By: Cat Sebastian
Releasing
February 7, 2017
Avon Impulse
Avon Impulse
An earl hiding from his future . . .
Lawrence Browne, the Earl of Radnor, is mad. At least, that’s what he and most of the village believes. A brilliant scientist, he hides himself away in his family’s crumbling estate, unwilling to venture into the outside world. When an annoyingly handsome man arrives at Penkellis, claiming to be Lawrence’s new secretary, his carefully planned world is turned upside down.
A swindler haunted by his past . . .
Georgie Turner has made his life pretending to be anyone but himself. A swindler and con man, he can slip into an identity faster than he can change clothes. But when his long-dead conscience resurrects and a dangerous associate is out for blood, Georgie escapes to the wilds of Cornwall. Pretending to be a secretary should be easy, but he doesn’t expect that the only madness he finds is the one he has for the gorgeous earl.
Can they find forever in the wreckage of their lives?
Challenging each other at every turn, the two men soon give into the desire that threatens to overwhelm them. But with one man convinced he is at the very brink of madness and the other hiding his real identity, only true love can make this an affair to remember.
So we are back with another Cat Sebastian book, and one that I was really excited to read. The story is about Lawrence Browne, the Earl of Radnor, who all of the villagers call mad, but then again, Lawrence is scared to get close to anyone, fearing that he would harm them, like his evil brother and father did.
But then Georgie Turner arrived, and declared himself his secretary, but that is not truly who Georgie is! He is a con-artist, who finds it a little difficult to stay in London, after his last scam blew up in his face, so when Georgie's brother was asked by the vicar of Penkellis, to analyze the Earl, Georgie is dispatched first to get the lie of the land, that is all Georgie needs to high tail out of London.
Slowly Lawrence and Georgie start to rely on each other, and there mutual attraction grows! But with Lawrence's relatives wanting to declare him incompetent and Georgie's past, will their relationship be short-lived?
I will be honest, I found the beginning slow, and without much detail, but then by boom, suddenly you are bombarded with information, feelings and background, that I had to reread a few chapters, just so I could get it straight in my head. After those difficult chapters the book was smooth and a delicious read. The characters were interesting and three dimensional and I have to say that I love the fact that Georgie challenges Lawrence and despite his social anxiety, when Georgie needs Lawrence, Lawrence more than steps up to the plate.
This is the second book from this debut author, and I have to say I'm beginning to love her work and I feel she is definitely an author that people should take notice of.
I give The Lawrence Browne Affair 4 stars!
But then Georgie Turner arrived, and declared himself his secretary, but that is not truly who Georgie is! He is a con-artist, who finds it a little difficult to stay in London, after his last scam blew up in his face, so when Georgie's brother was asked by the vicar of Penkellis, to analyze the Earl, Georgie is dispatched first to get the lie of the land, that is all Georgie needs to high tail out of London.
Slowly Lawrence and Georgie start to rely on each other, and there mutual attraction grows! But with Lawrence's relatives wanting to declare him incompetent and Georgie's past, will their relationship be short-lived?
I will be honest, I found the beginning slow, and without much detail, but then by boom, suddenly you are bombarded with information, feelings and background, that I had to reread a few chapters, just so I could get it straight in my head. After those difficult chapters the book was smooth and a delicious read. The characters were interesting and three dimensional and I have to say that I love the fact that Georgie challenges Lawrence and despite his social anxiety, when Georgie needs Lawrence, Lawrence more than steps up to the plate.
This is the second book from this debut author, and I have to say I'm beginning to love her work and I feel she is definitely an author that people should take notice of.
I give The Lawrence Browne Affair 4 stars!
Cornwall, 1816
CHAPTER ONE
All this fuss about a couple of
small explosions. As far as Lawrence cared, the explosions were entirely beside
the point. He had finished experimenting with fuses weeks ago. More
importantly, this was his house to burn to the ground if that’s what he wanted
to do with it. Hell, if he blew the godforsaken place up, and himself right
along with it, the only person who would even be surprised was the man sitting
before him.
“Five servants quit,” Halliday said,
tapping Lawrence’s desk in emphasis. Dust puffed up in tiny clouds around the
vicar’s fingertips. “Five. And you were woefully understaffed even before
then.”
Five fewer servants? So that was why
the house had been so pleasantly quiet, why his work had been so blissfully
undisturbed.
“There was no danger to the
servants. You know I keep them away from my work.” That was something Lawrence
insisted on even when he wasn’t exploding things. The very idea of chattering
maids underfoot was enough to discompose his mind even further. “And I
conducted most of the actual explosions out of doors.” Now was probably not the
time to mention that he had blown the roof off the conservatory.
“All I’m suggesting is a sort of
secretary.” Halliday was dangerously unaware of how close he was to witnessing
an explosion of the metaphorical variety. “Somebody to keep records of what
you’ve mixed together and whether it’s likely to”—he puffed his cheeks out and
made a strange noise and an expansive gesture that Lawrence took to represent
explosion—“ignite.”
The Reverend Arthur Halliday did not
know what was good for him. If he did, he would have fled the room as soon as
he saw Lawrence reach for the inkwell. Lawrence’s fingers closed around the
object, preparing to hurl it at the wall behind the vicar’s head. Sod the man
for even suggesting Lawrence didn’t know how to cause an explosion. He hadn’t
invented Browne’s Improved Black Powder or even that bloody safety fuse through
blind luck, for God’s sake.
“Besides,” Halliday went on, “you
said you need an extra set of hands for this new device you’re working on.”
Oh, damn and blast. Lawrence knew he
shouldn’t have told the vicar. But he had hoped Halliday might volunteer to
help with the device himself, not badger Lawrence into hiring some stranger.
The vicar was convenient enough, and when he wasn’t dead set on sticking his
nose where it didn’t belong, he wasn’t entirely unpleasant company.
“I’ve had secretaries,” Lawrence
said from between gritted teeth. “It ends badly.”
“Well, obviously, but that’s because
you go out of your way to terrify them.” Halliday glanced pointedly at the
inkwell Lawrence still held.
And there again was Halliday missing
the point entirely. Lawrence didn’t need to go out of his way to frighten
anyone. All he had to do was simply exist. Everyone with any sense kept a safe
distance from the Mad Earl of Radnor, as surely as they stayed away from rabid
dogs and coiled asps. And explosive devices, for that matter.
Except for the vicar, who came to
Penkellis Castle three times a week. He likely also called on bedridden old
ladies and visited the workhouse. Maybe his other charity cases were grateful,
but the notion that he was the vicar’s good deed made Lawrence’s fingers curl
grimly around the inkwell as he plotted its trajectory through the air.
“I’ll take care of the details,”
Halliday was saying. “I’ll write the advertisement and handle the inquiries. A
good secretary might even be able to manage the household a bit,” the vicar
said with the air of a man warming to his topic, “get it into a fit condition
for the child—”
“No.” Lawrence didn’t raise his
voice, but he slammed his fist onto the desk, causing ink to splatter all over
the blotter and the cuff of his already-inky shirt. A stack of papers slid from
the desk onto the floor, leaving a single dustless patch of wood where they had
been piled. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a spider scurry out from under
the papers.
“True,” Halliday continued,
undaunted. “A housekeeper would be more appropriate, but—”
“No.” Lawrence felt the already
fraying edges of his composure unraveling fast. “Simon is not coming here.”
“You can’t keep him off forever, you
know, now that he’s back in England. It’s his home, and he’ll own it one day.”
When Lawrence was safely dead and
buried, Simon was welcome to come here and do what he pleased. “I don’t want
him here.” Penkellis was no place for a child, madmen were not fit guardians,
and nobody knew those facts better than Lawrence himself, who had been raised
under precisely those conditions.
Halliday sighed. “Even so, Radnor,
you have to do something about this.” He gestured around the room, which
Lawrence thought looked much the same as ever. One hardly even noticed the
scorch marks unless one knew where to look. “It can’t be safe to live in such a
way.”
Safety was not a priority, but even
Lawrence wasn’t mad enough to try to explain that to the vicar.
“Villagers won’t even walk past the
garden wall anymore. And the stories they invent...” The vicar wrung his hands.
“A secretary. Please. It would ease my mind to know you had someone up here
with you.”
A keeper, then. Even worse.
But Lawrence did need another set of
hands to work on the communication device. If Halliday wouldn’t help, then
Lawrence had no other options. God knew Halliday had been right about the local
people not wanting anything to do with him.
“Fine,” he conceded. “You write the
advertisement and tell me when to expect the man.” He’d say what he needed to
in order to end this tiresome conversation and send the vicar on his way.
It wasn’t as if this secretary would
last more than a week or two anyway. Lawrence would see to that.
Cat Sebastian lives in a swampy part of the South with her husband, three kids, and two dogs. Before her kids were born, she practiced law and taught high school and college writing. When she isn't reading or writing, she's doing crossword puzzles, bird watching, and wondering where she put her coffee cup.
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