After Sundown (38 page)

(Escape with a Scoundrel Series)

Dear Reader,

I’m currently working on a new, fully revised edition of MIDNIGHT RAIDER, an award-winning historical romance about a lady highwayman and her handsome rival who form a dangerous alliance to defeat a powerful mutual enemy. The odds of both of them surviving the scheme are not good—and falling in love was never part of the bargain. Enjoy this exclusive, advanced sneak peek!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

London, 1735

“Lord Pierce Wolverton, fourth Earl of Darkridge. So pleased to make your acquaintance.”

He spoke with the smoothness of a man born and bred in Cavendish Square, but Elizabeth got the impression he would be more at ease trading curses with a Thames ferryman. If he were truly a lord, he was strangely attired, for he wore neither wig nor hat nor any face powder. His hair was tied in a simple queue at his neck, one dark brown lock straying over his right eye.

“I... I am...” Trapped by that unyielding, dusky gaze, Elizabeth could not remember by which name she should introduce herself. He was studying her face, her chin, and most of all her eyes. She found the intense interest both odd and disturbing. He still held her wrist, and the sensation of his strong fingers clasping her bare skin filled her with the strangest prickly warmth. “I am—”

“Lady Elizabeth Barnes-Finchley,” he said with a cynical bite to his voice. He released her at last, seeming satisfied with his perusal. “I was told you would be here tonight.”

Elizabeth felt unsteady on her feet, but a rising sense of alarm quickly cleared her head. “By whom? And how do you know who I am?”
Had Arkwright said her name?
She couldn’t remember.

Lord Darkridge wandered to the edge of the pond. “You, my lady, have swept London society off its feet. Every drawing room and concert hall is abuzz with talk of the beautiful young woman who arrived with her aunt from the Continent, three months ago. When I heard you had the most striking violet eyes, I simply had to meet you.”

Elizabeth’s heart began to pound. Was this merely a wealthy nobleman interested in seduction? Or did he somehow suspect that she was not what she seemed? “My eyes have brought you all this way out into the country? To attend a party where you are obviously
not
wanted?”

“Yes.” He said the word harshly, and when he turned to look at her, Elizabeth thought she saw a flash of some emotion in his eyes—anger, or perhaps hurt. But when he spoke again, his voice returned to its rich, low tones. “I am something of a poet, you see. I asked where I might find you because I am currently working on a volume of odes to London’s great beauties. I should like to include you.”

She blinked at him in disbelief. As he stood at the edge of the water, framed by the light of the lamps and the moon, he looked like a dark god of war, just arrived in a new land, ready to conquer all he surveyed. The idea of this man as a poet was ludicrous. His flattery was obviously intended to lure her to his town house and into his bed. Elizabeth couldn’t explain the twinge of disappointment she felt upon discovering he was no better than the other lords she had met.

“I would
not
be interested, Lord Darkridge.” She started to walk back to the house.

He stepped in front of her before she could get more than a few paces. “But we have only just met. Or have you another engagement tonight?”

Elizabeth glared at his chest, annoyed at his persistence and distressed by his question. She could not shake the feeling that this man knew much more than he should, that she was not safe out here alone with him. “No, I haven’t another engagement. But my aunt does not like to stay out late, and I am sure she is ready to return home.”

Before she could move around him, he reached out and took her hand.

“Sir,” she ground out, “if you are any kind of a gentleman, you will let me go. And if you do not, I shall scream.”

~ ~ ~

Pierce didn’t heed her threat. He believed her, but found himself unwilling to let go. He had been wandering the grounds for an hour, trying to think of a way to get inside and find her, when she neatly presented herself, a pale wisp of lavender moonlight, floating over the lawn in her silk gown.

She hesitantly raised her head, and he felt the strangest clenching sensation in his chest. Her eyes, so bright—and somehow so haunted—drew him in like a song of bittersweet beauty. Her blunt, straight nose and slightly uneven lips didn’t detract from her charm. On the contrary, they elevated her looks to the realm of the uncommon. This was no angel drifted down from heaven, made for poets to sing of. This was a woman as real and dark and intriguing as the night itself, a woman made for a man.

“You really must let me go,” she said.

“No, I don’t think I shall.”

There was no mistaking her voice, either. The Cockney accent was gone, but the husky, throaty sensuality in its place held him enthralled. Hellfire, he should just let her leave. He couldn’t for the life of him understand why he had stepped in front of her. His first look at her face had told him all he needed to know.

There was no doubt in his mind that Lady Elizabeth Barnes-Finchley and the highwayman Blackerby Swift were one and the same. The London magistrates, however, would not believe him if he presented this lady, looking like she did now. They would laugh him out of the Old Bailey.

He would have to capture her at the scene of one of her crimes, in her disguise. He guessed that the
real
reason she was so eager to leave was that she intended to take Montaigne’s midnight coach. He might catch her in the act this very night.

So why didn’t he just let her go?

The moon bathed her skin in pearl-white light, from the delicate line of her chin to the shadowy edge of her shoulders. The upper curve of her full, high breasts was just visible above her décolletage, and Pierce’s whole body tensed unexpectedly at the sudden image of this woman—Lady Elizabeth Barnes-Finchley, Blackerby Swift, or whoever the devil she really was—lying naked beneath him, here on the grass.

His fingers itched to touch her, just there, at that vulnerable spot where lavender silk and white lace gave way to warm, soft woman.

The next instant, he lowered his lips to hers.

“Please.” She jerked her head to one side, a note of panic in her voice. She tried to pull her hand out of his, and this time Pierce released her, amazed at his own impulsiveness. This wasn’t like him at all. He hadn’t paused a second to think about what he was doing.

She backed away a step and stood there, staring at him, those eyes of pure amethyst wide with confusion, her black lashes and brows stark against her skin, like ink strokes on a fresh white page. In an instant, her features changed from uncertainty to anger, and she hiked up her skirts and turned away. She walked off with a proud, graceful sway that sent Pierce’s blood hammering through his veins.

He couldn’t resist having the last word. “Good night, Lady Barnes-Finchley.”

At the sound of his voice she broke into a run like a startled doe, fleeing from him toward the house in a flurry of shimmering silk.

Pierce smiled grimly and walked back toward the south end of the grounds, where he had left his horse. Best to get this over with as soon as possible and pack her off to the authorities, before she caused him any further trouble. He flipped open his silver pocket watch. Nine-thirty. More than enough time to catch her on the North Road out of London. There was no reason to put this off, absolutely no reason.

He would capture her tonight.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

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(Stolen Brides Series, Book 1)

On New Year’s Eve, she tumbles 700 years back in time—and into the bed of a darkly handsome knight.

Sir Gaston de Varennes wanted a docile bride who would fit into his plans for vengeance and justice, but a trick of time finds him married to a thoroughly modern American lady who turns his castle, his life, and his heart upside down. Will her desperate secret tear them apart after only a few bittersweet weeks of stolen passion—or will they conquer mistrust, treachery, and time itself to discover a love that spans the centuries?

Winner of the National Readers Choice Award: Best Historical Romance of the Year

“Irresistible, right down to the surprise at the end... One of the best romances of the year.” –
The Detroit Free Press

“A Desert Isle Keeper. Touching, ingenious... I love this book. I’ve read it time after time, and even if I haven’t waited quite long enough between readings to forget all the details, I always get drawn back into the story so intensely that I can’t put it down. Grade: A (highest rating).” –Ellen Hestand, All About Romance

France, 1300

“I do not remember taking you to bed last night.” He yawned and stretched and sat back down on the mattress. “Though I cannot say I regret it. Noisy though you may be, you felt most pleasing curled beside me.”

He chuckled, a low sound that did an odd little dance down Celine’s back and made her suddenly, uncomfortably aware of the warm spot on her shoulder where he had kissed her.

“You did
not
take me to bed!” she corrected.

“Truly,
ma petite
? It was you who seduced me, then?”

“No! I—”

“Come seduce me again.” He fell back on the pillows.

“Absolutely
not!
” Celine groped her way along the wall, trying to feel her way to the door. “Look, whoever you are, it sounds like you had too much to drink at the party. Maybe there was a power failure or something and you wandered into the wrong room by mistake.”

A power failure. That made sense. It would explain why there wasn’t a speck of light. Or heat. The air was so cold, it gave her goose bumps and stung her throat every time she inhaled. The furnace must have gone out.

He sighed and yawned again. “As I told you before, demoiselle, the chamber is mine.”

It took Celine a moment to realize that the wall felt strange: her hand encountered nothing but cold, clammy, bare stone. The paintings and tapestries that had hung in her room were missing. She tried to find the light switch. It wasn’t where it was supposed to be, either.

Suddenly her cheeks heated with an embarrassing thought: maybe he was right about this chamber being his. Maybe
she
was the one who had stumbled into the wrong room!

She didn’t remember getting into bed. In fact, the last thing she remembered was looking through her purse for an aspirin, then stepping toward the window as the moon went black. Rays of silver-white light had glanced off the glass and blinded her, sent her reeling, then ...

She couldn’t remember anything after that. It was entirely possible that she had staggered out of her room, into the maze of corridors—and into the room of another party guest.

She turned back toward the stranger she couldn’t see in the darkness. “Monsieur,” she said tentatively, a bit chastened. “Perhaps I’m the one who made a mistake. I-I don’t remember—”

“Nay, protest no more, little one,” he interrupted, his voice easing into a low, coaxing tone. “Does it matter how we came to be together? You are here, I am here, the bed is here. You felt warm and soft beside me.”

He paused, and she could almost
feel
him remembering—because she was remembering, too: what it felt like to lie snuggled against him.

He spoke again, his voice even deeper, softer, just a notch above a whisper. “Come back to bed,
chérie
. I will seduce you this time.”

“No!” Celine squeaked, not sure whether she was objecting to his command or to her body’s reaction. She was shivering, and not because the room was so cold. That tone he was using sent an unexpected electricity through her, tingly currents that ran from her fingertips to her bare toes and back again in a heartbeat. It left her trembling. It also made her vividly aware of just how little she was wearing: nothing but her silk-and-lace teddy.

She backed away a step, only to come up against the cold stone wall. “Monsieur, I’m—I’m afraid you don’t understand. One of us has made a mistake—”

“The only mistake,
ma petite
, would be for us to waste the hours left until dawn.”

That confident voice reached out to Celine through the shadows and cold, wrapping around her, warm and rich and dark as sable. She swallowed on a dry throat. Who the heck
was
this guy? A voice like that should belong to a hypnotist. To a deejay whispering above love songs on late-night radio.

To a suave playboy who could easily seduce unseen women in the darkness.

Celine froze at that thought, remembering her conversation with her sister earlier. Maybe this man wasn’t here by mistake after all! “Oh, God,” she whispered in shock and dismay, “did my sister put you up to this? I can’t believe she would really— Listen, I don’t know what she
told
you about me, but I am
not
—”

“Again you speak in riddles,
chérie
. I know naught of you but that you felt good beside me. Very small and soft and good. Come back to bed. It is cold without you.”

 “You’re only cold because it’s freezing in here!”

“I must have been too deeply in my cups to light the hearth last night. Or too eager for you to bother.” He chuckled. “It is naught. Come here to me and we will light a fire of our own.”

“No! I can’t—”

“Then I will come fetch you, shy demoiselle.”

Celine could hear him getting out of bed. “No! Wait!” She turned and ran but barely made it two steps before her injured ankle gave way and she fell, hard.

Before she could do more than utter a sharp cry of pain, he was beside her. He had moved almost silently despite the crunchy stuff on the floor. The man lifted her to her feet—and into his embrace.

“Shh, sweet, you have naught to fear. Are you hurt?”

Celine couldn’t answer. The sensation of being held against him stole her voice, her breath, her
mind
. She could not see him in the darkness, but she could feel him.

Oh, God, could she
feel
him!

His hands—large, warm, callused hands—drew her close until her breasts flattened against the solid wall of his ribs. She gasped at the contact, her heart thrumming wildly. The textures of her lingerie only intensified the friction of his body against hers—heat and muscle sliding across silk and softness and lace.

He stroked her temple, her jaw, then gently pressed her head to his chest. The fact that he had moved so quietly belied his size. She was tall, but he towered over her. A dense mat of hair covering broad, flat muscle roughly pillowed her cheek. His other arm flexed across her back, holding her, soothing—an arm that was hard and brawny and probably strong enough to bend steel pipe. She could only guess, because he was being very careful with her. He smelled of woolens and woodsmoke, and of a tangy, masculine spice that she sensed was not some expensive designer cologne, but
him
.

Celine didn’t know which surprised her more: that such a powerful man could be so gentle, or that she had stopped shivering.

She no longer felt cold or terrified. It was ridiculous—insane!—to feel safe in the arms of a naked stranger, especially one with the build of a world-class weight lifter... but she did. She couldn’t explain it. She only knew that she hadn’t seen him at the party or anywhere before. No man like this could walk around without drawing the stunned attention of every red-blooded female over fourteen!

“I-I...” She struggled to find her voice and answer his question, but couldn’t think over the thunder of his steady heartbeat beneath her cheek. “Wh-what did you ask me?”

“It was naught,
ma petite
.” He laughed again, and she felt as well as heard the easy, pleasant sound this time. His voice, however, sounded strained, unsteady, as if he were just as affected as she by the unexpected currents flowing between them. “Fie, but I am hard put to remember who you are. I truly do not recall taking a woman to my bed last night—certainly not you. Even drunk, I would remember making love to you.”

“We
didn’t
make love,” she said breathlessly. “That’s what I’ve been telling you all—”

“It matters not. You are here now and we shall remedy the oversight. Tell me, are you one of the beauties who came to the feast with Edric and his party from Languedoc?”

“No, I’m...” She lost her voice again. His hands were moving, to her shoulders, down her back, to her waist in a slow caress. “I’m... from Chicago.”

He lowered his head to hers. “I know not this land ‘Chicago,’ ” he whispered, his breath warm against her lips. “But let me sample the sweetness of one of its fair flowers.”

His mouth captured hers with a strong, soft heat and Celine discovered something far sexier than this man’s voice or his body.
His kiss.
She never had the chance to think of a protest. To think at all.

She had been kissed before, but never like
this
.

It was neither awkward and teasing nor forceful and overpowering, but long, slow, confident, and devastating. It was as if he were binding them together, deftly drawing her soul into his.

He tasted of wine and strong spices and the virile promise of shared pleasure. Of strength and tenderness beyond anything she had ever imagined. Her knees gave way. He held on to her effortlessly. His lips melded gently to hers... then gradually parted.

He angled his head, deepening the intimacy, and Celine made a small sound in the back of her throat. She didn’t know what it was, had never made a little cry like that before, almost feline, somehow... restless. Wanting. It seemed more like a plea than the objection she had intended. Her hands pressed against his ribs, but instead of pushing him away as she knew she should, she found herself exploring the corded muscles she encountered there, entranced by the unfamiliar angles and hardness. She felt his breathing quicken, heard a moan shudder out of him, deep and masculine.

Before she could gather up the scattered confetti of her senses, she felt herself slipping deeper into the kiss. Into him. Into this stranger in the darkness who teased her and laughed with her, touched her, awakened her, electrified her in a way no man ever had.

Before she could stop herself, her arms slid around his back and she was holding on to him as much as he was holding her.

His kiss became bolder, more intense. The first touch of his tongue against hers dragged a soft moan from her lips. She felt his arms tremble, as if he were fighting for control. His tongue flicked against hers, retreated, then returned, sliding, seeking. She tasted him, breathed him, felt hot needles of unfamiliar hunger. His bristly five-o’clock shadow rubbed roughly against her chin and jaw.

 If ever she had had cause for nervousness, uncertainty, fear, it was now—but that was not what she felt.

She felt longing, she felt tenderness, she felt...
right.
She wanted this. As if she had been waiting her whole life.

And in her heart, she knew that she had.

She felt
alive
. More alive and whole than she had for as many months as she could remember. She nearly sobbed with the joy of it. She must have made some sound, because he broke the kiss and lifted his head.

He didn’t say anything for a moment. Neither of them did. They just stood there, clinging to one another in the dark, breathing hard. The heat between them was so tangible it felt as if the furnace had been turned on, full blast.

After a second, the sensual fog that he had spun around her cleared a bit. “Wait,” she whispered. “I-I can’t... I mean, I don’t—I’m not—”

“Nay, do not pull away.” He lowered his head, nibbled at her lower lip, then nudged at her chin, urging her to tilt her head back. “You are all I could wish, little flower. You are fire and softness and you taste of a sweetness beyond any I have known. Stay with me,” he asked. “
Touch me.
Let me touch you.”

“Please, I-I think I should tell you... I mean, no matter what my sister told you, I’m not what she... I’m not...”

“Not what?” he urged.

“I’m not...”

“Not
this?
” He kissed her again, more powerfully this time.

A moan escaped from Celine’s throat at the feel of that hot, deep joining of his mouth and hers, the rough stubble of his beard abrading her sensitive skin. The feelings radiating from deep within her, the pent-up yearnings, the wild fever, all constricted into an ache, focused in the center of her body. Her hands grasped his rock-hard arms and she grasped wildly for reason as she felt herself tumbling over the edge.
I can’t do this! It’s insane! I don’t know this man! I can’t even see him!

But when he finally raised his head and ended the sweet torment he was lavishing on her, she slumped against him. He held her easily, gently.

“My God,” she whispered.

“Heaven,” he promised.

“But... I don’t even know your name.”

“Gaston.” His mouth claimed hers again, demanding her response with a kiss that sent the last shreds of sanity whirling away. His name barely registered, except for a brief, fleeting thought that it was old-fashioned. Uncommon. A name not heard much anymore.

His hand stroked upward, his fingers tracing over her back, her shoulders, and the silk and lace and spaghetti straps of her teddy. “Saints’ breath, but ’tis strange, this garment,” he murmured against her mouth. “This land of yours, this ‘Chicago,’ must be a far place to have such wonders as this that I have never seen. You must tell me of your home.” He kissed her again, laughing. “
Later.
For now, let us greet the new year properly.”

Celine was surprised that he had never seen a teddy before. She also meant to ask how it could be that he had never heard of Chicago, but instead found herself sighing in agreement. “The new year.”

He nipped a hot rain of little kisses down her neck. “I can think of no better way to celebrate the dawn of the first day of a new century.”