His Maddening Matchmaker


 
 
 
 A Very Village Scandal
 Where love can be found at every turn
 Whittleston-on-the-Water is a quaint village on the banks of the Thames, now under the ownership of the new Lord Hockley. Far from the Mayfair ballrooms, life still bustles and buzzes with scandalous gossip, simmering passion and unexpected love...
 Read Sophie and Rafe’s story inThe Earl’s Inconvenient Houseguest
 And Isobel and Ned’s story inHis Maddening Matchmaker 
 
 
 Author Note
 In this second installment of my A Very Village Scandal series, Whittleston-on-the-Water has settled down after their bloodless revolt against the new lord of the manor (you can read his story in The Earl’s Inconvenient Houseguest), and all are enjoying a quiet life again. All bar two of them, that is.
 You met flirty Isobel Cartwright and gruff and surly Ned Parker in book one, and they were such polar opposites that I had to throw the pair of them together. I knew they were unaware of the obvious frisson simmering between them...
 This story opens with them still clueless but both dissatisfied with their lives. Ned is sick and tired of working his fingers to the bone on his farm, and Isobel is bored stiff with the humdrum day-to-day of village life. The last exciting thing she did was to nudge the new Lord Hockley into the arms of her best friend, Sophie. Who knew she had such a talent for matchmaking? A talent she decides Ned could well benefit from—if ever a man needed a wife, it is him. Thankfully, the perfect candidate is visiting Whittleston for the summer, so obviously some more matchmaking is in order...
 
 
 VIRGINIA HEATH
 His Maddening Matchmaker
 
 
 
 When Virginia Heath was a little girl, it took her ages to fall asleep, so she made up stories in her head to help pass the time while she was staring at the ceiling. As she got older, the stories became more complicated, sometimes taking weeks to get to the happy ending. Then one day she decided to embrace the insomnia and start writing them down. Over twenty books and three Romantic Novel of the Year Award nominations later, it still takes her forever to fall asleep.
 Books by Virginia Heath
 Harlequin Historical
 The Scoundrel’s Bartered Bride
 Christmas Cinderellas
 “Invitation to the Duke’s Ball”
 Society’s Most Scandalous
 How to Woo a Wallflower
 A Very Village Scandal
 The Earl’s Inconvenient Houseguest
 His Maddening Matchmaker
 The Talk of the Beau Monde
 The Viscount’s Unconventional Lady
 The Marquess Next Door
 How Not to Chaperon a Lady
 Secrets of a Victorian Household
 Lilian and the Irresistible Duke
 Visit the Author Profile pageat Harlequin.com for more titles.
 
 
 For Jean Fullerton and Clare Flynn.
 It was an honor fighting in the trenches beside you last year.
 
 
 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 Sixteen
 Chapter Seventeen
 Chapter Eighteen
 Chapter Nineteen
 Chapter Twenty
 Chapter Twenty-One
 Chapter Twenty-Two
 Excerpt from The Untamed Warrior’s Bride by Michelle Willingham
 
 
 Chapter One
 May 1818
 He was all alone in the corner again. Seemingly oblivious of the crowd or the music although Isobel wasn’t the least bit convinced of that. Staring with too much determination into his glass as if nothing else existed. Trying to disappear into the plaster—as usual—despite standing a good head and shoulders above everyone else in the room. As if he firmly believed, if he willed it hard enough, that a man of six feet and six inches could simply fade into the background.
 ‘You are never going to find yourself a wife like this.’ Ned jumped at the sound of her voice, then regarded her with the same peeved and put-upon expression as he always did whenever he acknowledged her. ‘You look like an old curmudgeon here on sufferance.’
 He slanted her a peeved glance. ‘I’m not looking for a wife and I am here on sufferance.’
 Isobel Cartwright rolled her eyes heavenward and prayed for strength.
 He was the same at every village assembly. Unsociable, unapproachable and uneasy, and it was getting worse with each passing year. Once upon a time, he at least made the effort to join in and once in a blue moon even deigned to dance if he was cajoled into it. But nowadays he took the phrase keeping himself to himself literally, and as much as it annoyed her to think it, she found it all worrying. Years of all work and no play had made Ned Parker a very dull boy indeed.
 ‘Whose sufferance?’ She glanced around the village hall to the sea of cheerful locals who all looked forward to the first Saturday in every month. Excuses to dress up and make merry were pitifully thin on the ground in Whittleston-on-the-Water so the assembly in this ancient, high-beamed ramshackle appendage of St Hildeth’s church was always a highlight. ‘Nobody here is ever formally invited, and I cannot imagine anyone insisting on your scintillating presence or even missing it if you failed to turn up. Therefore, it is a mystery to me why you always turn up like a bad penny the moment the doors are flung open and stay until the last song is played.’
 ‘Habit,’ he said with a resigned huff. ‘My father insisted it was imperative to be neighbourly and that edict has become ingrained in my conscience no matter how hard I try to ignore it—and my blasted neighbours.’
 ‘Maybe if you joined in, you’d enjoy it?’
 ‘I sincerely doubt that.’
 ‘Ask someone to dance.’
 ‘No. I loathe dancing.’ Which was a shame as for a big man he was a surprisingly competent partner.
 Not that she would ever tell him, of course. Any more that she would ever let on how much she missed the close friendship they had once shared or how much she still grieved for his