A/N: I love Meg Cabot's regency books and wish she would write more. This is my idea for a third book. It follows the same basic format as the other two books. Orphan + love triangle. 'Nicola and the Viscount' and 'Victoria and. The Rogue' belong to Meg Cabot.

Chapter 1: London, 1811

"Hmph, you should have told me I'd need a second carriage, Angie." The Earl of Newgriffin, Lord James Harper, said. "I had no idea anyone could own this much stuff. I'm surprised you didn't shop our grandparents out of house and home."

Miss Angelina Harper glared at her brother icily, quite put out by his -it seemed - constantly negative attitude. "This is no more than any young debutante in Paris has," She sniffed.

Her brother just shook his head at her in his usual manner. "We aren't in Paris," James said, as he directed the train attendants in strapping Angelina's various trunks to the carriage. "And I'm starting to wish I'd come taken you from the silly place sooner."

Angelina winced as her trunk of hats and hair ornaments was thrown carelessly by the train attendants, resisting the urge to snap at them for their roughness. "Paris is far from silly, James," Angelina scolded. "It's a beautiful city of exquisite food, music, passion. Oh, don't roll you're eyes, brother. It's full of excitement and mystery and...well, it isn't hard to feel London is so very dull in comparison."

"I very well hope so, you need a great deal of dullness in your life, Angelina " Lord Harper said authoritatively, "and I intend to have you a sensible creature before the year is out. Prepare to be bored un-silly, sister."

Angelina gawped in an unladylike manner at her brother, as the two climbed into the carriage at last. "You can't be serious!" She finally sputtered. "You won't be that dreadful, will you?"

"I will be as dreadful as I please." James answered dryly as they rode along, his leg room was constricted by a trunk that had been shoved on the carriage floor, and he wasn't pleased about it. "Until you leave some of that silly mindset of yours behind. Damn trunk!"

Angelina ignored her brother's curse and threats, their conversations were often like this - him chastising her for what he called silliness and she called a pleasant affinity for the dramatic. What Angelina's stoic, book-bread brother simply didn't realize was that Angelina was a full-blooded romantic in the way only someone who had been living in Paris for as long as she had could be. She addressed her brother seriously, "I am not silly, James. I'm a grown woman now, so you see it is perfectly unacceptable for me to be babied by you so. And Grand-mere and Grand-pere are all well and good, but I might as well have raised myself. It's been six years since Mother and Father died, yet you still act as though I'm the child I was when I left!"

"I beg to differ," James said plainly. "You had a good deal more sense back then, before all these notions..."

"Why, I went to loads of parties back in Paris, and I know the most fashionable people." Angelina continued without acknowledging her brother, "Why, I was even allowed to drink as I wished, though I would never drink more than a glass - see? I am sensible!"

Angelina felt quite proud of herself for thinking of this, surely James couldn't argue that she was silly after hearing this. And while Paris had been full of scandals and love affairs, Angelina had never been the topic of such gossip (no matter how much she might have wanted to be). La! What fun Paris would have been, now that she was sixteen. Something told Angelina that London wasn't as fresh with fantastic drama as Paris was.

"You will let me have some fun, won't you James? I'll simply die if I won't have anything to tell my friends back...in Paris." Angelina mentally kicked herself, she had almost said back home instead of back in Paris. She may have lived in Paris for six years, but she knew how it would hurt her brother if she considered anywhere but the houses - the estate and London house - they had shared with their parents home. And, despite their bickering, Angelina was happy she would be with her brother again, in the house they had been children in.

Thinking this, she tucked her arm around his affectionately. "I'm sure you won't let me parish in your attempt to turn me into a sensible woman, for you would be lost without being able to scold me at every available moment!" She said, without any malice.

"Hm, we'll see how I feel after you've caused trouble," James said, as they pulled up to the pleasant house Angelina remembered from childhood. He leaped out eagerly, then turned to help her. "which you will, it's inevitable."

"I take offense at that!" She exclaimed, though both siblings knew that she didn't. "I can't believe how good the house looks. It almost looks new! What on earth does the inside look like? You told me you had fixed it up, but I guess I couldn't imagine it...I'm sorry, I'm being rude, aren't I?"

"I don't blame you." Lord Harper said, looking over the outside of the house alongside his younger sister, he was also remembering the somewhat uncared for, and not very welcoming, the house had been for most of their childhood. "Come on in, you'll want to see what the inside looks like. That's where the real improvement is."Angelina, brushing aside the odd feelings she had from being invited into what had been her home, followed her brother in. James had, of course, not been lying. The. London home they had shared with their parents had been in poor shape, the last time Angelina had seen it. The poor state of the house, in this case, had been because of a poor state of affairs for the Harper family. The former Lord and Lady Harper had been happy, loving people, but very bad with finances. But, in the end, that hadn't mattered, they died side by side, in an accident. Angelina sighed at the romanticism of it all.

"What do you think?" James asked, he seemed to be studying her expression. "I know it's not very... feminine."

Angelina didn't really mind that the house did have some qualities of the home of a single man. It had its own, unique appeal. And Angelina preferred the musky, paper-like scent of the house to the overly sweet perfumed scent of her grandparents home. She realized that, this time, she had unconsciously distanced herself from Paris just by seeing her old home. She looked back at James, who was watching her with what could only be described as a nervous expression. A wave of affection swept over her and she threw her arms around him.

"Don't worry, James," Angelina comforted him, grinning, as he simply looked surprised, "I am happy to be home, really!"

"Of course you are," James conceded, looking less sure of himself than usual, "I wasn't worried in the slightest. Now, I believe that you should make sure your maid puts all your things away properly while I see about dinner."

Angelina nodded, quite sure that her brother had simply been embarrassed, and went to do exactly as he had said. After some frustration on her and her new maid's part, all of her things were properly sorted out. And she was free to go in search of her brother and see how dinner was coming. Wandering about, Angelina found she remembered the layout of the house nearly perfectly. She took a detour from finding her brother to go into her mother's sitting room, a pleasant little parlor that overlooked the street. This room looked untouched, Angelina noted, quite pleased. She was distracted from reviewing the room further by the rapping sound that Angelina instantly recognized as a knock on the front door. She looked out the window curiously, to spot the visitor. At the precise moment she looked down, the figure at the door looked up. Angelina breathed in sharply, as she and the man below her locked eyes. There is an angel at my front door, was all she could think. Paris was full of handsome men, so it wasn't as if Angelina had no experience with attractive members of the opposite sex,, but the thin, somewhat effeminate, Parisian men couldn't hold a candle to the man she was looking at now.

La, she thought in French, Il est tres beau.

His shoulders, wide enough to embarrass any Frenchman, held his perfect head and neck. Blonde curls - a lovely, golden, blonde - framed his face. His eyes, from this distance, were simply blue. But Angelina knew that up close they would be a clear, crisp blue. He had a pair of angular cheekbones that Angelina suspected would be pleasant to trace. His nose was not quite straight, as if it might have been broken at some point.

The idea made Angelina's heart pound vividly.

Then, he was gone. He had come in, she supposed. Then it struck her, that lovely creature was here, in her house. Completely forgetting that she probably looked a fright - she had just gone from boat to train to carriage today, and hadn't cleaned herself up. No, at that moment Angelina wanted nothing more than to meet the golden-haired stranger. So, she practically ran down the stairs.

A/N: So, there it is! Chapter 1! Please read and review!

P.S. I know that in the original books the heroines met the blonde crushes before the story started, but that didn't really make sense with this story line. Sorry!

If you review, please tell me what you think about Angelina, and James! More characters are coming, but I want to know what everyone thinks about them!