Pam Rosenthal

by The Bookseller's Daughter

  And—most importantly—to a reading community every bit as avid as Rigaud’s: thanks and thanks again to the romance readers who said such great things online and the ones who took the time to write to me (pam@pamrosenthal.com). I can’t tell you how much I value you.

  Author Note 2013

  Perhaps she’d slept…or perhaps she’d simply been wandering in the new country whose citizen she’d become, the republic of love and pleasure…

  She was different. Everything was different now.

  You never forget your first time. And so, some dozen years ago when I wrote about Marie-Laure’s first time in Joseph’s bed, I was also celebrating my own first reckless, headlong plunge into romance writing.

  I’d been published before—essays, reviews, even a pair of sexy novels. Under the slightly silly pseudonym of Molly Weatherfield, I’d concocted two books of edgy, very explicit feminist erotica, which have found their cult audience and which are still in print. But romance? A genre I hadn’t read since my teens? Those heavy-breathing clinch covers, all heaving bosoms and sculpted pecs? How uncool. How ordinary. A romance, really?

  Really, I insisted. I really wanted to write a flat-out, unashamed love story—of danger and desire; love and sex; tumultuous times, amazing clothes, surprising plot twists, and a happy ending.

  While as for uncool…

  Could it be that actually I’d been a little too cool in those earlier erotic books? Too cool to be quite brave about love. Oh it’s there, lurking at the margins of the page. Almost afraid to say its name, love insinuates itself into the text of my Molly Weatherfield erotica by indirection: irony, lines of song and poetry. Self-discovery for my heroine is a matter of erotic daring in a world of fraught BDSM sexual power politics. When she first gives voice to love as a possibility (on the very last page of the second book), she first has to say it in French.

  Now it was time to be a little braver and say it in English (even, ironically, if Joseph and Marie-Laure would actually have been speaking French).

  “I love you, Marie-Laure,” he said. “My God, all those evenings together and I’ve never told you I love you.”

  “I love you too.” Telling him was almost as thrilling as touching him, hearing it from his lips as wonderful as kissing him.

  In the republic of love and pleasure—which is to say in romance—the thrill of the I-love-you moment is every reader’s right to savor, and every author’s privilege to share. But what hasn’t always come so readily to the genre is the companion thrill of sexy writing, the wonder of the physical side of things, articulated in readable words and sentences. Which—given today’s standards and expectations—may seem like ancient history, but bear with me, you younger readers: once upon a time, until about ten years ago, romance didn’t really write about sex. As forthright as the genre was about the emotions, that’s how coy it was about the act, hiding it behind closed doors, gussying it up in yards of purple prose, or using bodice-ripper violence as a kind of code for power and passion.

  If I’d been writing this book as I’d wanted to a mere five years before, it’s highly unlikely it would have gotten published. Even setting it in France was risky, the romance audience being firmly Anglo- and American-centric. But when it’s your first time (and when you’ve got a wonderful, supportive agent like Helen Breitwieser) you’re brave.

  And sometimes you’re also lucky enough to find yourself more in tune with your times than you would have guessed. Because whatever spirit had moved me to write erotica had also visited the romance world, to give rise to the new subgenre of “erotic romance,” most daringly and brilliantly imagined by the late, much mourned Kate Duffy, editor extraordinaire and midwife to the path-blazing Brava line of books.

  I got a multibook contract; I even won a couple of awards for this one. A reader told me that what she liked about my books was my ability to write hot sex between people who really love each other. To which I can only respond that yeah, that’s what I’m going for—something as simple and as miraculous as that, between two people who are also passionate about books and reading. Which makes this, I guess, the appropriate time to thank my husband Michael. For everything, sweetie.

  And also, on the eve of this second time around for The Bookseller’s Daughter, to thank Samhain Publishing for giving Marie-Laure and Joseph new life in this lovely new edition. Because first times are great, but once is never enough.

  About the Author

  A love story between a bookseller and an erotic writer came naturally to Pam Rosenthal, who (w/a Molly Weatherfield) had already penned two highly praised erotic novels, and was and is married to a longtime San Francisco independent bookseller. Since then, she’s written several more historical romance novels, the most recent of which—The Edge of Impropriety—won Romance Writers of America’s RITA Award for Best Historical Romance. Please visit her at www.pamrosenthal.com, or follow @pamrosenthal on Twitter.

  A notorious rake is about to make the ultimate faux pas—fall in love with his own wife.

  Unforgivable

  © 2013 Joanna Chambers

  Gil Truman has eyes only for the beautiful Tilly—until he is forced to marry plain, sickly Rose Davenport to reclaim the lands his father foolishly gambled away. After a disastrous wedding night tainted with his bitterness, he deposits Rose at his remote, Northumbrian estate, soothing his guilt with the thought that she need never lay eyes on him again.

  Five years after the mortifying wedding night that destroyed all her romantic fantasies, Rose is fed up with hearing second- and third-hand reports of Gil’s philandering ways. She is no longer the shy, homely girl he left behind, but a strong, confident woman who knows how to run an estate. And knows what she wants—her husband, back in their marriage bed.

  Gil doesn’t recognize the bold, flirtatious woman he meets at a ball, with or without her mask. Yet he is bewitched and besotted, and their night together is the most passionate he has ever known.

  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 bla
ck 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.

  A passion they never expected…a mystery that could cost them everything.

  Yorkshire

  © 2008 Lynne Connolly

  Richard and Rose, Book 1

  Rose Golightly is a country girl who thinks her life will continue on its comfortable course, but a series of events changes that for good. On a visit to the ancestral estate of Hareton Abbey, Richard Kerre, Lord Strang, enters her life. A leader of society, a man known for extravagance in dress and life, Richard is her fate. And she is his.

  Richard is to marry a rich, frigid woman in a few weeks, and has deliberately closed his heart to love. Then a coach accident throws his wounded body into Rose’s arms.

  With one kiss, Richard and Rose discover in each other the passion they thought they’d never find.

  But the accident that brought them together was an act of sabotage. Somewhere, in the rotting hulk of a once beautiful stately home, a murderer is hiding.

  Richard and Rose set out to solve the mystery, and find the layers of scandal go deeper than simply determining who is guilty. And that doing the right thing could separate them—forever.

  Warning: This series is addictive. Passion and murder are a potent mix.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Yorkshire:

  We stood in the courtyard, before the main part of Hareton Abbey. Two great grey wings stretched out on either side. Elsewhere, they would serve as a protective barrier against the bitter Yorkshire winds, but here they seemed more like a trap waiting for the prey to spring it. No life stirred behind the windows, dulled with begrimed years of neglect.

  The house was rendered in grey Yorkshire stone, formidable and forbidding. It had not been cleaned except by the weather, nor repaired where pieces of the stone had shattered in the frosts of winter. Pieces still lay on the ground. They must have lain there disregarded for some time. The main part of the building towered in front of us. Its air of abandonment was almost tangible: you could almost hear the house crumbling.

  “Rose…” Lizzie whispered.

  I glanced at her. “Dear God. What have we come to?”

  Her face reflected my own apprehension. “I don’t know. This is Hareton Abbey, isn’t it? We haven’t come somewhere else by mistake?”

  “It has to be,” Martha said. We spoke quietly; afraid of awakening echoes. “Don’t forget, James and I have been here once before, but it didn’t look like this t
he last time we came.”

  “Lord, no.” James murmured. Martha clutched his arm as if she might never let go. “It’s supposed to be one of the show houses of the county; whatever can have happened?”

  The rumble of wheels on the drive behind started us out of our shock. We stepped back to see what was coming, and to get out of its way.

  Into the dilapidated courtyard bowled two travelling carriages, as different from our hired vehicle as possible. They were clearly private vehicles, bang up to date in style, bearing emblazoned crests on their doors. The shiny new black paintwork contrasted strongly with the dull, weathered finish on our carriage. The windows were glassed in, but despite their fashionable comfort, the bodies of the vehicles jolted and swung just as much as ours had. The horses pulling them were matched thoroughbreds. They must have cost a fortune.

  They came to a brisk halt in front of the house. We watched liveried footmen leap down and run to let down the steps. “The Southwood party,” Lizzie whispered, awestruck. The cream of society, the top of the tree. Her ideal, her dream.

  From the first coach alighted a figure that made my mouth drop open in disbelief. A vision of male gorgeousness, a sumptuous feast of a man. Lizzie gasped, but I didn’t turn to look at her. I kept my gaze fixed on the mirage before us.

  He wore scarlet velvet, dressed for the Court. He would be sadly disappointed here. His white powdered wig was set just right, his waistcoat was a dream of embroidered magnificence. He swung around to help a lady descend from the vehicle, and when I again glanced at Lizzie, I saw she had temporarily lost all faculties of speech. No doubt remembering her manners, she closed her mouth.

  This younger lady was attired—dressed would have been too clumsy a word—in a French sacque of blue watered silk, embroidered down the hem and the robings in fine floss. Frills and furbelows seemed to take on a life of their own, romping over her petticoats. Pearls gleamed at her neck. “Dear God,” whispered Lizzie.