Goddess of the Hunt (46 page)

The captain reached to retrieve his felt beaver from the bar.

“Please.” Sophia clutched his arm. Heavens. It was like clutching a wool-sheathed cannon. Ignoring the warm tingle in her belly, she made her eyes wide and her voice beseeching. The role of innocent, helpless miss was one she’d been playing for years.

“Please, you must take me. I’ve nowhere else to go.”

“Oh, I’m certain you’d figure something out. Pretty thing like you?

After all,” he said, quirking an eyebrow, “you can look after yourself.

”

“Captain Grayson—”

“Miss. Jane. Turner.” His voice grew thin with impatience. “You waste your breath, appealing to my sense of honor and decency. Any your breath, appealing to my sense of honor and decency. Any gentleman in my place would send you off at once.”

“Yes, but you’re no gentleman.” She gripped his arm again and looked him square in the eye. “Are you?”

He froze. All that muscle rippling with energy, the rugged profile animated by insolence—for an instant, it all turned to stone. Sophia held her breath, knowing she’d just wagered her future on this, the last remaining card in her hand.

But this was so much more thrilling than whist.

Goddess of the Hunt
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2009 by Eve Ortega

Excerpt from
Surrender of a Siren
by Tessa Dare copyright © 2009

by Eve Ortega

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

eISBN: 978-0-345-51511-7

www.ballantinebooks.com

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