Christmas Eve spark a passion that lasts a lifetime?

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Chapter One

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December, 1817

The wintry winter cold howled through the desolate field, which was covered with fluffy snow that was like a untouched blanket. Rebecca Ingram could feel the air being heavy as her lungs were filled with sharp cold and frost each time she breathed in. The bleak grey clouds overhead reflected her mood perfectly.

Cold licked at her face and crept under her clothes, spreading across her skin like the lacy tide on a frigid winter beach. With purple lips tinged with blue and gently chattering teeth she wrapped her coat around her tighter.

Gravestones lined the eerie graveyard, some recently placed, whereas others, cracked and crumbling. Mould covered the engravings dedicated to the dead, trees leaning towards the stones, branches reaching out to each other.

Spiked, black fences surrounded the graveyard almost like it was a prison. The smell of old stone filled the dry air, weeds covering the graves of the dead, loved ones long since stopped visiting. Gravel paths weave through the maze of graves, allowing passers by to pay their respects to the people lined up in the earths embrace.

Rebecca walked past the heavy gates. As long as she had her mother’s necklace embedded on her chest, a tiny cross, she would be left alone.

A knitted black scarf hung around her neck loosely and it flew as the billowing wind brushed through her auburn hair. The sun was sinking fast below the horizons, giving her hair more reddish hue.

Rebecca's eyes were the glimmering color of emerald, sparkling in the light of the morning sun like a fresh sheen of morning dew. And when she lifted her pale face to the sky, emerald shifted into the color of deep ocean shimmering in the sunlight.

As she looked down at the grave, with her father’s name scrawled across the stone, and mother’s grave not two feet away, Rebecca wished she could just kneel here, and mourn.

Rebecca was an only child. The entirety of their estate would pass onto her now. She would be wealthy, with a large income. She had to protect Emma. Her little girl was her only family now.

She knelt at the grave, and laid her hand upon the headstone. I love you, father, she whispered. Then she rose and walked across the graveyard.

Uncle Richard Hopkins, her mother's brother, and the lawyer, Michael Blunt stood near her.

Uncle, Rebecca said, her tone icy. Is there any reason you are here?

For the funeral, uncle said calmly.

The funeral ended an hour ago. I assure you there is no reason for you to be here.

"I am here to help