NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover you should be

aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold

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publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events

portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or
are used fictitiously.

sunrise with a notorious lord

Copyright © 2012 by Alexandra Hawkins.

All rights reserved.

For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York,
NY 10010.

ISBN: 978-1-250-00136-8

Printed in the United States of America

St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / January 2012

St. Martin’s Paperbacks are published by St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth
Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

10—9—8—7—6—5—4—3—2—1
 Chapter One
January 28, 1823

“Never has God created a more devious creature,” Chris-

topher Avery Courtland, Earl of Vanewright, declared
as he walked the vale of Blackmoor one early morning
in January with his friends, the Marquess of Sainthill
and the Duke of Huntsley, as they hunted hare. Cold
and hungry, the earl, who was often acknowledged by
the abbreviated version of his title, wished they had taken
their horses on the trail hunt.
Squinting at the pack of baying harriers on the hori-
zon, the duke spared a glance at Vane. “What are you
muttering on about?”
Huntsley, or simply Hunter to his friends, was aptly
named. He excelled at sports whether they involved pur-
suing game on the frost-crusted low-lying meadow or
more challenging quarry, the ladies of the ton. Perhaps
it was because his days as a free man were numbered.
Though he rarely spoke of it unless he was deeply in his
cups, his wily grandmother had betrothed her twelve-
year-old grandson to a young girl barely out of her swad-
dling clothes to increase the family’s landholdings.
2 ALEXANDRA HAWKINS

Now that his own mother, the Marchioness of Neth-

erley, had decided it was time for her surviving son to
marry, Vane had nothing but sympathy for his friend.
Simon Wyndham Jefferes, Marquess of Sainthill, or
Saint, on the other hand, did not possess the tempera-
ment or patience that his nickname implied. Having
severed his ties to his family in his youth, the twenty-
nine-year-old marquess lived only for himself. It was an
enviable position, to be certain, when Vane could not
seem to prevent his own family from meddling in his life.
“Likely his new mistress,” Saint said, the butt of his
double-barreled gun nestled in the crook of his arm.
“No, have you not been paying attention for the past
hour? I am speaking of my mother,” Vane said, scowl-
ing at Saint. “She is determined to ruin my stay in Lon-
don this season. I feel it like a damp chill in my bones.”
Hunter looked askance at Saint. “Care to wager
on it?”
Saint’s gaze sharpened with interest. “Will a hun-
dred pounds suffice?”
“Two hundred,” Hunter countered.
Irritated—it was on the tip of his tongue to increase
the wager to five hundred pounds—Vane kicked Saint
in the calf, causing him to stumble. Hunter, regrettably,
was too far away to punch. “Have some respect, gents!
This is my cursed future both of you are discussing with
such disrespect. Not that either one of you seems to
care. If my mother gets her way, I shall be wed by
summer.”
Hunter dismissed Vane’s accusation with a casual
wave of his hand. “Your charming seventy-two-year-old
 SUNRISE WITH A NOTORIOUS LORD 3

mother has been determined to see you leg-shackled

for the past two years. Nothing has come of it.”
“You have deftly avoided all her elegant snares,” Saint
pointed out. “You will best your dear mother again.” To
Hunter, he added, “And I am willing to wager three
hundred pounds on our dear friend’s victory.”
Hunter’s brows came together as he mulled over
Saint’s terms. “A reckless wager, to be certain. However,
I’ll accept.” He sent Vane an apologetic look. “No disre-
spect to you, of course.”
“Of course.” Vane took no offense at the wager. The
Lords of Vice—as he and his six friends had been
dubbed by the ton—thrived on outrageous bets and im-
possible odds.
Hunter must have been feeling slightly guilty for not
siding with his friend. His gait slowed as he added, “Cyn-
ical as I may be of Lady Netherley’s triumph, it would be
rude not to offer the dear woman my support.”
Vane gave the two men a morose glance. “Both of you
are underestimating my mother. Two failed seasons in
London have made her desperate. As far as she is con-
cerned, I am as unmarriageable as a toothless spinster
without a penny to her name.”
Hunter and Saint chuckled at Vane’s absurd com-
parison.
“Never yield to a woman, my friend,” Hunter advised.
“It’s an indisputable fact that they are ruthless if they
believe they have the upper hand.”
 Chapter Two
March 20, 1823, near the village of Cotersage

“Delia!”
Thoroughly exasperated at her sister’s ability to dis-
appear at a moment’s notice, Isabel Thorne stood stiffly
at the bottom of the narrow staircase as she awaited a
response.
A lady never has to raise her voice to oversee the
household.
Isabel mentally winced as one of her mother’s pithy
little sayings grated on her already frayed nerves. Had
Sybil not retired early to her bedchamber to sleep off
the tea she laced liberally with laudanum and brandy
every afternoon, Isabel was certain she would have been
scolded for her rudeness.
She forced a smile into place when their housekeeper’s
face appeared over the polished wooden balustrade on
the second landing. “I have looked high and low, Miss
Thorne. There is just no sign of her.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Dalman. You may return to your du-
ties,” Isabel said, her eyes narrowing as she contemplated
where her sister might have wandered in an attempt to
6 ALEXANDRA HAWKINS

avoid the chores given to her. “Delia, you cannot keep

running off when it pleases you. This household is show-
ing signs of neglect, and we cannot afford to hire more
servants.”
Of course no one was listening to Isabel’s quiet com-
plaints.
With a sigh escaping her lips, she pivoted and strode
toward the back of the house. There was the informal
parlor to check, and the kitchen. Delia might have even
escaped the house to flirt with one of the many gentle-
men who seemed to show up at all hours of the day to
court her.
Even though Delia accepted their small tokens of
esteem and fluttered about prettily under their fervent
regard, Isabel could have told all of them that they were
wasting their time. Much like their mother, Delia had a
high opinion of herself. As the granddaughter of Vis-
count Botly, her sister thought she could do better than
a hardworking farmer or tradesman when it came to
finding a husband.
Delia was certainly beautiful enough to aspire
higher.
“Isabel,” Mrs. Willow said, stepping out from the
study. “There you are. I was just about to go upstairs and
check on your mother.”
The thirty-nine-year-old woman was a blessing.
Widowed nine years earlier, she was a close friend of
the Thorne family. When Isabel had difficulties handling
her mother’s bouts of melancholy, Mrs. Willow had al-
ways been on hand to assist the young girls.
Isabel smoothed an errant tendril of hair back into
 SUNRISE WITH A NOTORIOUS LORD 7

place. “There is no need. Sybil retired with her tea. With

luck, she will sleep the entire afternoon. Have you seen
Delia? A thousand things need to be done, so naturally
my sister has gone into hiding.”
“Have patience, Isabel,” the older woman instructed.
“Delia is young. She will find a good man, marry him,
and give up her flighty ways.”
She did not share Mrs. Willow’s faith in Delia. Her
sister’s volatile moods and vanity reminded her too much
of their mother. Sybil was a forty-three-year-old widow
with two grown daughters and a dwindling annual in-
come. If her responsibilities had not curbed her reck-
less nature, what hope did Delia have?
“I almost forgot.” Mrs. Willow offered the letter in
her hand to Isabel. “This arrived for you. I was going to
put it on your father’s desk, but I was worried it might
get overlooked.”
Puzzled that anyone would be writing her, Isabel ac-
cepted the letter with a slight frown. “I wonder who . . .
why, it is from Lady Netherley!”
It was toward the end of summer that Isabel and
Delia had had the pleasure of being introduced to the
elderly Marchioness of Netherley. Distinguished visi-
tors such as the marchioness were rare in Cotersage, so
word quickly spread throughout the tiny village that
Mrs. Whitechurch’s cousin was spending the fortnight
at her house.
When her mother had learned of the noblewoman’s
visit, she’d naturally insisted that the three of them call
on their good neighbor. Sybil had argued that Lady
Netherley would be insulted if she was not properly
8 ALEXANDRA HAWKINS

introduced to Viscount Botly’s granddaughters. She

was quite happy to ignore the unpleasant detail that their
grandfather had disowned his only daughter for marry-
ing a commoner. As far as he was concerned, his grand-
daughters did not exist.
It also had not boded well that their initial visit with
their neighbor and Lady Netherley had been an appall-
ing disaster. Agitated and most likely drunk, their mother
had managed to insult Mrs. Whitechurch within min-
utes of their arrival. The conversation had been stilted
and the visit blessedly brief. On the drive home, Sybil
had railed at the injustice of it all. She told her daugh-
ters that their neighbor was envious of their beauty so
she had deliberately portrayed the Thorne women in
the worst light to the visiting marchioness.
Needless to say, Isabel was quite surprised when
Mrs. Willow approached her days later with an invita-
tion from Mrs. Whitechurch for a second visit. The
good woman had claimed that Lady Netherley had en-
joyed meeting her and Delia. It was also politely sug-
gested that their mother should refrain from joining her
daughters. When Sybil learned of the invitation, she
reacted in her typical manner by throwing a tantrum
and sulking. However, even she could not deny that a
connection to Lady Netherley could open doors for her
unmarried daughters. She did not try to discourage their
visits.
During the fortnight of the marchioness’s stay at
Cotersage, she and Delia called on the Whitechurch res-
idence five times.
“Well, girl, are you going to just stand there wool-
 SUNRISE WITH A NOTORIOUS LORD 9

gathering or are you going to open the letter?” Mrs.

Willow teased.
Isabel smiled mischievously, sensing that Mrs. Wil-
low was just as curious as she about the contents of the
missive. “Later. First, I must find Delia. She will want
to hear what Lady Netherley has to say, too.”
Knowing it was useless to press Isabel further, the
older woman hugged her. “Off with you then. You might
want to try the back of the house near the gardens. I’ve
caught Delia fluttering about the hedges with the rest of
the butterflies.”
Isabel was still smiling as she passed through the
kitchen, sparing a moment to chat with the cook about
their dinner before she stepped outdoors.
It was a brisk sunny day. Wishing she had thought to
collect a shawl, Isabel wrapped her arms around her
chest and started for the hedges Mrs. Willow had men-
tioned. There were a dozen places Delia could have
picked to avoid her household chores, and if Isabel had
her way, she intended to add a few more tasks to her
sister’s list as punishment.
Before Isabel had walked halfway across the weed-
choked yard, she heard a soft giggle coming from one
of the outbuildings. Changing directions, she marched
over to the building, noting absently that it needed a new
coat of paint. As she opened her mouth and prepared to
blister Delia’s ears for her laziness, Isabel skidded to a
halt at the sight of her sister in the arms of Mr. Ruddel.
Her Mr. Ruddel.
Well, not hers exactly, she silently amended. Isabel
considered the thirty-one-year-old gentleman a good
10 ALEXANDRA HAWKINS

friend. A respectable three inches taller than her own

willowy five-foot-seven-inch stature, the handsome,
softly spoken blond stranger had come into her life quite
by chance eighteen months earlier when a mutual friend
brought about an introduction because of their shared
interests.
Like her father, Mr. Ruddel was an inventor and natu-
ral philosopher. Over the course of their acquaintance,
she had sought his opinion on numerous occasions as she
quietly sold off her father’s papers to keep the creditors
at bay. Mr. Ruddel had offered her friendship, and had
seemed to be on the verge of offering more if his some-
what chaste kisses had been any indication.
There was nothing chaste about the kiss he was
sharing with her sister.
Isabel’s right brow arched as the gentleman, over-
whelmed with passion, cupped Delia’s backside in his
hands.
Oh, for heaven’s sake, enough is enough!
“Pardon me,” she said, despising the waspish quality
in her voice. “I was not aware that we had a guest, sister.”
Mr. Ruddel practically shoved Delia away from him.
Isabel might have laughed if her throat hadn’t constricted
with unexpected anguish.
“Oh, my, Isabel!” he said, taking out a folded hand-
kerchief and dabbing the wetness from his mouth. Mr.
Ruddel looked profoundly embarrassed to have been
caught in a torrid embrace. “I can explain.”