Kathryn Caskie (39 page)
Authors: Rules of Engagement
Suddenly, Meredith’s hand was in hers and Jenny was being whisked down the stair treads to the parlor.
Giggling, Meredith threw open the parlor door. “Aunties, may I present my dear friend, Lady Genevieve.”
With that, she propelled Jenny through the doorway and into the center of the parlor.
In an instant, Jenny regretted setting foot outside Meredith’s chamber. Regretted leaving her bed that morning. For her employers, the grand ladies, Letitia and Viola Featherton, who might have enjoyed Meredith’s game under more intimate circumstances, were not alone.
There, standing before Jenny was a towering, dark-eyed, kilted gentleman. The very same Scot, in fact, whose carriage she had had the audacity to invade only two hours earlier.
Both of the elderly Featherton ladies, who had come to their feet the moment Jenny entered the room, were wearing like expressions of pale shock.
The Scotsman lifted a sardonic brow as he slowly surveyed Jenny from boot to crown.
“My lady,” he said, in the deep, dulcet tones of the Highlands. “I am so verra pleased to make yer acquaintance"— amusement played briefly on his lips—
“again.”
Dear Reader,
Love comes in many disguises. But sometimes love comes while you are in disguise. Just ask Eliza Merriweather and Molly Shaw in RULES OF ENGAGEMENT and MAN TROUBLE, our two Warner Forever titles this May.
Julia Quinn calls
Kathryn Caskie’s
Regency-set first novel,
RULES OF ENGAGEMENT,
“a delightful debut” and Eloisa James raves “clever, frothy and funny—an enthralling read.” So hold onto your muslin skirts, this one’s going to blow your stockings off! Eliza Merriweather has no desire to get married. But her two scheming aunts Letitia and Viola have other plans. They’ve enlisted the help of an old military guidebook called “Rules of Engagement’ to secure her offers of marriage. After all, engagement is engagement no matter the context. But Eliza, a worthy adversary, has hatched a scheme of her own. She’s persuaded Magnus MacKinnon, a Scottish earl, to pose as a suitor to discourage other callers. Before long, Magnus’s brogue sends shivers down her spine and his kisses make her heart race. Could what began as a lark blossom into real love?
Journeying from the wiles and the guiles of the ton to the warm sun and the gentle surf of the Caribbean, we present
Melanie Craft’s MAN TROUBLE.
Romantic Times
called her “a fresh new voice” and the praise couldn’t be more well-deserved. Dr. Molly Shaw is leading a double life. By day, she’s a history professor on the tenure track and by night, Molly is bestselling romance author Sandra St. Claire. These parallel lives never intersect … until a journalist friend asks her to pull off the story of the century: transform herself into billionaire playboy Jake Berenger’s perfect woman to get the inside scoop. But Jake is anything but an innocent victim. In fact, his reputation as a ladies’ man is so overexposed that his business is suffering. His only solution is a radical makeover into a family man. And for that he needs the perfect wife. Could she be right under his nose, hidden beneath Sandra St. Claire’s sexpot act and her spandex? It looks like there’s trouble brewing in paradise!
To find out more about Warner Forever, these May titles, and the authors, visit us at
www.warnerforever.com
.
With warmest wishes,
Karen Kosztolnyik, Senior Editor
P.S. The temperatures are beginning to rise so treat yourself to some ice cream and these two reasons to relax:
Sandra Hill
pens a spicy contemporary about a woman who’s on the lam from a loan shark and discovers that she’s still married to a man she thought she divorced years ago, in
CAJUN COWBOY;
and
Edie Claire
delivers the poignant tale of a woman who inherits half a mountain inn and a tangled web of untruths she must unravel before she can claim a love that was
MEANT TO BE.
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Contents
Rule One: Those whose ranks are united in purpose will be victorious.
Rule Two: Take action before he can discern your strategy.
Rule Three: Use local guides to gain the advantage of ground.
Rule Four: Employ diversion to distract opposing forces from the true objective.
Rule Five: Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance.
Rule Six: Advance troops ensure the tactical plan is carried out.
Rule Seven: When birds startle and flee, you are about to be taken unaware.
Rule Eight: Know him as yourself, and the engagement will never be endangered.
Rule Ten: There can be no engagement unless both sides are willing.
Rule Eleven: The element of surprise can restore a situation.
Rule Twelve: When ignorant of your quarry and of yourself, you are in certain peril.
Rule Thirteen: Use bait to draw him into secure ground. Here, his strengths can be compromised.
Rule Fourteen: Do not dwell in desolate ground.
Rule Fifteen: Agitation breeds motivation to engage.
Rule Sixteen: Where not expected, appear.
Rule Seventeen: Determine your opponent’s plans, then turn them upon him.
Rule Nineteen: To truly surround him, you must leave a way of escape.
Rule Twenty: Engagement is often predicated by deception.
Rule Twenty-one: When you are equally matched, engage.
Rule Twenty-two: Learn from each engagement, and apply successful strategies to future engagements.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2004 by Kathryn Caskie
Excerpt from
Lady in Waiting
© 2004 by Kathryn Caskie
Cover design by Diane Luger, cover illustration by Franco Accornero, hand lettering by David Gatti. Cover copyright © 2012 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
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First e-book edition: May 2004
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ISBN 978-0-446-55049-9