Introducing Louise Allen’s most scandalous trilogy yet!

       DANGER & DESIRE

      Leaving the sultry shores of India behind them, the passengers of the Bengal Queen face a new life ahead in England—until a shipwreck throws their plans into disarray …

      Can Alistair and Perdita’s illicit onboard flirtation survive the glittering social whirl of London?

      Washed up on an island populated by ruffians, virginal Averil must rely on rebel captain Luc for protection …

      And honourable Callum finds himself falling for his brother’s fiancée!

      Look for

       RAVISHED BY THE RAKE August 2011

       SEDUCED BY THE SCOUNDREL September 2011

       MARRIED TO A STRANGER October 2011

       from Mills & Boon^® Historical

       Alistair caught her as she stumbled back. ‘The door must have been unlocked,’ he said as she stared about her, confused. ‘It’s an empty cabin.’ There was just enough light to see. Alistair reached outside, lifted a lamp from the wall and came in, closing the door behind him. She heard the click of the key as he stood there.

      ‘Alistair—’

      ‘Yes?’ he said, putting down the lantern and coming to pull her into his arms. ‘What do you want, Dita?’

      ‘I don’t know.’ She tugged at his waistcoat buttons. ‘You.’

      ‘I want you, too,’ he said as she undid the last of them and began to pull his shirt from his waistband. ‘I only meant to kiss you: I should have known it wouldn’t stop there. Trust me a little more, Dita? Trust me to pleasure you?’

      ‘Yes,’ she said, not quite understanding what he was asking, what it meant. ‘I need to touch you …’

      About the Author

      LOUISE ALLEN has been immersing herself in history, real and fictional, for as long as she can remember, and finds landscapes and places evoke powerful images of the past. Louise lives in Bedfordshire, and works as a property manager, but spends as much time as possible with her husband at the cottage they are renovating on the north Norfolk coast, or travelling abroad. Venice, Burgundy and the Greek islands are favourite atmospheric destinations. Please visit Louise’s website—www.louiseallenregency.co.uk—for the latest news!

      Novels by the same author:

      VIRGIN SLAVE, BARBARIAN KING

THE DANGEROUS MR RYDER^*

      THE OUTRAGEOUS LADY FELSHAM^*

      THE SHOCKING LORD STANDON^*

      THE DISGRACEFUL MR RAVENHURST^*

      THE NOTORIOUS MR HURST^*

      THE PIRATICAL MISS RAVENHURST^*

PRACTICAL WIDOW TO PASSIONATE MISTRESS^†

      VICAR’S DAUGHTER TO VISCOUNT’S LADY^†

      INNOCENT COURTESAN TO ADVENTURER’S BRIDE^†

       and in Mills & Boon® Historical Undone! eBooks: DISROBED AND DISHONOURED

* Those Scandalous Ravenhursts

† The Transformation of the Shelley Sisters

      Ravished

      by the Rake

      Louise Allen

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      Dedication

      For the Regency Silk & Scandal ‘continuistas’

      Author Note

      Flying to India on holiday last year, I grew weary of the long flight, but I cheered up when I thought of how many months the passengers on the East India Company’s ships plying to and from the Far East must have been at sea together. Intrigued, I read more—especially the memoirs of the rake William Hickey, who spent much of his legal career in India and who described in vivid detail life on-board ship.

      The voyage had its dangers, as well as its discomforts, and shipwrecks were not uncommon. I began to wonder what would happen to the passengers who survived such a disaster: would the bonds forged during months together withstand such a trauma? How would the wreck affect friends and lovers ashore?

      This book is the first in a trio of novels that explores that question. Shocking Lady Perdita Brooke and rakish adventurer Alistair Lyndon strike sparks off each other from the moment they meet—but what will happen when the Bengal Queen is wrecked on the treacherous rocks of the Isles of Scilly?

      I hope you enjoy finding out as much as I did, and will follow their fellow passengers in the next two books as three love stories emerge from the shipwreck.

       Chapter One

       7th December 1808—Calcutta, India

      It was blissfully cool, Dita assured herself, plying her fan in an effort to make it so. This was the cool season, so at eight o’clock in the evening it was only as hot as an English August day. Nor was it raining, thank heavens. How long did one have to live in India to become used to the heat? A trickle of sweat ran down her spine as she reminded herself of what it had been like from March to September.

      But there was something to be said for the temperature: it made one feel so delightfully loose and relaxed. In fact, it was impossible to be anything but relaxed, to shed as many clothes as decency permitted and wear exquisitely fine muslins and lawns and floating silks.

      She was going to miss that cat-like, sensual, indolence when she returned to England, now her year of exile was over. And the heat had another benefit, she thought, watching the group of young ladies in the reception room off the great Marble Hall of Government House: it made the beautiful peaches-and-cream blondes turn red and blotchy whereas she, the gypsy, as they snidely remarked, showed little outward sign of it.

      It had not taken long to adapt, to rise before dawn to ride in the cool, to sleep and lounge through the long, hot afternoons, saving the evenings for parties and dances. If it had not been for the grubby trail of rumour and gossip following her, she could have reinvented herself, perhaps, here in India. As it was, it had just added a sharper edge to her tongue.

      But