Lady Claire Is All That
Keeping Up with the Cavendishes #3
By: Maya Rodale
Releasing December
27, 2016
Avon
Avon
Blurb
Her Brains
Her Brains
Claire Cavendish is
in search of a duke, but not for the usual reasons. The man she seeks is a
mathematician; the man she unwittingly finds is Lord Fox: dynamic, athletic,
and as bored by the equations Claire adores as she is by the social whirl upon
which he thrives. As attractive as Fox is, he’s of no use to Claire . . . or is
he?
Plus His
Brawn
Fox’s male pride
has been bruised ever since his fiancée jilted him. One way to recover: win a
bet that he can transform Lady Claire, Society’s roughest diamond, into its
most prized jewel. But Claire has other ideas—shockingly steamy ones. . .
Equals A
Study In Seduction
By Claire’s calculations,
Fox is the perfect man to satisfy her sensual curiosity. In Fox’s estimation,
Claire is the perfect woman to prove his mastery of the ton. But the one thing
neither of them counted on is love . . .
I don't know how many of you have seen She's All That. If you haven't well it's a chick flick from the 90s with Freddie Prinze Jr. & Rachel Leigh Cook. Basically, the same premise as Lady Claire Is All That. There a lot of similarities in this title and the movie, but there a few difference too. So, I would recommend watching that movie after reading Lady Claire Is All That.
Anyway, I had fun with this title. I think a lot has to do with I actually watched She's All That back in the day, and I was like oh my goodness it's She's All That set in Regency era. The focus of Lady Claire Is All That is on Claire and Fox, but you see in the background what is going on with the other Cavendish siblings. Except for James, but I can't wait to see what's going on in his life. Anyway, a lot of fun. I mean you have Fox who has lost confidence in hisself. He was jilted for an actor. How dreadful for his ego, so when the bet was made he thought it would be an open shut case. HA! Man he had to work hard to woo Claire. LOVED Claire. She's amazing. I love how she basically looks at Fox and wonder what in the world is he thinking. However, they start to fall for one another, and boy are they are good together. I love how they kind of challenge each in a way.
Those who want to relive the nostalgia of She's All That will love Lady Claire Is All That. I love how they manage to find more in one another. If are looking for a good time filled a few chuckles along the journey you might want to grab Lady Claire's story.
Copy provided by Avon via Edelweiss.
Excerpt:
London, 1824
Lord and Lady Chesham’s ballroom
It was a truth
universally acknowledged that Maximilian Frederick DeVere, Lord Fox, was God’s
gift to the ladies of London. He was taller and brawnier than his peers and in
possession of the sort of chiseled good looks—above and below the neck—that
were more often found in works of classical art. By all accounts he was
charming and universally liked by men and women alike, though for different
reasons, of course. He won at two things, always: women and sport.
Fox strolled
through the ballroom as if he owned the place. He nodded at friends and
acquaintances—Carlyle, with whom he occasionally fenced, Fitzwalter, who he had
soundly thrashed at boxing last week, and Willoughby, who was always game for a
curricle race.
Fox flashed his
famous grin as he heard the ladies’ usual comments when he strolled past.
“I think he just
smiled at me.”
“I think I’m going
to swoon.”
“God, Arabella
Vaughn is one lucky woman.”
“Was,” someone
corrected. “Didn’t you see the report in The London Weekly this morning?”
Fox’s grin
faltered.
That was when Mr.
Rupert Wright and Lord Mowbray found him. Their friendship stretched all the
way back to their early days at Eton.
“We heard the news,
Fox,” Rupert said grimly, clapping a hand on his shoulder.
“I daresay everyone
has heard the news,” Fox replied dryly.
It didn’t escape
his notice that the guests nearby had fallen silent. It was the first time he’d
appeared in public since the news broke in the paper this morning, though
Arabella had so kindly left him a note the day prior. Everyone was watching him
to see how he would react, what he would say, if he would cry.
“Who would have
thought we’d see this day?” Mowbray mused. “Miss Arabella Vaughn, darling of
the haute ton, running off with an actor.”
“That alone would
be scandalous,” Rupert said, adding, “Never mind that she has ditched Fox. Who
is, apparently, considered a catch. What with his lofty title, wealth, and not
hideous face.”
Fox’s Male Pride
bristled. It’d been bristling and seething and enraged ever since the news
broke that his beautiful, popular betrothed had left him to elope with some
plebian actor.
Not just any actor,
either, but Lucien Kemble. Yes, he was the current sensation among the haute
ton, lighting up the stage each night in his role as Romeo in Romeo and Juliet.
Covent Garden theater was sold out for the rest of the season. The gossip
columns loved him, given his flair for dramatics both onstage and
off—everything from tantrums to torrid love affairs to fits over his artistry.
Women adored him; they may have sighed and swooned over Lucien Kemble as much
as Fox.
To lose a woman to
any other man was insupportable—and, until recently, not something that ever
happened to him—but to lose her to someone who made his living prancing around
onstage in tights? It was intolerable.
“Just
who does she think she is?” Fox wondered aloud.
“She’s Arabella
Vaughn. Beautiful. Popular. Enviable. Every young lady here aspires to be her.
Every man here would like a shot with her,” Mowbray answered.
“She’s you, but in
petticoats,” Rupert said, laughing.
It was true. He and
Arabella were perfect together.
Like most men, he’d
fallen for her at first sight after catching a glimpse of her across a crowded
ballroom. She was beautiful in every possible way: a tall, lithe figure with
full breasts; a mouth made for kissing and other things that gentlemen didn’t
mention in polite company; blue eyes fringed in dark lashes; honey gold hair
that fell in waves; a complexion that begged comparisons to cream and milk and
moonlight.
Fox had taken one
look at her and thought: mine.
They were a perfect
match in beauty, wealth, social standing, all that. They both enjoyed taking
the ton by storm. He remembered the pride he felt as they strolled through a
ballroom arm in arm and the feeling of everyone’s eyes on them as they waltzed
so elegantly.
They were great
together.
They belonged
together.
Fox also remembered
the more private moments—so many stolen kisses, the intimacy of gently pushing
aside a wayward strand of her golden hair, promises for their future as man and
wife. They would have perfect children, and entertain the best of society, and
generally live a life of wealth and pleasure and perfection, together.
Fox remembered his
heart racing—nerves!—when he proposed because this beautiful girl he adored was
going to be his.
And then she had
eloped. With an actor.
It burned, that. Ever since he’d heard the news, Fox had stormed around in high dudgeon. He was not accustomed to losing.
It burned, that. Ever since he’d heard the news, Fox had stormed around in high dudgeon. He was not accustomed to losing.
“Take away her
flattering gowns and face paint and she’s just like any other woman here,” Fox
said, wanting it to be true so he wouldn’t feel the loss so keenly. “Look at
her, for example.”
Rupert and Mowbray
both glanced at the woman he pointed out—a short, frumpy young lady nervously
sipping lemonade. She spilled some down the front of her bodice when she caught
three men staring at her.
“If one were to
offer her guidance on supportive undergarments and current fashions and get a
maid to properly style her coiffure, why, she could be the reigning queen of
the haute ton,” Fox pointed out.
Both men stared at
him, slack jawed.
“You’ve never been
known for being the sharpest tool in the shed, Fox, but now I think you’re
really cracked,” Mowbray said. “You cannot just give a girl a new dress and
make her popular.”
“Well, Mowbray,
maybe you couldn’t. But I could.”
“Gentlemen . . .”
Rupert cut in. “I don’t care for the direction of this conversation.”
“You honestly think
you can do it,” Mowbray said, awed.
He turned to face
Mowbray and drew himself up to his full height, something he did when he wanted
to be imposing. His Male Pride had been wounded and his competitive
spirit—always used to winning—was spoiling for an opportunity to triumph.
“I know I can,” Fox
said with the confidence of a man who won pretty much everything he put his
mind to—as long as it involved sport, or women. Arabella had been his first,
his only, loss. A fluke, surely.
“Well, that calls
for a wager,” Mowbray said.
The two gentlemen
stood eye to eye, the tension thick. Rupert groaned.
“Name your terms,”
Fox said.
“I pick the girl.”
“Fine.”
“This is a terrible
idea,” Rupert said. He was probably right, but he was definitely ignored.
“Let me see . . .
who shall I pick?” Mowbray made a dramatic show of looking around the ballroom
at all the ladies nearby. There were at least a dozen of varying degrees of
pretty and pretty hopeless.
Then Mowbray’s
attentions fixed on one particular woman. Fox followed his gaze, and when he
saw who his friend had in mind, his stomach dropped.
“No.”
“Yes,” Mowbray
said, a cocky grin stretching across his features.
“Unfortunately
dressed I can handle. Shy, stuttering English miss who at least knows the rules
of society? Sure. But one of the Americans?”
Fox let the
question hang there. The Cavendish family had A Reputation the minute the news
broke that the new Duke of Durham was none other than a lowly horse trainer
from the former colonies. He and his sisters were scandalous before they even
set foot in London. Since their debut in society, they hadn’t exactly managed
to win over the haute ton, either, to put it politely.
“Now, they’re not
all bad,” Rupert said. “I quite like Lady Bridget . . .”
But Fox was still
in shock and Mowbray was enjoying it too much to pay any mind to Rupert’s
defense of the Americans.
“The bluestocking?”
That was the thing:
Mowbray hadn’t picked just any American, but the one who already had a
reputation for being insufferably intelligent, without style or charm to make
herself more appealing to the gentlemen of the ton. She was known to bore a
gentleman to tears by discussing not the weather, or hair ribbons, or gossip of
mutual acquaintances, but math.
Lady Claire
Cavendish seemed destined to be a hopeless spinster and social pariah.
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