Provoked (23 page)

But when he confesses his sins to the beautiful stranger, the truth rips open the old wounds of their blighted history. Threatening any hope of a future together.

Warning: Contains a flawed hero who can be redeemed with the right woman—the one who’s been under his nose the whole time. Ain’t that just like a man?

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Unforgivable:

“Are you quite sure this is the best course of action,
cara
?” Lottie asked carefully. “Your husband has refused to come to Weartham all these years, and while I’m sure he’ll be gratified to see how beautiful you’ve grown—after all, the man is horribly shallow—I fear the shock of you turning up on his doorstep unannounced might cause him to do something foolish, like send you home before he’s taken a good look at you.”

Pathetically, Rose found herself seizing on the least relevant part of what Lottie had just said. “Do you think he will find me much changed?” she asked hesitantly, staring into her chocolate cup.

Lottie sighed. “
Cara
, I doubt he will know you.”

“Really?”

Lottie rose and held out her hand. “Come here.” She drew Rose over to the seat she’d recently vacated in front of the dressing table, facing the mirror, and sat her down. Then she lifted one of the silver-backed brushes and began to draw it through Rose’s dark hair, still loose round her shoulders from being brushed out last night. After a brief silence, Lottie said, “Do you recall what your hair was like when you married?”

“Short,” Rose replied.

“Yes, just a covering really; this long.” Lottie held her finger and thumb an inch apart. Had it really been as short as all that? Rose touched her head as though to check, but of course, her hair was long now, long and thick and luxurious, dark brown tresses that spilled almost to her waist.

“I remember it well,” Lottie went on, still brushing. “You were very poorly when I met you, and your hair was growing slowly. Your body had more important things to mend first.” She looked up, meeting Rose’s gaze in the mirror with those expressive black eyes that showed a depth of emotion that Rose hadn’t been able to understand back then. “You almost died.”

“Yes,” Rose whispered. She remembered the worst of it not at all, and much of the rest only dimly. Seemingly interminable days of fever, the days and nights running into one another, the hallucinations more real to her than the world around her.

The physicians had glumly told her father she would die; and she would have done so if left to them.

“But you saved me, Lottie,” she said, smiling at her friend in the mirror.

“Pshaw!” Lottie scoffed. “Anyone could see what you needed: rest, food, care. Those doctors would have had you in a coffin while you still breathed! But look at you now—so beautiful.” She beamed. “No, he won’t know you. On your wedding day, you weighed little more than a bag of feathers, and your skin was a mess. But look at you now! The marks are all gone!”

“Not quite,” Rose countered lightly. “I have a few scars.” Not merely physical ones either. She tried to dismiss the memory of a night in an inn long ago; a girl in a pink dress, a pink ribbon in her hair. A memory that still made her feel like that girl all over again.

“You call those scars?” Lottie retorted. “Those little moon-marks?”

There were hardly any scars on her face, which was amazing, considering how awful they had been. They’d been everywhere, even on her eyelids and inside her ears. But she’d been left with just three scars on her face, three little white circles at her left ear, her hairline and her chin. They were tiny, almost unnoticeable, the silvery scar tissue just a few shades lighter than her creamy skin.

There were a few more obvious battlefields on her body. A little ring of them on the back of her neck, like the interwoven links of a necklace; another clutch on the backs of her knees. A few other isolated ones here and there, on flank and thigh and arm. But none of them were unsightly, just little silver indentations in her flesh. They had long ago lost the power to make her feel ugly. Indeed, they made her feel proud now, to have survived.

Rose looked into the mirror and saw a woman who was beautiful. She saw her own beauty with satisfaction and joy and defiance. The gaunt, skeletal face of five years before had filled out to one of heart-shaped prettiness. The sad little cap of thin hair was now a thick, glossy mane. Her skin glowed, and her eyes shone with health.

“He won’t know you,” Lottie said again, but this time, the tone of her voice was almost wondering. “Not immediately. And certainly not masked.”

“Masked?”

Lottie smiled, a wicked slashing smile. “Have you ever been to a masked ball,
cara
?”

“What? No, of course not. They’re hardly
de rigueur
in deepest, darkest Northumbria.”

“Would you like to go to one this evening? I’m sure your husband will be there. And don’t you think that would be a much better place to meet him? Just think, instead of turning up as petitioner at his front door, asking for an audience, you set the time and place. And then you let him see your beauty, perhaps flirt with him a little—flirtation is the best language for your husband,
cara
, trust me. He responds to it better than English.”

“You think I should meet him
in disguise
?”

“Oh, you’ll reveal who you really are at the unmasking at midnight. But first you let him see your charms. Soften him up. Once you’ve caught his interest, everything else will be so much easier. Catch him with honey,
cara
.”

“But what if recognises me straightaway?”

“He won’t.” Lottie shook her head, quite certain. “I have a mask and domino you can borrow—you won’t even know yourself in them.”

“Whose ball is this anyway?”

“The ball is being held by dear Nev, so of course he’ll be delighted to have you attend. I’ll send a note round to him now.” Nev was an old friend of her father’s and more recently of Lottie’s.

“Does this mean it won’t be a respectable occasion?” Rose asked. Nev was known as rather a rakish sort.

“Not
very
respectable,” Lottie agreed. “Which is why I’m so sure your husband will be there. I always see him at Nev’s affairs. I always give him a look, like this.” She demonstrated an expression of scornful disdain.

Rose laughed, but she knew why Lottie gave him that look, and her laugh was hollow. “Because he always has a floozy on his arm, I suppose? He’ll probably have his latest one with him tonight.”

“If you’re talking about Signora Meadows, their affair is at an end,” Lottie said with a placid smile. “And if he is seeking her replacement, as he undoubtedly will be, he is going to find her: you. What could be more fitting?”

“Me?”

“Why not? That’s what you want, isn’t it? A real marriage?”

“I won’t be able to attract him like that—”

“Of course you will. I have a few hours before I have to leave. First we’ll dress you, and then I’ll give you a flirting lesson. What’s the worst that can happen,
cara
? Anything’s better than just turning up at Stanhope House with a list of demands in your hand. That will get things off on entirely the wrong foot.”

Rose thought of all the letters she’d sent Gilbert telling him about Weartham and her life there, the annual invitations to join her for Christmas. He’d never taken her up on any of them, demonstrating a single-minded determination to have nothing to do with her.

He was well known for having a weakness for pretty women, a fact that was tirelessly lampooned in the scandal sheets Harriet loved so much.

Well, Rose was now a pretty woman. The least she could do was turn that to her advantage.

Confronting the darkness of his past, he finds the light of his future.

The Gentleman’s Keeper

© 2013 Bonnie Dee and Summer Devon

After years gadding about Europe, Everett Gerard can no longer avoid his responsibilities. Word has come that a child bearing the unmistakable Gerard stamp has shown up at the family estate—and he realizes it’s time to face his demons.

As his carriage nears the gates of home, he fights the urge to flee the memory of the horrible crime he witnessed as a child. Yet the Abbey delivers surprises and delights he never expected.

Miles Kenway was content with his quiet life as the Abbey’s bailiff, until the wild child, clearly a bastard son of some Gerard, upends his peace with constant pranks and mischief. And when the master of the house arrives, an unsettling attraction heats Miles’s blood.

As they clash over the fate of the ancestral land, they battle a powerful desire to grapple in ways that could disrupt the delicate balance between master and servant. But when the boy’s real sire appears, they must unite as only true fathers can to protect the boy whose mischievous charm has captured their hearts.

Warning: Gothic murder, hot man loving, and emotional family drama
.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
The Gentleman’s Keeper:

Gadabout Gerard
, Miles had begun referring to the man in his mind. But now that he faced the man in the flesh, he was struck by something unexpected in the man’s eyes. While amusement sparkled on the cool blue surface, beneath it he sensed something dark and deep, a profound sense of loss or pain or sadness. He wasn’t certain which. Maybe all three. Maybe none of them. It could simply be the heavy-lidded eyes that suggested a sorrow or depth that wasn’t there.

“As I said in my letters,” Miles began, feeling strongly that Gerard had barely skimmed what he’d written if he’d read them at all, “Ipsial showed up more than a month ago with a note in hand claiming his paternity, and a carpet bag with a few clothes and possessions over one shoulder. Not knowing whether he was truly related or not, we—meaning the staff, sir—decided to put him in the guests’ cottage rather than a guest room. We couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t run off with the silver or anything else he got his hands on if allowed indoors.”

“Mrs. Billings called the lad ‘wild’.” Gerard had poured a pair of glasses of brandy and now offered one to Miles before sitting across from him. “What did she mean by that?”

“Exactly as it sounds, sir. The boy has apparently spent much of his life fending for himself. He abandoned that cottage but remains on the premises. I believe he’s picked another outlying building that hasn’t been used for years.”

Gerard narrowed his eyes at this but didn’t speak, so Miles continued, “He steals food on a regular basis and gets into anything he can possibly get into. He’s uncivilized, probably unlettered, and some days I doubt whether he’s even human.”

Remembering who he was talking to, Miles dipped his head. “Sorry, sir. The little hellion
is
improving, I believe. I’ve been treating him as I would a horse that’s been abused, and I think he’s slowly coming to trust that no one here means him any harm.”

“But he’s clearly not ready for boarding school, although, God knows, the place is full of nasty little animals.” Gerard tapped a finger against his glass. “I can’t take him home with me, and it would be quite wrong of me to leave him clattering around here with some poor, hapless governess to look after him.”

“In my opinion, he’s in need of more than lessons. He needs someone to watch him full time, but he’s too old for a nanny,” Miles said, hoping that Gadabout would see the seriousness of the situation. “If handled with care, I believe Ipsial could grow into a responsible, civilized human being.”

“It sounds as if you’ve grown fond of the boy.” Gerard studied him with intent blue eyes that made Miles shift uncomfortably in his chair. Perhaps Gadabout wasn’t as oblivious as he seemed.

“I believe there’s good in him and that it can be cultivated,” Miles said simply.

The other man nodded and set down his empty glass. “I suppose I should meet the boy. My…son, if the stories he tells are to be believed. I have my London solicitor looking into that.”

“We can walk the grounds and try and roust the boy, but if he doesn’t wish to be found, we shan’t see him today. At any rate, this will give me an opportunity to tour the land with you and give you a report.”

“I don’t believe I need a tour.” There was more than a touch of asperity in his voice. “I assume the tenants are content?”

Miles suppressed a sigh. “Yes, the funds to repair the rental properties are just adequate, and the farm is productive.” Unfortunately, the solicitor kept a close eye on those funds, or Miles would have shifted some pounds to use on the abbey roof. “The several cottages owned by your family are among the most sought after in the village. But the abbey and its outbuildings are—”

“The servants are paid?”

“Yes, although, as you instructed, the last of the gardeners was let go. Only one man remains, and he’s only here four days a week.” Miles didn’t bother to hold back his rising temper. “Sir, there is a matter of upkeep and repairs to your family’s home.”

Miles ignored Gerard’s grunt of annoyance and continued, “I have the skill required to do most of the repairs necessary, and I do not mind such work. For the other necessary repairs, I can find a farmer willing to work instead of pay rent.”

“No.”

Again, Miles ignored Gerard, though his employer’s eyes had narrowed and his full mouth gone tight.

“As I’ve mentioned in the letter I sent, sir”—to be entirely accurate three of the letters he’d sent—“the only holdup is that the purchase of materials for the abbey’s preservation. Mortar is crumbling. There are at least two cottages within the grounds that require more than rethatching. The repair I have done on the abbey roof is temporary, and I will need better materials to replace the whole of the east-wing roof.”

“Are you deaf, Kenway? No.”

Miles clamped his teeth tight but managed to get out the words. “Then, sir, the buildings, the abbey itself will fall to ruins within two generations.”

“Perhaps a match and some kindling will speed up the process.”