TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

       AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

      Author Note

      I’ve always enjoyed reading Harlequin’s historical novels, and I still do. I love to lose myself in a good romantic story, preferably set in Regency times, with a dangerous dashing hero, a heroine I’m rooting for and a happy ending. With Harlequin I know that’s what I will get. I’m so pleased and honored to be a part of this famous romantic tradition with my own few books.

      Knowing how much Guy hated the countryside in his brother’s story, The Wicked Earl, made me mischievously place him on the rugged coastline of western Scotland for his own story—Untouched Mistress. It was during a cycle along the shore on a cold gray day, with a stiff breeze blowing and a smir of rain in the air, that I thought of the idea of Guy stumbling upon a beautiful, half-drowned woman washed up with the seaweed on the sands. And so came about Guy and Helena’s story. I hope you enjoy reading it.

      Available from Harlequin^®Historical and MARGARET McPHEE

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      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      Chapter One

      1 November 1815—Ayrshire, Scotland

      A white froth of waves crashed against the rocks as the solitary figure picked its way along the shore. The morning sky was a cold grey and the fine drizzle of rain had penetrated the woollen cloth of his coat and was beginning to seep through his waistcoat to the cotton of his shirt below. Beneath his boots the sand was firm, each step cutting a clear impression of his progress. A gull cried its presence overhead, and the wind that had howled the whole night through stung a ruddy rawness to his cheeks and swept a ruffle through the darkness of his hair. Guy Tregellas, Viscount Varington, ignored the damp chill of the air and, not for the first time, thought longingly of London: London that had no gales to part a man’s coat from his back. No incessant rain. No empty landscape that ran as far as the eye could see, with only the hardiest sheep and cattle for company. Guy suppressed a shudder and continued on, avoiding as best he could the mounds of seaweed and driftwood that the sea had cast upon the sand during the night’s storm. The pain in his head was dulling and the nausea in his stomach had almost disappeared; the memory of just how much whisky he had drunk had not. And so he continued, walking off his hangover in this godforsaken place. He crossed the stream that ran down to meet the sea, taking care not to lose his balance on the stepping stones, and followed the curve of the shore round. It was then that he saw the body.

      A dark shape amidst the seaweed. At first he thought it was a seal that had been unfortunate enough to suffer the worst of the storm in open water. But as the distance between him and the shape lessened, he knew that what lay washed upon the shore was no seal. The woman was curled on her side, as if in sleep. The dark sodden skirt