Scandal and Miss Markham by Janice Preston

He is mesmerized by her intelligence and her vulnerability even as she is cutting him with an icy stare that could fill a forest. Vernon has never met anyone – especially a young woman to be as plucky and down-right irritating as Thea, she gets under his skin with just a scathing look she tells him in no uncertain terms that she hates him and his kind. So, he sets out to the Markham’s cottage only to find that on arriving he finds only Markham’s insanely intelligent and beautiful sister Thea. Vernon’s brother the Duke received a letter from Daniel Markham which was full of intrigue and not a lot else, and it also mentioned that he and the Beauchamp’s cousin are embroiled in something to find out what the hell is going on Vernon sets out to confront the young buck.

He was a handsome aristocrat, experienced in the art of flirtation and accustomed to having his own way…well, he would soon find she was too shrewd to allow weasel words and admiring glances to fool her…. So how on earth does she find her brother? Right on cue, the answer to her problem turn’s up or should that be adding extra problems? Thea has this suspicion that something must have happened to him otherwise he would have come back, and she is desperate to find him but there is a problem she doesn’t want word to get back to her parents about Daniel’s disappearance, her father isn’t well enough and her mother still hasn’t forgiven her for what happened all those years ago that resulted in her father’s stroke.

They have been inseparable since their father had his stroke, and they have had to single-handedly run the family glass-making business. Preston has come out with a real winner with this one and it has definitely become my favourite book out of her work.ĭorothea or Thea (isn’t that a gorgeous name?) Markham’s brother Daniel has gone missing, it isn’t like her brother to just do a bunk without telling her. This is book two in “The Beauchamp Betrothals” the new series by the talented Ms Preston and it is a doozy this time we are getting to know the roguish and charming Vernon, younger brother to Leo Beauchamp from book one. And when they are thrown together on their scandalous adventure, friendship soon gives way to desire… Meeting Thea gives him a renewed purpose. Lord Vernon Beauchamp feels his life lacks direction. Unsure she can trust the handsome peer, Thea dresses up as a boy and follows him! Then a mysterious lord turns up asking questions about Daniel and offers to find him.

Glassmaker’s daughter Thea Markham is devastated when her brother Daniel goes missing.

Scandal and Miss Markham by Janice Preston