To Catch a Husband...

Sarah Mallory

Литагент HarperCollins EUR

“I AM OFF TO LONDON, TO SEEK MY FORTUNE! ” Impoverished husband-hunter Kitty Wythenshawe knows what she must achieve by the end of her London Season—marriage to a wealthy gentleman will save her mother from a life of drudgery. After all, love doesn’t pay the bills.Wealthy landowner Daniel Blackwood is proud to be an industrialist, even if it means he’s not quite what the ton expects. And as for young ladies like Kitty, who care only for a man’s fortune, well, they just ought not to feel so temptingly irresistible when you kiss them. . . .

‘I am afraid I may have damaged your reputation, Miss Wythenshawe,’ Mr Blackwood said bluntly.

‘Because you kissed me?’

He squeezed her fingers. ‘Just being alone here with me is enough to compromise you.’

‘I am not known here, sir. Neither are you. Who are they likely to tell?’

‘A few judicious coins in the right hands might secure the silence of anyone at this inn. Are you willing to trust that no one will find out about our being here together?’

She gave him a little smile. ‘What is the alternative, Mr Blackwood?’

He shrugged.

‘That we marry, I suppose.’

About the Author

SARAH MALLORY was born in Bristol, and now lives in an old farmhouse on the edge of the Pennines with her husband and family. She left grammar school at sixteen to work in companies as varied as stockbrokers, marine engineers, insurance brokers, biscuit manufacturers and even a quarrying company. Her first book was published shortly after the birth of her daughter. She has published more than a dozen books under the pen-name of Melinda Hammond, winning the Reviewers’ Choice Award in 2005 from Singletitles.com for Dance for a Diamond and the Historical Novel Society’s Editors’ Choice in November 2006 for Gentlemen in Question.

Previous novels by the same author:

THE WICKED BARON

MORE THAN A GOVERNESS

(part of On Mothering Sunday)

WICKED CAPTAIN, WAYWARD WIFE

THE EARL’S RUNAWAY BRIDE

DISGRACE AND DESIRE

AUTHOR NOTE

I live in the north of England, high on the Pennines, in an area of outstanding natural beauty. When I am out walking it is not uncommon to come across huge stone blocks tumbled amongst the trees in the bottom of some remote wooded valley—the remains of an early spinning mill. These mills were built more than two hundred years ago, when the industrial revolution was just beginning and water was needed to power the new machines used to spin wool, linen and cotton.

Inventions like the spinning mule and Arkwright’s water frame meant that people could spin better, faster, and produce more yarn than ever before to supply a growing market. The entrepreneurs who built and managed the mills were adventurers, working at the forefront of technology—and the innovations were as startling and exciting as anything to come out of Silicon Valley.

These new industrialists were hailed as heroes, adventurers, and I have long wanted to write about them. Daniel Blackwood is my first hero from this new breed of tough, resourceful industrialists. London Society of the 1780s doesn’t quite know what to make of this fiercely independent self-made man—and neither does my heroine, Kitty. I had great fun putting these two together and creating the battle of wills that ensued before they realised they were made for one another—I hope you enjoy their journey.

Kitty and Daniel’s story led me to some of the darker aspects of late-eighteenth-century society. The Abolition movement was gaining pace, with Anti-Slavery Societies being set up around the United Kingdom. There was certainly one in Sheffield at the time of my book, and 8,000 people signed a petition from the people of Sheffield to Parliament in 1793, calling for an end to the Slave Trade. However, to the best of my knowledge there was never a West Riding Anti-Slavery Society—an invention of my own for the purposes of the plot.

This was also an age when children were often exploited, but some mill owners were again