A Hopeless Romantic

A Hopeless Romantic
Harriet Evans

The warm and enchanting novel from the bestselling author of ‘Going Home’.Laura Foster is a hopeless romantic. It is her most endearing characteristic, yet consistently leads her into trouble. Friends and family look on with amused tolerance – until Laura’s inability to tell reality from romantic dreams causes betrayal and a broken heart.Taking refuge in Norfolk, Laura is bitterly aware that her rose-tinted glasses have to go. She swears off men, and all things romantic, for good – until she meets Nick, the estate manager of a huge stately home. But Nick has a secret too. And it’s one that Laura, however much she tries, can’t get past her prejudice about.Just as she was stubbornly a die-hard romantic, so Laura is stubborn about there being no future for her and Nick. But will he manage to change her mind?

A Hopeless Romantic

Harriet Evans

Copyright (#ulink_57d327cc-7df3-5b10-a2c4-c7cce6865f1e)

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

HarperFiction

A division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/)

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2006

Copyright © Harriet Evans 2006

Harriet Evans asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

Extract from The Sound of Music © 1965 Twentieth Century Fox. Screenplay by Ernest Lehman. All rights reserved.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780007198467

Ebook Edition © JUNE 2011 ISBN: 9780007369270

Version: 2016-09-09

For the magnificent specimen, my mother Linda.With all my love.

How to understand it all! How to understand the deceptions she had been thus practising on herself, and living under! – The blunders, the blindness of her own head and heart! – she sat still, she walked about, she tried her own room, she tried the shrubbery – in every place, every posture, she perceived that she had acted most weakly.

Jane Austen, Emma

Maria: I don’t remember any more.

Brigitta: Your face is all red.

Maria: Is it? I don’t suppose I’m used to dancing.

The Sound of Music, screenplay by Ernest Lehman

Table of Contents

Cover Page (#u8abbbc90-02d5-595b-b2d6-3ebdd2c45d3e)

Title Page (#ucfec1a01-fb9f-5208-bbb5-414ff05fcb29)

Copyright (#u59980f66-25c7-5b83-94b2-d4eacf6048ee)

Dedication (#u73c156bd-d9a3-523e-86bf-df51044911b7)

Epigraph (#u2052997a-3ac8-5111-8cf6-a6c18a5f8e9a)

PART ONE (#u413aa9c2-ea11-51c8-878f-8e4019526e1f)

CHAPTER ONE (#u3cb62562-76b5-5ee2-95ef-81ce62b9560d)

CHAPTER TWO (#ucf0882dc-6655-5736-b160-eaf9056d7659)

CHAPTER THREE (#ubc2d4ad6-9079-5937-84ac-2df965a130a1)

CHAPTER FOUR (#u93adf84d-bccd-5c53-878e-90d16ca63c7a)

CHAPTER FIVE (#u254d9bae-2b74-5c22-b0b9-b492895b713e)

CHAPTER SIX (#ud4472b7a-7f90-513f-9fbd-821cd9bfde20)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#uaf83e3a1-d827-5ea9-a7a8-b1ee93a8ff88)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#ub974d6fa-e3c1-5b9e-9d13-ddcd0dc60d5a)

CHAPTER NINE (#u98e5f9ee-0f92-5593-a100-b6dc2a1a6dff)

CHAPTER TEN (#u845b693e-25b4-5e98-bca9-ed7e9983ff64)

CHAPTER ELEVEN (#u9b62a4bd-d337-57e3-baca-0e268d0d3346)

CHAPTER TWELVE (#u08c02c6c-c760-5684-a78e-237d209f7af3)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#uac69ce56-340f-53a8-8c7f-3744460a8004)

PART TWO (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)