Fleeting Encounters: Harriet

By Arabella Sheen

Fleeting Encounters Series ... offers erotic Regency bedtime reading.

Dare Harriet risk all and give in to her desire for sexual fulfilment?
With an urgent need to find a husband, Miss Harriet Cornwall is faced with a dilemma. She can try to save her parents from financial ruin by forcing the Marquess of Wrexham into a loveless marriage or she can indulge her awakening need for passion in a fleeting encounter with a passing stranger.
Blake McCloud’s horse has become lame and he’s sought refuge at Longbirch Hall until he can continue on his travels to his estate in Widcombe. The only problem is Blake McCloud is not the person he claims to be. He’s the Marquess of Wrexham, the man Harriet intends to compromise...and marry.
Can Harriet have a lover and win a husband?

Content Warning: Contains erotic love scenes

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arabella Sheen
• Release date: Feb 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9781739771010

Arabella Sheen

Arabella Sheen is a British author of sizzling, sensual Contemporary and Historical romance novels.Published with Evernight Publishing, she is also a member of the Romantic Novelists' Association.Arabella likes nothing more than starting a new novel with romantic plots and passionate characters with whom her readers can share some stolen moments.​In her free time, and when she's not reading or writing romance novels, she is either on her allotment sowing and planting with the seasons or she can be found curled on the sofa pandering to the demands of her attention-seeking moggy.Having worked and lived in the city of Amsterdam in the Netherlands as a theatre nurse for nearly twenty years, Arabella now lives in the southwest of England with her family.

Book preview

Fleeting Encounters:

Harriet

Arabella Sheen

Fleeting Encounters: Harriet

Copyright © 2022 by – Arabella Sheen

ISBN: 978-1-7397710-1-0

Publisher: priceplacebooks

Electronic Publication: February 2022

Editor: Pamela Tyner

Cover: Fantasia Frog Designs

eBooks are not transferable. No part of this book may be used or reproduced without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in articles and reviews.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

Back Cover Copy

Fleeting Encounters Series … offers erotic bedtime reading

Dare Harriet risk all and give in to her desire for sexual fulfilment?

With an urgent need to find a husband, Miss Harriet Cornwall is faced with a dilemma. She can try to save her parents from financial ruin by forcing the Marquess of Wrexham into a loveless marriage or she can indulge her awakening need for passion in a fleeting encounter with a passing stranger.

Blake McCloud’s horse has become lame and he’s sought refuge at Longbirch Hall until he can continue on his travels to his estate in Widcombe. The only problem is Blake McCloud is not the person he claims to be. He’s the Marquess of Wrexham, the man Harriet intends to compromise…and marry.

Can Harriet have a lover and win a husband?

Content Warning: Contains erotic love scenes

Content

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

About the Author

Chapter 1

Miss Harriet Cornwall sent word to the stables to have her horse saddled and made ready. Although the wind was up and blowing, she was determined to ride her mount to Widcombe Village that morning.

Her hunt for a husband was on.

Widcombe was known for its excellent drapers and haberdashery shops, and Harriet, thinking to buy some cloth and matching threads for a gown, was hopeful the journey would prove fruitful in more ways than one.

It was not solely for the pleasure of purchasing materials that she was venturing from home, she was also eager to initiate a chance encounter with the Marquess of Wrexham. Gossip was rife that most days the Marquess was to be found in the fields with his gun and dogs at his heels, and Harriet was looking forward to the possibility of finding him out shooting.

Behind closed doors, it was whispered the Marquess had left fast-paced London in disgrace. He’d supposedly returned to Widcombe to sit out the remainder of the season until a scandalous commotion, linked to his mistress and her husband, had died down. A duel at dawn, involving Lord Canforbe’s wife, had caused an uproar, and the Marquess, being unable to continue his affair with Lady Canforbe or show his face in the elegant drawing rooms of the beau monde, had decided to leave the city―until he could return safely at a later date.

His estate, Widcombe Manor, was near Widcombe Village, and Harriet, wishful to catch a glimpse of the man before beginning her pursuit in earnest, was riding forth.

Even with his wicked reputation, the Marquess was thought to be an eligible catch. And although Harriet had yet to make his acquaintance, she was determined to set her cap at him, regardless of his reckless ways.

A hasty person she was not, but in desperation to find a solution to her problem, Harriet had decided to sacrifice her longing for independence and go in search of a wealthy suitor.

At the age of four-and-twenty, and still a spinster, she had to wed, and soon. Not because she wanted to, but because she had to.

Harriet believed she had become an added burden on her parents’ depleted purse, and as much as she loved them and wanted to stay at Longbirch Hall, she knew it would be in everyone’s best interest if she were to marry and make a home of her own.

The time had come to leave the nest and venture out into the world.

Her circle of male acquaintances was limited, and knowing Lord Wrexham was in the area and between mistresses, her plan was to compromise him in such a way that he had no option but to offer marriage. It was an underhanded thing to do, but desperate times called for desperate measures. If it meant Harriet was able to save her family and their home from the bailiffs, then she was prepared to go to any lengths to achieve that.

Her parents, although landed gentry, were not affluent people, and Longbirch Hall, a working farm, was in financial trouble. The farm was mortgaged to the hilt, and her parents, in danger of losing their livelihood, had traveled to London with the intention of asking Harriet’s uncle for a loan. Money had to come from somewhere to tide them over the coming winter’s hardship. And although the decision had been a hard one for her parents to make, after many nights of arguing the pros and cons of sinking further into debt, they had set forth, leaving Harriet to guard the house in their absence.

Harriet wasn’t like many women her age. She wasn’t accustomed to being meek and docile or to bowing to anyone’s wishes. Neither was she the type to sit all day tending her needlepoint or minding her lessons on the pianoforte. She much preferred to be on the farm or working in the fields alongside the laborers. As for attending Widcombe’s balls and routs, she’d rather not grace those with her presence.

But the time to find an eligible husband had come, and realizing she must be wedded and bedded before the year was out, she had to begin her search for a spouse or face the consequences.

Harriet’s future looked ominously bleak. A lonely spinsterhood was on the cards, as was the sale of Longbirch Hall. To stop this from happening, positive action had to be taken, and soon.

Dressed