The Lion of England: The Lions, #1

By L.M. Connolly

Leaving her job at a safari park, Crissie Williams comes face-to-face with a lion. So not the way she expected to die.

After witnessing his parents' disastrous marriage Alastair, Lord Winsley, has vowed never to let love into his life, but he needs a bride and an heir. When he rescues a waitress from the jaws of a lion, he finds a woman who fills his criteria, but the gorgeous Crissie proves more than he can handle. She wants the one thing he won't give her—love.

Crissie wants no more drama in her life, so Alastair's cold-blooded proposal suits her fine. One problem—she's falling in love with the gorgeous aristocrat who sees everything in black and white. Crissie, an artist to the tips of her toes, prefers colour.

When he discovers the scandal staining her past, Alastair realizes that she is far from a convenient bride, but by then it's too late.

He already loves her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lynne Connolly
• Release date: Nov 13, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393092544

L.M. Connolly

L.M. Connolly writes steamy, exciting contemporary and paranormal romances. The best-selling writer of the STORM, Department 57, Pure Wildfire, and Nightstar series, she lives and breathes her characters. She lives in the UK, but travels to the US once a year, to enjoy the high life! Her books have gained her a number of awards and five star reviews, and she's also a best-selling author. Her life experiences add colour and veracity to the stories she tells, and she is always finding more! As Lynne Connolly, L.M. also writes historical romances.

Book preview

Leaving her job at a safari park, Crissie Williams leaves her car in a safe area, and comes face-to-face with a lion. So not the way she expected to die. Until her saviour arrives in the form of another English lion, this one a jaw-droppingly sexy man.

Alastair Burton has a highly successful construction business, but he’s also Lord Winsley, heir to the Marquis of Farleigh.

Before he hands over the family estate, his stubborn father insists on Alastair marrying and producing an heir. After seeing the disaster of his parents’ marriage Alastair has vowed never to let love into his life. He needs somebody who won’t expect more than he’s prepared to give.

When he rescues a waitress from the jaws of a lion, he sees a woman that fills his criteria, but the gorgeous Crissie proves more than he can handle. She wants the one thing he won’t give her—love.

Escaping from a traumatic past, Crissie wants no more drama in her life. If she agrees to Alastair’s cold-blooded proposal, she can buy homes for her disabled mother and their friends, instead of seeing them rehomed in soulless flats. One problem—she’s falling in love with the gorgeous aristocrat who sees everything in black and white. Crissie, an artist to the tips of her toes, prefers color.

When he discovers the scandal staining her past, Alastair realizes that she is far from a convenient bride, but by then it’s too late.

He already loves her.

Chapter 1 

Crissie Williams kept a video diary, and the only time she could update it was on her trips to and from work. She had a mile to confess all her innermost secrets. She could indulge herself in the minutiae of her daily life, which would bore anybody else stupid.

This evening when she left the tourist café on the Farleigh estate, where she worked as a waitress, she was almost too tired to bother. But out of habit she slid her phone into the swivelling mount clip, and switched it on.

A lot of people came in today. She drove slowly out of the car park, the wheels of her decrepit old car crunching on the gravel. They all wanted the lemon meringue pie.

What an exciting life she led. Yesterday most people wanted the chocolate cake, and she’d carefully recorded that, too. But one thing had brightened up her life. I won the staff lottery for a ticket for the charity ball. That should be fun. And her first social event for—way too long. In between working at the café and making the scarves she and her mother sold at the weekend craft markets, she didn’t have time for a social life.

Yep, really exciting. But I get to see this every day. Leaning forward, she swiveled the phone mount to record her surroundings. The old park designed by Capability Brown, the rolling green vistas and the crisp, blue spring sky never failed to enchant her.

Working here isn’t too bad. Isn’t it beautiful? Lush, green lawns, beautiful mature trees coming into bud—and a pride of lions.

Safari parks had a lot going for them. Unfortunately, these days money wasn’t one. When it had first opened back in the seventies, the public had flocked to the gates, but with more attractions, notably the theme parks, Farleigh was barely getting by.

I love this time of day, when the tourists have gone home, she continued, taking a left on to the narrow path that led to the staff exit, and the animals love it, too. This part of the day belonged to the lions, and any creature that could live with them. A bit of clever design meant the fences weren’t immediately obvious, so it looked like the lions were roaming free.

The marquis is too kind to everyone. But he always has been. Especially to Crissie and her mother, and the other residents of her little row of cottages. Eccentric, for sure, but always generous.

Guilt suffused her. Maybe the estate is in trouble because of Lord Farleigh’s kindness. Everything is just a little bit shabby. Perhaps his lordship prefers it that way. Or maybe it’s because of his son. A rich playboy who hardly ever comes home. Not a little bitterness tinged her voice.

The handsome, wealthy Lord Winsley, who preferred to be known as Mr. Burton or even his first name of Alastair held no truck with the past. We got an eviction letter this morning. Lord high-and-mighty Winsley wants to pay us to leave our home. He says the cottages are unsightly. No problem with destroying our home, no thought of breaking up a community. He doesn’t have a heart, that man. He moves from one woman to another like a bee at honey. He breaks hearts and destroys lives. And was too handsome for his own good, allowing him to get away with far too much. A gilded life, a golden boy with everything he’d ever wanted poured into his lap.

She sighed, and took the last turn before the gates. We’re not moving, not until the bulldozers destroy the walls, and that I’ll tell him if I ever get the chance. He doesn’t come here often. His father misses him, but he’s always in London, or jetting around the world. I’ll go to London if I have to and tell him to his face. That’s our home he wants to destroy.

Lord Winsley moved in the highest circles and he was worth far more than his father. That was what he got for designing and putting up huge, soulless buildings all over the world.

She paused to recite her daily mantra. Three million, two hundred thousand, four hundred and fifty pounds. That was what she needed to keep the community alive. A hotel on the other side of the village was up for sale. True, it was a bit run-down, but together they could do the repairs. There wasn’t anything that needed major work. Ever since they’d received the eviction letters, Crissy had let herself dream. But they couldn’t muster anywhere near that kind of money. They rented their houses from the estate, and they were being offered other places at a similar rent, not cash compensation.

Still, if she repeated it enough, maybe lightning would strike and they’d get it.

The high metal gates loomed ahead, grey-painted and jarringly modern in the middle of all this timeless beauty. Even the giraffes couldn’t get their heads over the top of it. A camera peered at her as she leaned out of her car to shove her staff pass into the rusted slot of the machine. Once the first gate had opened and closed, the second one opened automatically to let her into the outside world. Both gates couldn’t be open at the same time, like an airlock in a spaceship. Removing her card, she drove through and waited for the first gate to clang shut behind her.

She waited.

The second gate didn’t open. Damn thing was sticking again. Although she’d reported it, as had the other workers who used this staff exit, nothing had been done.

Sighing, she swung open the driver’s door and got out, her feet sinking into the damp grass. She’d have to give the gate a push to start the mechanism working. The car door closed behind her with a thump that broke the peace.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a movement. A ripple of golden fur, the flex of powerful muscle, the sweep of a tail. Her senses freezing, she turned, her back to her closed car door.

Less than fifteen feet away a lion stood, watching her, its mane rippling in the evening breeze.

Had she thought life was boring? Now, not so much.

ALASTAIR BURTON, LORD Winsley needed to have a serious talk with his father. Another one. They exhausted him and got him nowhere, but this time he refused to let the old man win. He’d agree with everything Alastair said and then do what he wanted anyway. Not this time.

Ignoring the garish porridge of colours splashed over the walls of the room once known as the Green Salon, Alastair indicated the neat pile of papers on the magnificent eighteenth century desk by the window. Have you even read them?

The marquis gave a careless shrug, barely disturbing the loose fabric of his sky blue open-weave shirt. Alastair would bet it cost at least as much as his tailored Savile Row shirt, and the silk tie that encircled the collar. Lord Farleigh’s crumpled beige linen trousers were ordered from his lordship’s Indian tailor. As in India the country. Although the marquis believed in recycling and conservation, he rarely bothered to count the carbon emissions from the plane that brought his clothes over to England, or the road transport that brought it here. If it didn’t suit him, he ignored inconvenient facts.

Alastair ran his fingers through the short, blunt-cut strands of his hair. I don’t have time for this. Did you or didn’t you read the papers?

His father heaved a long-suffering sigh. Yes, I read them. Awfully boring stuff.

You understand they give me power of attorney?

His father nodded. He was looking tired, but after the health scare he’d had, that wasn’t surprising. The last time they’d met the marquis had said he was ready to retire. Now he was playing games again, dancing around the subject. Alastair hated these games. What was the point?

Pa, you know you need to retire. You can’t go on like this forever. You need to look after yourself, especially after what the doctor said after your heart attack. I’ll take good care of the estate. Although he didn’t want to. He had his own career, but recently he’d faced a few hard facts, the ones he’d been running away from. One day he’d become the Marquis of Farleigh, whether he liked it or not.

His father looked up at Alastair, blue eyes remarkably shrewd for a man who claimed to be so ditsy. You’ll have to spend more time here. He fixed Alastair with a dark glare.

Alastair recalled the rusting gates, and the vaguely shabby appearance of the public areas of the house. His father pushed money at workmen and trusted them to get the work done, but he picked them on the basis of their faces or their affability. Alastair would employ the devil himself if the estimate was good and the work was done well and on time.

He should have taken control of the estate long ago. Blame the excitement of building on the family estate in London, of seeing his designs come to life. He should never have let affairs here get so bad. His father had obviously been struggling for years. Is that your final decision? You’ve signed everything?

You’re keen to get started. I thought I’d talk to you before I signed. His father gave him an angelic smile, the one that, in the old days, had got him everything he wanted. Not this time.

Alastair clenched his teeth and waited, recognizing his father’s game. The times he’d stood before the old man just like this when he was a kid, to be reminded of who he was and why he mattered. Nothing to do with Alastair and everything to do with Lord Winsley, the courtesy title he was stuck with whether he liked it or not.

His father hadn’t signed the power of attorney. Alastair ground his teeth and frustration rose bitter in his throat. He’d get that ulcer yet. God knew he’d earned it.

The marquis waved his hand in the direction of the papers. I promise I’ll sign everything once you’ve given me an heir.

For a full minute Alastair couldn’t move. He couldn’t think straight. The clock on the marble mantelpiece tinkled its way through the quarter-hour. The garish swirls and stars on the walls pressed in on him and his head throbbed with an incoming headache. What? he managed eventually.

You heard. I want a legitimate heir.

There was only one way he could provide an heir for the estate. Marriage.

I thought you wanted me to marry for love? He wasn’t interested in love, but he’d played that card for years.

Needs must. Give me the heir, the marquis repeated stubbornly. Or at least, get one on the way. I’ll settle for that.

Sometimes Alastair thought he was living in the eighteenth century. Getting married, providing an heir—it was straight out of Jane Austen. He’d escaped for years, but for an old hippie his father had some old-fashioned ideas.

He glanced up at the paintings again, waving at them. You have children. Dozens of them. The one that depicted a lightning storm was probably the worst, but the trees in springtime one was equally grisly.

Eighteen, his father said, not in the least put out.

Choose one of them to give you your heir.

Alastair’s parents had provided constant fodder for the press through the years, by conducting what they grandly referred to as an open marriage. They married late, and the marquis had been nearly fifty when they had finally produced an heir for the estate, neatly confounding the cousin expecting to inherit. The cousin, constantly referred to by his mother as Poor Ronald, even forced a DNA test, which Alastair’s father had happily produced. There was no getting out of it. Alastair Burton, who reluctantly carried the courtesy title Lord Winsley was the heir to the Marquis of Farleigh, the man kinder critics called eccentric.

This room was testament to his father’s passion. He fancied himself an artist. Apart from painting every woman he’d ever slept with, creating a gallery big enough to rival the family portraits in the Long Gallery, he painted the walls. Bright, not to say garish colours, flat designs and the lack of discipline combined to make the family part of Farleigh House a living nightmare.

What irked Alastair most was that row of mistresses who lived on the estate in the row of ugly cottages the media had dubbed Sin Row. Finally he had a chance to get rid of the place for good. And the occupants. At least his father had signed the agreement for that.

His father followed Alastair’s gaze and smiled mistily at his ladies, but his expression hardened when he returned his attention to his son. Only you count. You’re the legitimate heir, and outdated as it is, you get the whole bundle.

What’s left of it after your women have leeched off you. Alastair paced to the window and back again to give himself a chance to calm down. How dare his father spring this on him? Wary of marriage, he had sought out the kind of women who didn’t want it—women with wealth and careers of their own. Women who knew how to say goodbye.

But a wife, that was different. While at the back of his mind he knew one day he’d have to take the plunge, he wasn’t ready. He didn’t believe in love, for a start. If love meant the kind of casual, off-on relationship his parents shared, they could keep it. But he believed in honesty and fidelity, the old-fashioned things his father had jettisoned. Even with their open marriage, his parents had argued often and made up with the kind of passion that echoed through the great house.

The first acrimonious split had resulted in him being sent to boarding school. Dumped in a safe place to struggle through life as best he could. That would never happen to any child of his.

If you die without issue, your hooray Henry of a cousin inherits. His father regarded him steadily, his baby-blue eyes clear and guileless. If that hypocritical, greedy bastard gets it, I’d come back and haunt the lot of you. He’s an arse, a stumbling, roaring idiot and I won’t have it.

And there it was, his father’s stubborn determination. He’d hated his brother, and now he hated his brother’s children. Alastair didn’t give a damn. You’re right about Ronald but if he inherits, it’s literally over my dead body. I’ll give you an heir, Pa, but all in good time. He paced along the carpet again.

It’s time you thought about settling down, dear boy. I gave you that patch of land in London to play with, and you’ve done very well. Now you have to do your duty.

That patch of land... Alastair stopped, closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. That patch of land, that had once been a slum in the East End of London had turned fashionable. Once Alastair had erected a couple of prestigious office developments on the sites, they provided more income than the rest of the estate combined. And with his share of the profits, he’d taken another patch of land—and another.

He didn’t need his father or his title, but he wouldn’t abandon it. After all, the blood of hundreds of years of warriors and aristocrats