The Wastrel and the Wallflower | Audiobook

She’s a plain, ever-predicting, and ever-predictable wallflower.

He’s the cheeriest man on the planet, with no real plans for his life.

When Lady Giselle is spotted cloud watching–documenting, to be precise–she crosses her fingers in hopes that the man will simply pass by. Like every other man has done in her past. Only, this man keeps staring at her until he’s so distracted that he lands himself in the pond.

Felix, one of the Ashbourne brothers, is the happy-go-lucky, always smiling, friendly face. Except, of late, he’s struggling with an unusual sense of ennui. All he wants is to go fly his kite and let his thoughts soar. Instead, he finds himself face down in a pond, and then face to face with love. He sees it immediately. But will she?

Can Felix reign in his feelings so as not to scare away the most beautiful, most intelligent woman he’s ever met?

This is the sixth book in the steamy new regency series, The Ashbourne Legacy, that follows the seven mislabeled brothers of Snow White.

Read this novelette if you like sweet and spicy easy reads with witty banter and lovable characters.

The Ashbourne Legacy:
The Blighter and the Bluestocking
The Scoundrel and the Scientist
The Virgin and the Vixen
The Rogue and the Rose
The Rake and the Writer
The Wastrel and the Wallflower
The Spy and the Spinster

What readers are saying:

"Super cute" ~Amazon Reviewer

"Very Entertaining Story" ~Amazon Reviewer

"Very short steamy romance." ~Amazon Reviewer

"Very romantic and included beautiful steam" ~Amazon Reviewer


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1816 England
One day earlier

WITH A REASONABLE DEGREE of certainty and enjoyment, Giselle would often make predictions. How many people would attend a house party. Who would be the life of the party. What jokes would be made. Who would laugh. Who would fake laugh. Whose heads the joke would fly over.

Her success rate at predicting events of the social realm were just slightly above average. Or perhaps, just average.

The only truly successful predictions she could make about society related to the male species. That is, she predicted with perfect accuracy, that handsome men would not dance with her, speak to her, and rarely (if ever) would they even notice her.

Of course, such a prediction could be made by many others in the ton. After all, she was a wallflower for a reason.

Giselle accepted her fate. She didn’t even mind it so much. She enjoyed time to herself and her thoughts. The less men spoke with her, the more time she could spend planning her next day’s tasks.

And the next day’s tasks almost always involved the weather. Which, to say the least, Giselle was also very good at predicting.

Predictions, predictions, predictions. It was all about looking at past evidence, analyzing data, noting patterns, crafting a reasonable conclusion, and forecasting that the future would follow suit.

It was the way of the world. People didn’t change all that much. Humanity as a whole didn’t change all that much. Science overall didn’t change all that much. Though many might be tempted to refute that statement, the truth was that science was science, only its discovery and application changed. The world worked the way the world worked. It was evolving, to be sure, but mostly it just needed to be noticed.

Gravity didn’t start acting up only once Newton observed the apple. No. Gravity had always been in full force. One day someone finally noticed it.

The same could be said of the sun, the stars, the ocean. Animals. Anything and everything science covered, was either discovered or waiting to be uncovered.

And that about covered it.

People could be a bit more fickle. Fashion changed. Language changed. Culture changed. It was a bit more challenging to keep up with it all. The weight of those trivial matters could weigh on Giselle’s mind if she wasn’t careful. And conscientious. She had to always remind herself of her limitations. Another such limitation was her options for marriage.

An arranged marriage, or a marriage of convenience was well within her reach. And it was a good reach. There were worse cases. Scandal. Ruination. Spinsterhood. Horrible husbands. Absent husbands.

She shuddered. If nothing else, there were two things she didn’t want: one, to be completely alone, or two, dependent upon family for her future wellbeing.

Her plan was to allow her parents to select her mate. They had given her a few seasons to try and find a love match, which Giselle had successfully predicted was impossible, and this summer was her last summer to be single and try for love. Next year her parents would make her a match. She was…comfortable with that. Content. Certainly not excited, giddy, or blushing about her future prospects. But that kind of behavior was for young girls anyway. She was a mature woman of three-and-twenty.

She was well beyond the erratic butterflies and sweaty palms. Though…could one really say one was beyond it when one had never experienced it? Not even once?

These were the multitude of thoughts flashing through Giselle’s mind as she sipped tea among company.

The ladies around her were chattering and smiling blithely. One was blushing. She suspected that if anyone had a reason to blush, it was Emma. She had just gotten engaged to Dawson. Right beside Emma was Della who was bearing the largest grin on her face. Giselle sighed. If anyone had a reason to grin, it was Della. She had just gotten engaged to Colin.

“Four engagements, Mother,” Hope said in awe. “I can’t believe it.”

Giselle noticed that Hope had a smirk on her face, but she couldn’t quite interpret it.

Hope’s mother patted her daughter’s hand. “Four sons all betrothed. Perhaps we shall have a large fourway wedding at the end of summer to marry everyone off.”

“There’s still time,” Della chimed in. “There might be more.”

In mirth, Mavis shook her head, “I should love for all seven of my sons to marry, but mostly I just want them to be happy.”

“And what of your daughter?” Hope asked archly. “Do you want her to marry and be happy as well?”

“Of course, my dear. You are the last one though. It might be harder to see you married than all seven boys.”

The ladies in the room chuckled.

“I’m sure if we all worked together, we could get all your sons married off this summer,” suggested Emma, one of the future daughters-in-law.

“It’s true. And it would be quite simple. Men are so predictable. They fall in love quicker than we women do.” Hope smiled.

Giselle’s head perked up. Men are so predictable? She only knew one thing to predict about men, and it wouldn’t help in getting a ring on her finger.

“All you have to do…” Hope paused until all eyes were on her.

Giselle’s heart thundered in her chest. Was there hope? Was there some prediction, some male science, that she was yet aware of that could guarantee a love match? At least one-way?

Hope repeated her earlier phrase and sailed on. “All you have to do…is put something pretty in front of them and then tell them they can’t have it.”

She released the breath she had been holding. If only Hope had held a helpful secret to the inner workings of the male species, then Giselle would latch onto it. But this reveal was impossible to claim because if that was what it took, Giselle was a lost cause.

She was a seven at best. Out of ten. Oh, she knew her number. The number had somehow been the whispered on dit, on more than one occasion. Seven was decent. It meant that at least she had been noticed. Except…from all her scientific data gathering and analysis, seven out of ten was a terrible number to receive. It meant precisely what she hoped it couldn’t mean. Seven meant that the object being rated wasn’t worth the attention to rate it. Slap a seven on it and move on.

Anything less than a seven was plain. Or less than plain. She couldn't even bring herself to say anything more demeaning than that. So, yes, a seven…nothing worth noting. There was that.

The ladies were chatting again, and Giselle glanced out the window. It was another sunny day. She didn’t want to waste the whole afternoon sitting inside when she could be outside applying her new wheel barometer and taking notes. Taking note of things that mattered. She would get outside for a walk immediately after tea, of that she was determined.

She felt a small nudge at her side.

“What about you?” Hope smiled up at her. “Have you set your cap on someone?”

“No. No caps for me to set. It would be just my luck to set my cap for someone and he return it to the wrong owner.”

Hope giggled. “Giselle, you are too funny. Any man would be lucky to have you.”

Giselle grimaced. “That’s a…nice thought.” That kind of compliment didn’t make sense to her. She hardly believed there was any man that would enjoy her company, never mind the idea that every man was a possibility.

“You have so much to offer, including your intellect.”

That’s what people said to someone who was a seven. “Men don’t want to be around an intelligent woman. Especially one who’s smarter than they are.” It was a fact. Not arrogance. She was smarter than many men, and whenever a man discovered how deep her knowledge went, they went away. And by they, Giselle meant the handful of men her mother had (blackmailed?) into talking to her.

“Some men love smart women.”

“But all men love beautiful women.” She couldn’t suppress it. It was a knee jerk reaction.

“Exactly,” Hope beamed another smile at her. It didn’t seem to be a patronizing smile. It seemed to be genuine. But no one had ever called Giselle beautiful before. Intelligent? Yes. Determined? Yes. Productive? Always. Odd? Sometimes. Daughter of an earl with an average dowry? Yes. Beautiful? No.

It just wasn’t done. And based on Giselle’s thorough understanding of data and patterns, it was not likely for someone to call her beautiful in the future. And she was content knowing that.

Mostly.