Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Gentleman Wanted
    Gentleman Wanted
    Gentleman Wanted
    Ebook78 pages1 hour

    Gentleman Wanted

    By Isabella Hargreaves

    5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Is what a widow needs, really what she wants?

    Widow Selena Hartnell is deep in debt and faced with prison. Her managing friend, Barbara, Baroness De Ritz decrees Selena needs a wealthy husband – fast!

    Guy, Viscount Rushcroft needs a wife to oversee his six motherless children who are running wild.

    So Barbara decides Selena and the Viscount are perfectly suited, and launches into matchmaking mode.

    Find out how Barbara's scheming surprises them all.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherIsabella Hargreaves
    Release dateSep 8, 2017
    ISBN9780648153108
    Gentleman Wanted
    Author

    Isabella Hargreaves

    Isabella Hargreaves is an award-winning historical romance author. She writes Romance through the Ages, with a story to tell from the Regency era to Ancient Britain and to 1920s Australia. She loves writing about strong heroines finding the men to match them. She is a winner of the Romance Writers of Australia Romantic Book of the Year 2022 (novella category), the Romance Writers of New Zealand Koru Award 2018 (novella category) and the Romance Writers of Australia 'Little Gems' short story competition 2018, and a finalist in a number of other awards. Isabella lives in Brisbane, Australia, where she works as an historian and is butler to three moggies. When she's not reading and writing, Isabella loves horse-riding and scenic walks. She dreams of an around-the-world trip to indulge these passions. For more information about Isabella Hargreaves' books, and to sign up for email advice about her next release, go to: www.isabellahargreaves.com Follow on: Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/isabella-hargreaves Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7457181.Isabella_Hargreaves Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IsabellaHargreavesBooks

    Read more from Isabella Hargreaves

    Related to Gentleman Wanted

    Related ebooks

    Sweet Romance For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      STEPPING Out

      Mar 4, 2020

      STEPPING Out
      9 min read

    • Article

      A double LIFE

      Sep 13, 2022

      A double LIFE
      6 min read

    • Article

      Love And The LAND GIRL

      May 26, 2021

      Love And The LAND GIRL
      9 min read

    • Article

      Big Question

      Apr 7, 2020

      Big Question
      2 min read

    • Article

      Echoes

      Jul 13, 2022

      Echoes
      9 min read

    • Article

      The Courage To Be Happy

      Feb 1, 2023

      MARRIAGE and columns have this in common: you tend to repeat yourself. More than once in these pages, I have quoted the New Yorker’s legendary film critic Pauline Kael. After President Nixon’s landslide victory in 1972 she wrote: ‘I live in a rather

      3 min read

    • Article

      Blue ICE

      Dec 12, 2023

      Blue ICE
      6 min read

    • Article

      Blue ICE

      Dec 8, 2021

      Blue ICE
      6 min read

    • Article

      FOREVER Friends

      May 31, 2023

      FOREVER Friends
      6 min read

    • Article

      Wise old Mrs Merrow

      Jul 27, 2020

      Littlesea was everything the description said: a white stone cottage with beams and higgledy-piggledy walls and steps away from a tiny quay in a private bay. It would have been the perfect spot for honeymooners had it not had just the one single bed

      8 min read

    • Article

      Goodwill to All Men

      Jan 7, 2022

      Goodwill to All Men
      5 min read

    • Article

      Mrs. Robinson

      Dec 10, 2022

      “Do you think she will like me?” The question slipped from between my lips and hung suspended in the air. My gloved hands were in my lap, and I was wringing them. As the carriage conveyed us and we neared my new husband’s ancestral home, Ashby Hall,

      20 min read

    • Article

      The Writing On THE WALL

      Apr 6, 2021

      The Writing On THE WALL
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Wildest Place OF ALL

      Mar 2, 2022

      The Wildest Place OF ALL
      9 min read

    • Article

      PARTING the Veil

      Oct 21, 2020

      PARTING the Veil
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Only Rule

      Jul 13, 2020

      There is only one rule in polite English society, but it is iron clad. Of course, polite English society is a fiction. For one thing, its members are rarely polite. Politeness is for the middle classes rather than those who live off ancestral acres o

      5 min read

    • Article

      Drawn to THE MOORS

      Feb 8, 2022

      Drawn to THE MOORS
      11 min read

    • Article

      The lake LADY

      Sep 20, 2023

      The lake LADY
      6 min read

    • Article

      THE Well-wishers

      Nov 17, 2021

      THE Well-wishers
      3 min read

    • Article

      Marmalade SUMMER

      Sep 1, 2022

      Marmalade SUMMER
      5 min read

    • Article

      Salt On The WIND

      Apr 1, 2020

      Salt On The WIND
      6 min read

    • Article

      Nothing to Declare

      Jun 15, 2019

      All the senior partners were having a laugh about a movie they’d seen. Forty-Five Years. Something, something about the movie taking forty-five years to sit through. The woman McGuinness thought he recognized was in it with them at the far end of the

      24 min read

    • Article

      The Scarlet PEBBLE

      Feb 28, 2024

      The Scarlet PEBBLE
      9 min read

    • Article

      Six Dart Out

      Sep 10, 2023

      Marc figured the girl was a vegan. Her puke had overflowed the sink and run onto the floor—tomatoes and rice marinated in microbrew lager. He’d told Vegan Girl to slow down, but her friends had won the turning-21-peer-pressure battle. Admittedly, Mar

      9 min read

    • Article

      Too late FOR LOVE?

      Jun 8, 2022

      Too late FOR LOVE?
      8 min read

    • Article

      Australia Reads At Home

      May 18, 2020

      Australia Reads At Home
      7 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Gentleman Wanted

    5/5

    1 rating0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Gentleman Wanted - Isabella Hargreaves

      GENTLEMAN WANTED

      By Isabella Hargreaves

      It is a truth universally acknowledged,

      that a widow in possession of a large family,

      must be in want of a husband.

      With apologies to Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice.

      WITH THANKS TO BRIAN Sinclair, Anthea Jones, and Olivia from Hot Tree Editing for their comments on the text.

      Chapter 1

      BATH, NOVEMBER 1815, during the Season

      Please, oh please, let him not see me. Selena Hartnell gently worked the bolt on the kitchen door away from the swollen timber of its jamb until it slid open. She glanced into the courtyard behind the house. No one waited there. Nothing moved. With one hand over her nose and mouth against the putrid smell of rotting vegetables and worse, she eased the door wider, slipped out into the fading twilight, and hurried along the side of the boarding house until she reached the roadway.

      The grizzled man in a shiny clerk’s coat, who had been slouched near the front door of the house, rushed towards her shouting, Mrs Hartnell, your debt! You must pay!

      She flung out her hand to hail a passing hackney carriage. It stopped and she clambered inside. The man shoved some folded papers into her hand. It’s debtor’s prison for you if you don’t pay up. You’ve got four weeks, then I’m coming to get you. He leered at her but stepped back.

      Her heart pounding frantically in her chest, Selena slammed the carriage door on him and rapped on the ceiling for the driver to proceed.

      First, show me your fare, madam, the driver demanded.

      Selena wrenched some coins from her reticule, opened her hand to reveal them, and ordered, Quickly!

      Where to? he asked, with bored compliance in his voice.

      To Brock Street. Please hurry! The words croaked out of her constricted throat.

      A whip snapped over the horses’ heads and the hackney lurched forward, pitching Selena against its cracked leather squabs. She sagged in relief as the carriage sped away from the debt collector. Selena read the letter in her hand. She had four weeks. A ball of dread lodged in her stomach.

      Soon she was descending from the carriage in front of the Bath stone home of her widowed friend from school, Barbara, the Baroness De Ritz. With her hood pulled low over her face, Selena hurried up a short flight of stairs to the front door and rapped the brass knocker.

      The door opened to reveal Barbara’s butler, a relic from her married days, who recognised Selena and pulled the door wide for her entry.

      Is her ladyship in, Sims? Selena asked.

      She is to you, ma’am, he replied with a short bow.

      Please take me to her.

      Within seconds, Selena was ushered into the sitting room on the second level. Barbara sat at a small escritoire angled to catch the sunlight falling fitfully through the bay window above the street. Her gown was cut in the latest London fashion, but Selena knew it was home-stitched. Corkscrews of dark hair fell from the topknot at her crown. Her face wore a wide smile of welcome, which collapsed when she saw Selena’s agitation.

      Oh, Barbara, they’ve come for me!

      Selena’s friend hurried over and guided her to a striped chaise longue. Take a deep breath and tell me what’s happened!

      Sentence by stumbling sentence, Selena confided the awful truth. She was pursued by the moneylender for the amount she had borrowed to send her twelve-year-old sons, George and Harry, into the navy as midshipmen. Her meagre investments were nowhere near enough to repay the interest on the debt and now they demanded payment in full. Five hundred pounds! What could she do?

      I will lend you the money to get rid of the bailiff.

      Selena’s chest tightened. I could never repay you! Thank you, but no.

      Then let me give you the money. The plea in Barbara’s tone was copied on her face.

      Never! Selena gave her a withering look. "I can’t allow that. Your husband left you this house and only just enough money to live upon. There must be another way!"

      Barbara paced the room. Is there no one you can call on from your husband’s family to help you?

      Alas, no. She shook her head. They wouldn’t recognise her on the street, let alone help her. Ralph had married down when they wed, and his family had never accepted her.

      For a few moments, Barbara tapped a long, buffed nail against her still-white front teeth. What you need is another husband, and fast!

      Do I? Selena felt a sob rise from her constricted chest. She knew Barbara spoke the truth. It was what she needed... but it wasn’t what she wanted.

      Barbara rapped out some more home truths in her sergeant major manner. "You must

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1