The Wallflower’s Midnight Waltz
(Chronicles of the Westbrook Brides)

Revenge of the Wallflowers, Book 5

A masquerade ball sets the stage for an American wallflower’s revenge against an English noble, only to be complicated by unexpected love…

American Eva Westbrook has had enough of English aristocrats looking down their snooty noses at her. Among these elite nobles is her neighbor, Peter Hartigan, a notorious rake she believes played a part in her cousin’s humiliation a few years ago. Disguised as a mysterious masked woman and seeking reprisal, Eva sneaks into a masquerade ball that Peter is hosting.

As Eva spends more time with Peter, she realizes he may not be the heartless blackguard she thought he was. She becomes torn between her duty to avenge the past pain and suffering of her dear cousin and the unexpected feelings for the very man who’d caused it.

As they dance the midnight waltz, Eva and Peter engage in a dangerous game of deception and desire. Eva struggles to maintain her facade while battling her growing attraction to Peter. Meanwhile, Peter is captivated by the enigmatic woman in his arms and is determined to uncover her true identity.

With her blossoming feelings conflicting with a quest for vengeance, will Eva decide to follow through with her vendetta or let go of the past and take a chance on a future with Peter?

    

See What Readers are Saying

★★★★★ “I binged this book. It was so satisfying that I can’t wait for the next in the series.” ~ G. Mc

★★★★★ “I love Ms. Cameron’s marvelous ability to place the reader in the room with the characters. She crafted a superb description of the ballroom – from the “distinct aromas of body odor” to “the ping of rancid pomade”, the “musty costumes, and cloying perfume” – oh, my nose was twitching just reading about it.” ~ Terrie

★★★★★ “What do you get when you combine a special story and Collette Cameron? A wonderful heartwarming romance that cannot be denied!” ~ Lori Dykes

★★★★★ “If we didn’t believe in love at first sight before, this story will surely bring us a few steps closer to that possibility as well as remind us that not everything is at it seems sometimes.” ~ Ghazal Mansoor

★★★★★ ”This author has woven love, revenge, and mystery into a novella that’s a substantial gift in a compact form!” ~ Lana Birky

★★★★★ “This was a page-turner with a lot of feels. I loved the characters and I loved the story. I especially loved the epilogue. Woot!” ~ Kristi Hudecek-Ashwill

★★★★★ “The author once again weaves her magic & adds her own brand of humour (which I adore) I devoured this delicious novella in a sitting.” ~ Janet

★★★★★ “I really enjoy the Westbrooks, and this heartwarming story does not disappoint.” ~ Peggy

~ Excerpt ~

8 December 1826
Hefferwickshire House
Cumberland, England
Late-morning

Muscles taut and mouth firmed against the grimace struggling to contort his face, Peter Hartigan drew his mount to a halt in the grand mansion’s courtyard. His heart slammed behind his breastbone like a hammer on a blacksmith’s anvil, and despite the icy drizzle doing its utmost to penetrate his caped greatcoat, sticky sweat trickled down his spine.

He nearly reigned Legend around and bolted for home.

Only sheer determination kept Peter from yielding to his survival instincts.

Teeth clenched, he tightened his thigh muscles around the horse.

As if sensing his owner’s inner turmoil, the gelding side-stepped and huffed out an agitated breath.

Peter patted the horse’s neck.

A crow cawed, its raucous call mocking Peter from the tree where it perched, watching him with beady, black eyes.

A dark omen?

Peter prayed it wasn’t.

Bile, bitter and acrid, seared his throat as tension twisted in his stomach. Breaking his fast with nothing but black coffee hadn’t helped, but so help him God, he couldn’t have gagged down a bite of food this morning.

He had to do this.

I should have done it months ago.

Nevertheless, it did not make the quest any easier, for he knew full well he did not deserve a jot of mercy or compassion. Still, the guilt and self-castigation for something he did not remember plagued him incessantly, and even if he was unceremoniously tossed out of Hefferwickshire House on his arse, he meant to ask for forgiveness.

A year ago, when he’d first returned to Landford Park to convalesce, he’d been too ill to call on the Duke and Duchess of Latham. Then, cowardice—pure and simple—had kept Peter away.

And shame.

Monumental, incapacitating, permeating shame.

For what could he say or do to make amends?

Nothing, except extend an invitation to the New Year’s Eve masquerade ball he had decided to host as a ruse to call upon the Westbrooks. And pray that their graces, Althelia Westbrook, and her brothers would not see his gesture as the pathetic and wholly inadequate peace offering that it was.

At least the invitation, tardy and insufficient, was a start.

Grayish smoke spiraled upward from the house’s many chimneys, adding a pleasant burning wood aroma to the otherwise dismal atmosphere.

Swallowing against the burning still clawing at his throat, Peter surveyed the house’s familiar, elegant façade. Even in winter, Hefferwickshire House’s gardeners kept the grounds and greens immaculate. The place fairly screamed blue-blooded aristocracy.

It had always been thus, and yet, unlike many members of le beau monde, the Westbrooks had always been warm, welcoming, and kind. Never superior or elitist in their attitudes or speech—something rare and admirable among the peerage.

How many times had he visited the Latham Duchy in his youth?

Too many to count.

At one time, the Hartigans and Westbrooks had been genial acquaintances and neighbors.

Until one night, drunken and heartbroken, Peter had made a horrendous, colossal, unforgivable, and yes—if he were wholly honest—cruel blunder. If only he could turn back time, could change that god-awful night that he’d publicly humiliated Althelia Westbrook.

Even in his foxed-to-the-gills state, he should have controlled his tongue. But wasn’t that part of alcohol’s seductive power? Intoxication rendered one’s senses numb, one’s will as pliable as warm Christmas taffy, and relegated one’s manners and decorum to something only fit for the tosspot.

He skimmed another glance over the Duke of Latham’s stately house.

Aware of the duke’s righteous rage and fearing repercussions from the powerful peer, the Hartigans—merely landed gentry who hovered on Polite Society’s fringes—had closed Landford Park within a week of the ghastly incident, with no intention of inhabiting the stately manor again.

To this day, Peter still wondered if the duke had encouraged his family’s abrupt departure. Neither of his parents had ever said as much, and yet…

Bleakness, cold and merciless, speared him again, and he sighed.

Regret was a sneaky, unrepentant, and relentless thief.

No one had resided at Landford Park until Peter’s return to convalesce last year.

Now with his parents deceased—Father from apoplexy and Mother, ten months later from a tumble down the stairs— Peter alone called Landford Park home.

Robert was in the navy, Harold seemed hell-bent on gambling and whoring his way across the continent, and their meddlesome and often malicious sister Leticia lived with a maternal aunt and, as always, left chaos in her wake.

Shutting his eyes for a moment, he squeezed the bridge of his nose.

He had no memory of the fateful evening that had catapulted his world into bedlam.

None.

Not even a whisper.

Had he ever?

His accident had stripped him of seventeen months of his life.

Cracking one’s skull open on cobblestones after being tossed from a horse that had slipped on ice rather had a way of doing that.

Poof.

His memory…gone, like a cheroot’s thin smoke trail in a gale’s blasting wind.

The one good thing to come from his accident was that he’d given up imbibing in spirits—make that two blessings. He no longer pined for Meridith Peterson, the woman he’d proposed to, and when she had, to his absolute shock, refused his offer, he’d sought refuge in the bottle.

Peter remembered Meridith, but any emotion he might’ve felt toward her had long since dissipated. Had he truly loved her as he had believed, would she not still hold his heart, impaired memory or not?

Bowing his neck and pulling his mouth downward at the edges, he rubbed a finger across the rough scar running from his right cheek and across his temple before disappearing into his hairline—a constant, unapologetic reminder of his fallibility. Fat droplets plopped onto his lap from his hat’s brim, and the distinct aroma of wet wool wafted upward.

His memory loss might not be permanent, the physicians said.

In truth, he’d regained a few snippets in recent months.

Nothing momentous, but enough scraps to encourage him.

Still, other recollections, taunting and teasing, drifted around the edges of his consciousness, shadows he couldn’t fully see. His mind could no more grasp them than his fingers could vapor or fog.

Regardless, he had heard the painful details of the night he’d shamed himself and mortified Althelia Westbrook over and over and over from his sister Leticia, who still openly gloated about the anguish she had caused Althelia. Distancing himself from his malevolent sister was another reason Peter had returned to his childhood home.

Other well-meaning individuals, including Peter’s London physicians, recounted past events in his life to help him regain his memory. A few malicious souls, such as his younger brother Harold, enjoyed reminding him of his idiocy merely to inflict guilt and make him suffer all the more.

Only last year Peter had learned that as a lad, Harold had shot Adolphus Westbrook’s dog and left the poor thing to die. In a competition for callousness and cruelty, Peter would be hard-pressed to say who was the worst—Harold or Leticia.

And since Peter believed himself deserving of their contempt and judgment, he remained silent, refusing to defend himself. For there was no defense—never mind that he had been three sheets to the wind.

Debauchees always blamed others for their actions.

He refused to do so.

Trying to block out his self-loathing, he closed his eyes again for a blink.

Guilt was a blight upon his soul.

God, if he could only go back in time and change that fateful night.

How many hundreds—no, thousands—of times had he made that wish?

Bloody sot.

Perhaps it was a blessing that he could not recall his indignity of that wretched evening, for if others retelling the sordid tale caused him this much suffering, wouldn’t his own memories be impossibly more unbearable?

His imbecilic behavior had destroyed a decades-old friendship, scarred a young woman—Althelia had left England for two years afterward—and sent him spiraling downward into a perpetual inebriated haze.

He became everything he had despised.

When he had recovered enough from his nearly fatal fall to travel, he yearned to return to his familial home. Ironic in so many ways, since his disgrace had begun there. Yet the silent rooms, sprawling greens, rambling hedgerows, and majestic oaks he’d played beneath as a lad soothed his tormented spirit as nowhere else could. Except, perhaps, the woodland thicket partially between Landford Park and Hefferwickshire House.

How he craved solace and peace.

As Peter dismounted, he glanced around, half expecting a dozen footmen or stable hands to come charging toward him, prepared to physically and mayhap even violently escort him from the property.

Instead, a maid, her head lowered against the blustery wind and skin-soaking drizzle, hurried toward him. Her dark blue woolen cloak flapped about her slender ankles as she held her hood in place.

She glanced up, her vivid blue eyes widening upon seeing him.

Rather than alarm, inquisitiveness flitted across her pert features, partially concealed by the hood draped over her hair.

Peter did not recognize her, but then he hadn’t visited Hefferwickshire House in years. Servants came and went, though this one did not have a typical domestic’s subservient mien.

“May I help you?” She glanced at his horse, and appreciation lit her eyes.

Not only did she recognize superior horseflesh, but she possessed an odd accent that he couldn’t quite place.

“I have come to deliver an invitation,” he said by way of an explanation.

Something usually delegated to a servant or sent by post.

“To a masked ball,” he added.

“On New Year’s Eve. The invitation is extended to all the Westbrooks.”

Egads, man. Stop blathering.

Peter glanced toward the entrance, which remained firmly shut.

Had Simms recognized him and refused to open the door?

Did someone give the butler instructions of that nature?

“You do not look like a servant.”

The maid’s impertinent comment drew a reluctant chuckle from Peter.

The first in a very long while.

“I am not. I am Peter Hartigan.” He pointed his attention and a finger toward Landford Park’s chimneys, visible amidst the treetops on the horizon. “Hefferwickshire House’s nearest neighbor.”

An odd sound, a mixture of a gasp, a wheeze, and choking, made him jerk his head toward the servant once more.

She’d pulled the hood lower over her face, no doubt against the wind and damp. Only her chin, jutted at a rather mulish angle, remained visible.

“I shall take it inside.” Distinct iciness leached into her voice as she extended her hand.

From her cool reception, Peter would be bound she knew who he was, even if he did not know her. That answered his question about whether the duke had advised his staff to rebuff him.

He had expected as much.

In point of fact, it was no more than he deserved.

He withdrew the thick invitation from his coat pocket.

The breeze buffeted his hat, compelling him to lift a black leather-gloved hand to keep it upon his head. “I had hoped to deliver it myself.”

“The family is not home at present.” The arctic wind held more warmth than the belligerent maid’s frigid tone. “They attended Sunday services in the village this morning.”

Rotten luck, that.

He should have expected their absence. The Westbrooks regularly attended services when in residence at Hefferwickshire House.

Peter hadn’t braved the parish yet, though he had ventured to the village several times.

How could he enter a church where the cleric frequently preached about forgiveness, when he could not even forgive himself, let alone expect such amnesty from anyone else?

“Very well.” He passed her the missive. “Would you also please convey my regards?”

She angled her head and gave the briefest nod. So brief in truth, her behavior bordered on insolent.

Her impudence ought to annoy him, but Peter couldn’t begrudge her loyalty.

He’d have to wait and see if the duke and duchess responded to his invitation. In truth, he held little hope that they would.

There was no point in lingering and becoming further soaked.

“Thank you.” Peter swung back into the saddle, and with a finger to his hat, kicked Legend’s sides.

As he trotted down the drive, a whisper carried to him on the wind.

“Rotten lout.”

However, when he glanced over his shoulder, the maid had already disappeared into the house.

Had he imagined her murmured insult?