Once Upon a Winter's Eve: A Spindle Cove Novella (13 page)

“
Ma moitié
,” she decided. “My half. Because when you left, my heart was ripped right down the middle. And when you came back, you made my joy complete.” Her voice broke a little, and her gaze fell to the snowy drifts of his cravat. “Christian, I… I wouldn’t know how to live without you.”

He stopped dancing and slid both hands to her face, tilting her gaze to his. His eyes were solemn and ardent. “You will never need to learn.”

All onlookers were forgotten. The ballroom ceased to exist. They closed the distance between them, each leaning forward by slow degrees…until their lips met in the middle.

Two halves of one perfect, passionate kiss.

About the Author

Tessa Dare is the award-winning author of seven historical romance novels and two novellas. A librarian by training and a booklover at heart, she takes great pride and pleasure in continuing to work part-part-time at her local public library. She makes her home in Southern California, where she shares a cozy, cluttered bungalow with her husband, their two children and a big brown dog.

To learn more about Tessa and her other books, please visit
www.tessadare.com
.

Look for these titles by Tessa Dare

Now Available:

The Legend of the Werestag

To capture love, sometimes you have to grab it by the horns…

The Legend of the Werestag

© 2009 Tessa Dare

If a woman could die of humiliation, Cecily Hale would have perished three hours ago. Luke Trenton had finally returned to Swinford Manor, only to cruelly spurn her long-held love. But she couldn’t conveniently die of shame on the spot—oh, no. Instead she joined her friends on this ridiculous search for a legendary man-beast. Now she’ll die here—alone in the woods, at the tusks of a snarling boar.

Luke left for war a dashing youth and returned a man—just not the same man Cecily fell in love with. His passion for her is stronger than ever, but the ravages of battle changed him in ways she wouldn’t understand. Pushing her away was supposed to save her, not throw her into the path of another inhuman creature…or into the arms of another man.

For it is a man who rescues Cecily, just as the boar attacks. A mysterious, silent man who disappears into the woods, leaving her with just a glimpse—of a fleeing white deer. Could her rescuer be the man-beast of local lore?

A dangerous myth has captured Cecily’s imagination, putting Luke on the horns of a dilemma. Unless he summons the passion and tenderness to win her back, he could lose her forever…to the Werestag.

Warning: This is a humorous, passionate historical romance,
not
a paranormal shifter story. However, it does feature a harrowing encounter with a wild beast, a tortured hero who feels half-human, and the unleashing of animal urges. In other words: explicit sex, mild language
.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
The Legend of the Werestag:

At last, Cecily had him cornered.

The party had dispersed to prepare for their impromptu hunting excursion. Brooke and Denny had gone to see about footmen and torches. Cecily was supposed to be fetching a cloak and sturdier boots from her chambers, as Portia had done, but she’d tarried purposely until the three of them had left. Until she was alone with Luke. It was time to end this…this foolish dream she’d been living for years.

She cleared her throat. “Will you come with us, out to the woods?”

“Are you going to marry Denny?” He spoke in an easy, conversational tone. As though his answer depended on hers.

She briefly considered chastising his impudence, refusing to answer. But why not give an honest reply? He’d already made her humiliation complete, by virtue of his perfect indifference. She could sink no lower by revealing it. “There is no formal understanding between us. But everyone assumes I will marry him, yes.”

“Because you are so madly in love?”

Cecily gave a despairing sniff. “Please. Because we are cousins of some vague sort, and we can reunite the ancestral fortune.” She stared up at the gilt ceiling trim. “What else would people assume? For what other earthly reason would I have remained unmarried through four seasons? Certainly not because I’ve been clinging to a ridiculous infatuation all this time. Certainly not because I’ve wasted the best years of my youth and spurned innumerable suitors, pining after a man who had long forgotten me. No, no one would ever credit that reasoning. They could never think me such a ninny as
that
.”

That cold, empty silence again. A sob caught in her throat.

“Was there anything in it?” she asked, not bothering to wipe the tear tracing the rim of her nose. “Our summer here, all those long walks and even longer conversations? When you kissed me that night, did it mean anything to you?”

When he did not answer, she took three paces in his direction. “I know how proud you must be of those enigmatic silences, but I believe I deserve an answer.” She stood between his icy silence and the heated aura of the fire. Scorched on one side, bitterly cold on the other—like a slice of toast someone had forgotten to turn.

“What sort of answer would you like to hear?”

“An honest one.”

“Are you certain? It’s my experience that young ladies vastly prefer fictions. Little stories, like Portia’s gothic novel.”

“I am as fond of a good tale as anyone,” she replied, “but in this instance, I wish to know the truth.”

“So you say. Let us try an experiment, shall we?” He rose from his chair and sauntered toward her, his expression one of jaded languor. His every movement a negotiation between aristocratic grace and sheer brute strength.

Power
. He radiated power in every form—physical, intellectual, sensual—and he knew it. He knew that she sensed it.

The fire was unbearably warm now. Blistering, really. Sweat beaded at her hairline, but Cecily would not retreat.

“I could tell you,” he said darkly, seductively, “that I kissed you that night because I was desperate with love for you, overcome with passion, and that the color of my ardor has only deepened with time and separation. And that when I lay on a battlefield bleeding my guts out, surrounded by meaningless death and destruction, I remembered that kiss and was able to believe that there was something of innocence and beauty in this world, and it was you.” He took her hand and brought it to his lips. Almost. Warm breath caressed her fingertips. “Do you like that answer?”

She gave a breathless nod. She was a fool; she couldn’t help it.

“You see?” He kissed her fingers. “Young ladies prefer fictions.”

“You are a cad.” Cecily wrenched her hand away and balled it into a fist. “An arrogant, insufferable cad.”

“Yes, yes. Now we come to the truth. Shall I give you an honest answer, then? That I kissed you that night for no other reason than that you looked uncommonly pretty and fresh, and though I doubted my ability to vanquish Napoleon, it was some balm to my pride to conquer you, to feel you tremble under my touch? And that now I return from war, to find everything changed, myself most of all. I scarcely recognize my surroundings, except…” He cupped her chin in his hand and lightly framed her jaw between his thumb and forefinger. “Except Cecily Hale still looks at me with stars in her eyes, the same as she ever did. And when I touch her, she still trembles.”

Oh. She
was
trembling. He swept his thumb across her cheek, and even her hair shivered.

“And suddenly…” His voice cracked. Some unrehearsed emotion pitched his dispassionate drawl into a warm, expressive whisper. “Suddenly, I find myself determined to keep this one thing constant in my universe. Forever.”

She swallowed hard. “Do you intend to propose to me?”

“I don’t think so, no.” He caressed her cheek again. “I’ve no reason to.”

“No reason?” Had she thought her humiliation complete? No, it seemed to be only beginning.

“I’ll get my wish, Cecy, whether I propose to you or not. You can marry Denny, and I’ll still catch you stealing those starry looks at me across drawing rooms, ten years from now. You can share a bed with him, but I’ll still haunt your dreams. Perhaps once a year on your birthday—or perhaps on mine—I’ll contrive to brush a single fingertip oh-so-lightly between your shoulder blades, just to savor that delicious tremor.” He demonstrated, and she hated her body for responding just as he’d predicted.

An ironic smile crooked his lips. “You see? You can marry anyone or no one. But you’ll always be mine.”

“I will not,” she choked out, pulling away. “I will put you out of my mind forever. You are not so very handsome, you know, for all that.”

“No, I’m not,” he said, chuckling. “And there’s the wonder of it. It’s nothing to do with me, and everything to do with you. I know you, Cecily. You may try to put me out of your mind. You may even succeed. But you’ve built a home for me in your heart, and you’re too generous a soul to cast me out now.”

She shook her head. “I—”

“Don’t.” With a sudden, powerful movement, he grasped her waist and brought her to him, holding her tight against his chest. “Don’t cast me out.”

Double trouble—with a twist.

The Scarred Heir

© 2012 Denise Patrick

Two months. Just two more months and Sarah Standish will be twenty-one and free to come out of hiding. Not long ago she was on the brink of marrying the man of her dreams—until she discovered his complicity with her uncle’s plan to gain control of her missing father’s substantial fortune.

A wounded man appears at the inn where she lives under an assumed name, and she’s shocked to discover it’s her would-be groom. He seems to have no memory of her, yet her traitorous heart remembers.

Max Dayton awakens from a fevered dream to find a vengeful angel hovering over him. When he realizes she’s mistaken him for his twin brother, his protective instincts kick in. There must be some reason his brother assumed Max’s identity…and some connection to this dazzling beauty and the father she insists is not dead.

In a quest to untangle the twisted trail of lies that threw them together, Sarah and Max journey to London, where the mystery grows darker and deeper. And the fragile beginnings of love are threatened by a secret someone would kill to keep.

Warning: Contains a war hero, runaway bride, jealous twin, greedy uncle, and a good reason to check names before proceeding. At least the dog knows who is who.

Available January 2012 from Samhain Publishing

Once Upon a Winter’s Eve

Tessa Dare

Some wallflowers bloom at night...

A
Spindle Cove
Novella

Violet Winterbottom is a quiet girl. She speaks six languages, but seldom raises her voice.
 
She endured bitter heartbreak in perfect silence.
 
The gentlemen aren't beating down her door.

Until the night of the Spindle Cove Christmas ball, when a mysterious stranger crashes into the ballroom and collapses at Violet's feet.
 
His coarse attire and near-criminal good looks would put any sensible young lady on her guard.
 
He's wet, chilled, bleeding, and speaking in an unfamiliar tongue.
 

Only Violet understands him.
 
And she knows he's not what he seems.

She has one night to draw forth the secrets of this dangerously handsome rogue. Is he a smuggler? A fugitive? An enemy spy? She needs answers by sunrise, but her captive would rather seduce than confess. To learn his secrets, Violet must reveal hers—and open herself to adventure, passion, and the unthinkable... Love.

Warning: The heroine packs a pistol, the hero curses in multiple languages, and together they steam up a cold winter’s night.
 

eBooks are
not
transferable.

They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B

Cincinnati OH 45249

Once Upon a Winter’s Eve

Copyright © 2011 by Eve Ortega

ISBN: 978-1-60928-882-2

Edited by Lindsey Faber

Cover by Kim Killion

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

First
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
electronic publication: November 2011

www.samhainpublishing.com