Winner Takes All

by Anna Harrington

  “Yes, I will,” she breathed out, engulfed by such a happiness that she’d never before known. She beamed at him through her tears. “After all, winner takes all.”

  He twisted a grin at her. “And which one of us just won?”

  “Both.” She rose up and kissed him.

  Dear Reader

  Thank you for purchasing and reading this book! I hope you enjoyed it.

  I’ve been around horses all my life, and when I was young, my family raised and raced quarter horses. (I wanted to be a jockey when I was a kid, only to outgrow that fantasy—literally.) It was so much fun to be able to write about the world of horses and racing, even with its early 1800 differences, which were surprisingly similar to how races are still run today. And of course, the romance! Those of you who have read my other books know that Jackson Shaw’s name has popped up occasionally in them since my second book as the man who trains and owns the best horses in England, and it was wonderful to finally be able to give him his own story.

  “Stay tuned” below for a special glimpse at one of my favorite books, HOW THE EARL ENTICES, from my award-winning Capturing the Carlisles series and a #1 Amazon Historical Romance best seller! Or discover all of my books, fun extras, and more at my website: www.AnnaHarringtonBooks.com

  And to be the first to receive news about new releases, special offers, contests, and more, sign up for my newsletter at https://bit.ly/2m7zWF0 and follow me on all my social media at https://www.annaharringtonbooks.com/follow

  * * *

  Happy reading!

  Anna

  SPECIAL BONUS!

  Enjoy this glimpse into the first chapter of HOW THE EARL ENTICES by Anna Harrington — Ross Carlisle, Earl of Spalding, is forced to commit treason and race to London to catch a murderer. But when seeking refuge during a storm, he meets Grace Alden, a widow who is keeping her own deadly secrets. Soon, he is fleeing for his life, and the only person who can save him is a dead woman.

  * * *

  Grace Alden lay in her bed, staring at the dark ceiling and listening to the storm raging around her. The wind and rain roared so loudly that she couldn’t hear her own heartbeat. But she knew it was racing because it jumped into her throat each time she heard something bang against the cottage. The wind howled like a banshee over the cliff tops, screaming through the eaves and bringing with it a torrent of black rain that fell with the force of a hurricane.

  “Please God, let the roof hold.”

  Around her, the old limestone and timber cottage groaned beneath the fierce battering of the storm.

  “And the walls, too,” she whispered in afterthought, “if not too much trouble.”

  After ten more minutes of staring at the ceiling, she slid out from beneath the covers. Sleep was proving impossible tonight.

  The cottage was dark as pitch as she made her way slowly across the main room to the hearth, where a bed of coals hissed and snapped angrily against the few drops of rain that found their way down the chimney from the force of the wind. She stirred the ash bed with the iron poker to raise a flame, tossing in a few more chunks of coal to feed the fire enough to last until morning. Normally, she never would have burned a fire through the night, but tonight, she sought its comfort.

  Taking a brass candleholder from the mantel, she bent over to light the wick in the flames and let out a soft sigh when it caught hold. After nearly ten years of fearing things that bumped in the night, would she ever grow comfortable in the darkness? But the most frightening things weren’t the unseen. She’d learned the hard way that the worst were the ones a person knew well.

  She lifted the candle to read the storm glass fixed to the wall. The water in the spout had been rising during the past two days, and now it stood higher than she’d ever seen it. She bit her bottom lip. It could be hours before the water level dropped and the temperature fell, before the clouds rained themselves dry.

  Before she could bring Ethan home.

  Her chest tightened with aching worry. Sending her son into the village to spend the night with Alice Walters at the apothecary shop had been the right decision. She knew that. But oh, how much it hurt to be separated from him! For the first time in his life, too. But the sailors who had come ashore all day predicted that tonight’s storm would be the worst in memory. Ethan was safer within the shop’s thick stone walls, while she had to be here to rescue their belongings in case the roof caved in. Holding everything she owned in the world, this cottage had been her own safe port over the past stormy decade, where she and Ethan had been safe since he was born.

  But he wasn’t a babe anymore. He was nine years-old now, and growing so fast that it pained her to think of it.

  He’d soon reach an age when he should be going off to school. Instead, he’d have to stay here. Guilt gnawed at her. He deserved better, was born for better—fine schools, hundreds of books, private tutors, trips across England and the continent to see in person all the wonderful things that the world had to offer. Instead, they had to make do with the few books she could scrape together enough money to purchase and the tutoring sessions with the local vicar she’d negotiated in trade for cooking and cleaning the vicarage.

  But he could never have that other life. As far as Ethan knew, his father was a sailor who died at sea, and she fully intended to keep it that way. Because if Ethan ever discovered the truth, if he ever got the foolish notion into his head when he was older to pursue what was due him…She shuddered.

  At least now, he would have a life. She would never regret what she had to do to keep her son safe.

  A loud banging shot through the noise of the storm. She jumped with a small scream, her hand going to her throat.

  The pounding came again. This time she recognized it—a shutter had broken loose and was banging wildly against the side of the cottage in the howling wind. Her chest sagged. She had to fix it. If she didn’t, not only would it continue to bang all night, but it might also smash through the window it was supposed to be protecting.

  Setting the candle onto the table, she moved toward the door, where she pulled on a pair of fisherman’s boots and an oilskin coat. The last thing she wanted to do tonight—oh, the very last thing!—was go out into the weather and be soaked, chilled to the bone, and battered about. But she had no choice, because she couldn’t afford to replace the window if it broke. At least she could brew up some hot tea when she returned. Taking comfort in that, she threw back the bolt and opened the door, only to have her breath ripped away by a burst of icy cold wind and rain that slammed into her.

  Pulling the old coat tighter around herself, she shouldered her way into the wind and along the front of the cottage. It took only a moment to close the shutter and fasten the hook that had somehow come undone.

  She turned to scurry inside—

  A strong arm went around her waist and swung her back against the side of the cottage. She screamed, but the sound was lost beneath the noise of the raging storm. A forearm pushed against her upper chest, pinning her against the wall.

  Another scream ripped from her throat. She kicked and punched with all her might at the man who’d grabbed her, who now held her a helpless prisoner as he leaned into her, his muscular legs forcing hers to still. With one large hand, he grabbed both her arms and pinned them over her head, while the other pressed the barrel of a pistol beneath her chin.

  “Who else is inside?” he demanded.

  She couldn’t see his face as the rain pelted down upon both of them, so fiercely that she couldn’t blink the water away fast enough. The black night covered his features, but nothing could hide the strength of him as he held her against the wall.

  He pressed the pistol harder against her. “A husband, brother—who?”

  “My husband!” she lied, so frightened that she nearly crumpled to the muddy ground. “He’s certain to have heard me scream, so you’d better leave!”

  He laughed, a terrible sound that scratched and screeched nearly as much as the wind howling over the bluffs. “N
o husband, then. Anyone else?”

  She was terrified and freezing, but she refused to submit to this man. Not to any man ever again. She’d rather die than surrender. “Go to hell!”

  His eyes gleamed in the darkness. “I’m already there.”

  Keeping the pistol pressed against her throat, he grabbed her arm and tugged her toward the door, which had blown open in the hurricane gale. He pulled her inside and kicked the door closed. Twisting from his grasp, she yanked her arm away. He let her go, only to reach behind him and throw the bolt to lock them inside.

  Grace ran toward the fireplace, snatched up the iron poker, and brandished it like a weapon. All of her shook so violently from cold and fear that she didn’t know how she managed to hold onto it. But he’d have to rip it from her hands before she released it. And if he took a single step toward her—

  But he didn’t. Instead he watched her silently from the shadows near the door, not making a move to force himself on her.

  “You need to leave. Now.” She prayed her voice didn’t sound as terrified to his ears as it did to hers. “I will use this if you come any closer.”

  “If I come any closer, I certainly hope you’d try,” he drawled dryly, amused at the idea. “But I have a gun. I don’t need to come closer.”

  Oh God. Fresh fear shuddered through her.

  “But I don’t plan to use it. Nor do I plan on hurting you.”

  A bitter laugh tore from her. “You shoved me against the cottage!” She kept the poker raised, holding it in front of her like a sword. “Then forced me inside, to—to—” The horrible words choked her…To rape me.

  “To be out of the storm,” he finished pointedly, as if reading her thoughts. “You never would have opened the door if I’d knocked.”

  “You unlatched the shutter.” The realization soaked into her as coldly as the rain. “It was you.”

  “Yes.”

  She whispered, too frightened to find her voice, “What do you want?”

  “A place to spend the night. That’s all.”

  “There’s an inn in the village.” She waved the poker in the general direction of the harbor. “You can spend the night there.”

  He tilted his head, as if listening to the storm. The silence that stretched between them only accentuated the howl of the hurricane gale that swept in from the Atlantic like a banshee from hell. Then he shook his head.

  “As soon as the weather breaks, I’ll leave.”

  Her hands gripped harder around the poker, so tightly that her knuckles turned white. “You need to leave now.”

  His deep voice matched the intensity of the rain lashing against the cottage. “I have no intention of going back into that storm.”

  He stepped away from the dark shadows by the door and came slowly forward toward the firelight, as if no more troubled by a woman brandishing an iron poker than he would have been by a gnat. He set his pistol down on the wooden settle yet kept it within easy reach as he peeled off his fisherman’s peacoat, which was sopped with water, and laid it over the back of the settle. Then he sat down and began to remove his boots.

  Her heart lurched into her throat. God help her, he was removing his clothing!

  “What are you doing?” she demanded, slashing the poker back and forth in front of her.

  “Taking off my boots.” He pulled the left one off his foot.

  Her eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Why?”

  In answer, he stoically held up the boot, then tipped it over and poured out the water onto the floor in a puddle.

  Her mouth fell open.

  He tugged off the other one and poured out just as much water, then looked at her solemnly. “Only Jesus should walk on water.”

  She snapped her mouth shut. Oh, his audacity! She jabbed the poker at him, pointing first at the boots, then at his feet. “Put them back on this instant! And leave. Now. You are not welcome here!”

  He reached beside him to rest his hand meaningfully on the pistol. Icy fingers of fear curled around her spine.

  For one long moment, they held each other’s gaze through the thick shadows of the dark cottage, lit only by the weak flames in the fireplace beside her and the flickering candle on the table. Darkness hid his face, but his eyes were bright as he silently studied her. Then he stripped off his neckcloth, tossing it across the back of the settle beside his jacket. Around him, the puddle on the floor grew larger, evidence of how exposed he’d been in the storm and how drenched through to his skin.

  But that didn’t give him the right to force his way into her home at gunpoint. And it certainly didn’t give him license to remove his clothing…which he was still doing, now unbuttoning his waistcoat.

  “Stop that! Put your clothes back on.”

  “I’m cold, and I’m not going to sit here freezing for the rest of the night.” He pushed himself to his feet and nodded toward her. “I advise you to do the same.”

  With her free hand, she clutched at her coat’s lapels, to keep it closed so that the villain couldn’t see her night rail beneath. He said he didn’t want to hurt her, but how could she trust him?

  He shrugged and peeled off his waistcoat, then tossed it onto the settle with the rest of his clothes. His wet shirt clung to his broad shoulders and narrow waist like a second skin.

  He held out his arms, inviting her to look. “No hidden weapons.”

  But Grace knew well that a man didn’t need weapons to harm a woman. She wore the proof of that in the scar on her cheek. Brute strength and anger could be enough to destroy. Although this stranger wasn’t in a rage, the muscles on his broad frame seemed more than powerful enough to harm.

  Not threatened at all by the iron poker she still held ready to strike, he walked slowly toward her—rather, toward the warmth of the fire beside her. As he approached, the dim light of the fire chased away the shadows and finally revealed his face. A light growth of beard covered his cheeks, cuts bled at his brow.

  A distant memory triggered in the far back of her mind, but it swirled away before she could latch onto it. That face. So familiar…

  Or perhaps she was simply so frightened that she’d gone daft. To think she’d know a stranger who’d forced his way into her home, who even now could lunge for the gun still resting on the settle before she could strike with the poker—madness! His large presence in her small cottage was enough to make her tremble, if she wasn’t already freezing from the icy rain.

  He unfastened the half dozen buttons at his neck. “You can put that poker down now.”

  “I’ll keep it right where it is, thank you very much,” she shot back, gripping it more tightly. Why was he so familiar?

  In coarse and ill-fitting clothing, he was dressed like one of the sailors who filled the boats that sailed from the harbor to ports all along the western coast of England. But in the ten years she’d lived in Sea Haven, she’d never seen a sailor like him. He wasn’t one of the men who worked on the docks, either. Oh, he had the muscles for that, certainly, but his bearing was too commanding, too proud. He wasn’t one who took orders. She could read that in every inch of him.

  No, this man was used to giving them and having them followed without question. Even now, from the way his mouth pulled down, he was irritated that she continued to defy him, with the poker still raised to strike.

  “I’d prefer that you put that down.” He nodded toward the poker and said wryly with a quirk of his brow, “Wouldn’t want it to go off accidentally and hurt someone.”

  “Yes, that would be a great shame,” she muttered, not lowering it even though her arm had begun to ache, “if someone got hurt because he didn’t leave when he was asked.”

  “You didn’t ask.”

  A tendril of irrational hope rose amid her fear. “Would you please leave?”

  “No.”

  She bit back a cry of frustration. Oh, the infuriating devil! Her fear was quickly being replaced by anger, and by that nagging feeling that wouldn’t go away that she knew him.

&n
bsp; Untucking his shirt, he stripped the wet material up his body, over his head and off, baring himself from the waist up. Her gaze darted to the bare chest he’d so scandalously revealed—

  She swallowed. Hard.

  No, definitely not anyone she knew.

  Instead of tossing the shirt over the settle with the rest of his clothes, he carefully draped it over the iron arm where she hung her kettle and swung it closer to the fire to dry. The firelight played over his smooth muscles and the faint tracing of hair on his chest that narrowed across his ridged abdomen before disappearing beneath the waistband that hung low around his slender hips. He wore only his trousers now. She couldn’t help but bite her bottom lip as she wondered if he planned on removing even those.

  Then she would have to hit him with the poker.

  He turned around to heat his backside. With that too familiar face once more plunged into the shadows and the firelight behind him outlining his broad shoulders, he resembled a devil escaped from hell.

  He nodded at her. “You need to take off that coat now and warm yourself up.”

  Dangling the poker at her side in one hand, she grabbed at the front of the coat with the other to keep herself covered. “No.”

  He shrugged. “Then freeze. Makes no difference to me.”

  Her lips fell open at his callous comment. Why that arrogant—

  She bit back a laugh. It did make a difference to him, or he wouldn’t be asking her, repeatedly, to remove it. The same strategy she used against Ethan—tell him to do what she didn’t want, in hopes that he’d do the opposite. Well, years of mothering had taught her that the strategy failed more often than it worked, and she wasn’t some nine-year-old boy refusing to do his chores. If he thought—

  She sneezed.