In Which Matilda Halifax Earns the Value of Restraint (eBook)

Alexandra Vasti (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
160 Seiten
Atlantic Books (Verlag)
978-1-80546-591-1 (ISBN)

Infos

'Hot, smart, funny, and charming as hell' - Alix E. Harrow on THE HALIFAX HELLIONS series. The second novella in Alexandra Vasti's Halifax Hellions series. For seven years, Matilda Halifax and her twin have been the most scandalous ladies in London. But when Matilda accidentally sells erotic drawings of the brooding, reclusive Marquess of Ashford, she has-perhaps-gone too far. Christian de Bord, Lord Ashford, knows what it's like to be notorious. Alone ever since he was accused of murdering his wife, Christian is determined to protect his adolescent sister Bea. But when Matilda Halifax's salacious pamphlet appears featuring his own face, he's thrust back into the storm of public attention. Bea's painting tutor quits and the only person he can find to replace her at his terrifying Gothic castle is Matilda herself. The last thing Christian needs is another scandal-especially not one with the most sinfully tempting face he's ever seen. Matilda is determined to right what she's set wrong. One fake elopement and a carriage ride later, Matilda finds herself in Northumberland with Christian, whose scowls do little to hide the wounds he carries. Only Matilda Halifax could turn Christian's life so decidedly inside out-and only Matilda can persuade him that love just might be worth the risk...

Alexandra Vasti loves coffee, beignets, and books, in no particular order. She is the author of Ne'er Duke Well and the Halifax Hellions series. In between writing swoony Regency romances with hijinks and heart, she teaches British and Caribbean literature in New Orleans.

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"e;Hot, smart, funny, and charming as hell"e; - Alix E. Harrow on THE HALIFAX HELLIONS series. The second novella in Alexandra Vasti's Halifax Hellions series. For seven years, Matilda Halifax and her twin have been the most scandalous ladies in London. But when Matilda accidentally sells erotic drawings of the brooding, reclusive Marquess of Ashford, she has-perhaps-gone too far. Christian de Bord, Lord Ashford, knows what it's like to be notorious. Alone ever since he was accused of murdering his wife, Christian is determined to protect his adolescent sister Bea. But when Matilda Halifax's salacious pamphlet appears featuring his own face, he's thrust back into the storm of public attention. Bea's painting tutor quits and the only person he can find to replace her at his terrifying Gothic castle is Matilda herself. The last thing Christian needs is another scandal-especially not one with the most sinfully tempting face he's ever seen. Matilda is determined to right what she's set wrong. One fake elopement and a carriage ride later, Matilda finds herself in Northumberland with Christian, whose scowls do little to hide the wounds he carries. Only Matilda Halifax could turn Christian's life so decidedly inside out-and only Matilda can persuade him that love just might be worth the risk...

Textauszug

Chapter 1

Despite plentiful rumor to the contrary, Christian de Bord, the 6th Marquess of Ashford, had never killed anyone.

For the first time in thirty-eight years, however, he was giving murder very serious consideration.

“You’re certain she’s here?” he asked Whitby in a low voice.

His friend—one of the few left who both received Christian in his home and was invited to society events—nodded nervously. “Ashford, are you quite sure this is a good idea?”

“It is an excellent idea.”

“You, er”—Whitby had the grace to look embarrassed—“you know for a fact she’s the one who did the engravings?”

“She bloody well signed them.” His outrage was hot and fierce and righteous, and unlike the guilt that coiled in his chest, it felt goddamned wonderful.

“She signed them?” It was hard to tell in the dark, but Whitby looked faintly green. “The Earl of Warren’s sister drew pornographic pictures of you and then signed them?”

“Oh, yes.”

MH.

Her artist’s mark had swirled in the bottom-right corner, a slanted diagonal. When he’d seen the pictures—when his life had descended even more ludicrously into chaos—when his sister’s art tutor had tendered her resignation—Christian had vowed to find out who was responsible. It had taken a month and a small fortune, but he’d done it.

Matilda Halifax.

“Can you point her out?” he asked Whitby as they made their way through the poorly lit crush.

Whitby’s dark brows drew together. “You do not know her? Surely everyone in London knows the Halifax Hellions.”

Christian clenched his jaw so hard he thought he might crack a tooth.

He knew of them, of course. The scandalous redheaded Halifax twins were nearly as infamous as he was. They had debuted probably half a dozen years before, to the delight of every gossip rag in the country. Even at his estate in Northumberland, he’d heard of their antics. One of them stripped down to her chemise and threw herself into the Serpentine. The other—or perhaps it was the same one, Christian had no notion—was caught charging into a duel in the guise of a medical man, dressed in breeches and jacket and brandishing a cheroot. They drank smuggled French brandy, terrorized pedestrians in their high-perch phaeton, and, if the scandal sheets were to be believed, paraded about the city with their tits out and their skirts up to their knees.

Yes, he knew of the Halifax Hellions. He did not think he’d have any trouble recognizing her. Red hair. Scandalous gown.

He was, perhaps, a trifle unhinged. He had a moment of pause as he considered confronting this complete stranger.

And then he thought again of the pictures, and how crushed Bea was going to be when he told her about her tutor, and his resolve hardened. What use was his blackened reputation if he could not frighten some sense into a spoiled, mercenary debutante?

A reputation blackened further by Matilda Halifax herself, damn it. He refused to hesitate.

“Never mind,” he said to Whitby. “How many gingers with a flask and a cigar can there be at this bloody event?”

Whitby winced. “Two, I think.”

Goddamnit. Twins.

“Fine,” he grated. “Find her. And then leave well enough alone.”

Whitby led him through the party and out to the sculpture garden where couples nestled together in the shadows. Christian’s gaze skipped over two MPs from opposite sides of the aisle looking not at all repelled by the other’s politics in the heady, rose-scented night air.

And then Whitby paused and nodded. “That one,” he said. “Lady Matilda is usually the one in blue.”

Christian followed his friend’s gaze. Matilda stood in front of a statue, a naked male form. He could not see her face—only a neatly pinned coil of red hair, a closely cut blue dress, one pale hand extended to caress the curve of the sculpture’s hip.

Of course she would grope the bloody statue. Of course.

“Go,” he ground out.

“Are you—”

“Go.” His voice was ice, and Whitby hastened to obey.

He was upon her in an instant. He had not thought he was particularly quiet, but she must have been lost in her sculpture-induced reveries, because she did not turn as he approached.

He reached out and closed his hand over the back of her neck.

She whirled, and his hand fell away.

She was—

Christian could not take her in.

He had thought she would be hard-edged. Cynical and angry. Like him, he supposed. He had expected her to be as resentful of the world as he was, between her scandalous reputation and the insatiable interest of the ton.

But she didn’t look hard or cold or angry.

She looked like a goddamned milkmaid.

She was a small thing, he realized now that he stood nearly atop her, her curvy little body poured into her pale blue dress. She had freckles, for Christ’s sake, all over the bridge of her nose and the tops of her round cheeks. Her eyes were blue and wide and sweet, and at the sight of him, her mouth trembled open.

“You,” she whispered.

“Yes,” he said grimly. “Me.”

Matilda hoped she’d gone mad.

It seemed possible. She had not over-imbibed. She was relatively certain she was not asleep. Failing those two scenarios, vivid hallucination seemed the most likely explanation for why the Marquess of Ashford was here in Lord Denham’s sculpture garden, looming over her like an avenging angel and the unfortunate embodiment of every one of her erotic fantasies.

It certainly couldn’t be real. The man lived in Northumberland.

Truly, the fact that she knew the location of his bloody country estate was proof enough that she was cracked. She had never even spoken to him.

He merely had a starring role in her sexual imagination.

And, apparently, her hallucinations as well.

“Matilda Halifax,” he said. His voice was low, gravelly and slow, as though he luxuriated in the feel of her name on his lips. His ice-chip eyes, pale above a dark beard threaded with silver, glittered in the moonlight.

This was not real. It could not be.

“Yes?” Her voice was squeaky. She swallowed.

“So you are Matilda,” he said. “Not the other? The twin?”

Matilda felt a surge of annoyance. If she were going to run mad and imagine Ashford approaching her in a moonlit sculpture garden, surely her deranged mind could produce something better than the marquess confusing her with her sister, Margo.

“I am Matilda.”

His fingers closed over her upper arm, and her breath caught. “MH,” he said. His voice sounded almost dreamy. “Matilda Halifax. God, I have been looking forward to this.”

Matilda went cold all over.

MH.

He could not mean—

He could not—

Her brain stuttered out, words failing her. Pictures—her refuge—flooded her mind instead.

Ashford on his knees, his dark head buried between rounded female thighs. Ashford atop a woman in bed, her wrists bound to the spindles, her breasts bared. Ashford in a chair, a lady in his lap, his mouth—

No. No. There was no way he could have connected her with the engravings. It was not possible.

“I beg your pardon?” Her voice came out thin.

His fingers tightened on her upper arm, biting into her flesh. The clean white scar that sliced through his facial hair twisted down as he spoke. “You mean to deny it?” His voice had dropped lower, just above a whisper. “You mean to pretend that you did not sell your obscene drawings of me to a goddamned printer?”

“I—” Her throat seemed to have closed in on itself. She could not get the words out except between gasping breaths. “I don’t know—what you mean.”

He released her arm and reached into his jacket.

Run, she told herself. Run now.

Her legs did not obey. She was like a rabbit, staring frozen as the hawk descended.

“Which part of it do you refute?” he hissed, and he brandished a little pamphlet in front of her face. “That you did the drawings? Or that they’re of me? Because I assure you, your ladyship, you will find me loath to believe either denial.”

Matilda tried not to look at the pamphlet. Tried, and then looked at it anyway.

Heat flooded her cheeks.

She had not seen it, not since it had been printed. She had read only the manuscript’s fair copy. She had sent along her drawings with the printer’s man, and had not seen the engravings they’d made or the bound final text.

But she knew what it would say. Professor Flagellante’s Naughty Pupil, the cover read, A Fashionable Tale in Two Comic Acts.

“I—have not seen this,” she choked out. It was true. It was true. She had not seen the pamphlet.

“Is that right?” Ashford’s voice had gone silky now. “You mean to tell me you are not the MH who illustrated this volume? Who has illustrated, if my man of business has it right, nearly half of the erotic pamphlets published in London in the last five years?”

He could not know this. Her brain tried to spin out some other explanation. He was guessing—he simply assumed it was she because she was a Halifax Hellion and thus a walking scandal—he had plucked her initials out of Debrett’s.

But nothing she could think of made sense.

He knew too much. He knew that it was not just this pamphlet, but a whole oeuvre of them. He even knew where to find her—here in Denham’s sculpture garden.

She had not always been as careful as she ought. She had...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 3.7.2025
• Reihe/Serie: The Halifax Hellions
• Verlagsort: London
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Historische Romane
• Schlagworte: alexandra vasti • Alexis Hall • an earl like you • bestselling romance 2026 • books by alexandra vasti • books for fans of tessa dare • books like bridgerton • books like the governess game • Bridgerton • Bringing Down the Duke • candice camp • Caroline Linden • christine britton • christine britton whats a duke got to do with it • devil in winter • earl crush • Elizabeth Hoyt • Eloisa James • Evie Dunmore • fans of alexandra vasti • Georgette Heyer • Grace Callaway • infamous lex croucher • Julia Quinn • Lady Whistledown • Lex Croucher • Lisa Kleypas • Loretta Chase • Martha Waters • monica mccarty • mortal follies • ne'er duke well • never say never to an earl • nico rosso • Penelope Featherington • Regency • Regency Romance • regency romantic comedies • regency rom coms • Romance • Romancing Mister Bridgerton • romcom • sarah maclean • sexy regency romance • Spicy Regency Romance • Suzanne Allain • ten things i hate about the duke • Tessa Dare • the duchess deal
• ISBN-10: 1-80546-591-0 / 1805465910
• ISBN-13: 978-1-80546-591-1 / 9781805465911