by Coleen Kwan
Heaps of work awaited her in the scullery. A mountain of pots to wash, a bushel of onions to peel and chop. Plenty of distraction from her troublesome thoughts. She took a heavy knife and sliced off the tip of an onion. Predictably, her eyes filled with tears. Well, of course, she scolded herself. What else could one expect, from such a strong onion?
There would be a banquet. A chandelier of Bohemian crystal had been installed in the mirrored dining room; tomorrow evening thirty guests would feast under its light in celebration of the Vicomte’s visit.
He’d arrived only this morning, together with his mother the Duchesse. No one among the chateau’s army of servants knew what had brought about the sudden family reunion.
“The Duc’s illness could have taken a turn for the worse,” Jacques, the Duc’s valet, had speculated that morning at breakfast. “The doctors looked graver than usual, last time they visited.”
“Perhaps they’re selling off some property,” someone else suggested. “That will usually bring a family out of hiding, to clamor for their share. Or perhaps it’s time to find a wife for the Vicomte Monsieur Joseph.”
It would have to be a matter of some import, everyone agreed, to pry the Duchesse away from the convent that had been her home for the last few years.
“Of course, the Duc was always a wretched husband, even when he had his wits about him.” Nicolas, the chateau’s general manager, prided himself on his knowledge of the family’s history. “Joked in public that the Duchesse was a prune in bed. Had a list of mistresses as long as your arm, and you couldn’t keep him away from the maids and village girls.” Which was why, now that the old man was too enfeebled to have a say in things, his daughter-in-law tried not to hire pretty servants.
But even Nicolas hadn’t known Monsieur Joseph’s whereabouts these past few years. There were rumors of duels, prison, exile, even a sojourn in America.
“America?” Marie-Laure was an enthusiastic supporter of the recent revolution in the English colonies. How wonderful, she thought, if Monsieur Joseph had joined the Marquis de Lafayette in the fight for American independence. How worthy. And how utterly improbable that a member of this nasty, spoiled family would do any such thing.
The group in the kitchen would have been pleased to gossip the morning away but Nicolas hustled them off to work. And so all Marie-Laure had learned of the Duc’s younger son was that he’d been his father’s favorite and hadn’t visited in more than a decade.
But I know something that Nicolas doesn’t, she thought, putting aside the last onion and moving over to skim the foam from the veal stock. I know what he was doing last winter. He was smuggling forbidden books into France. And cheating booksellers. Well, at least he cheated me and Papa.
Of course, last winter she hadn’t known who he really was. But she’d suspected he wasn’t what he seemed. She’d liked that about him.
The sights and smells of the busy kitchen dissolved into the steam rising from the stockpot. She was in a shabby, beloved room—with books, books everywhere.
Home.
Love is madness.
An Indiscreet Debutante
© 2013 Lorelie Brown
When Miss Charlotte Vale isn’t running a school for impoverished factory women, she takes tea with an insane painter—the mother she adores. Determined to avoid her mother’s legacy of madness, Lottie refuses to marry and nurtures the ton’s bemused disregard for her reputation.
Through her door strides a man who threatens all she holds dear. Her cherished school, her careful control and her guarded heart.
Sir Ian Heald has tracked his sister’s blackmailer to her last-known location—Lottie’s school. Although he would burn the place to the ground if it would save his sister’s reputation, Ian is drawn to Lottie’s bold candor and indifference toward polite society.
To find his sister’s blackmailer, Ian follows Lottie into a twisted world of illegal gambling clubs and eccentric parties. Even when their mutual passion ignites, Ian knows their affair cannot last. Lottie was never meant to be tucked away on his quiet pastoral estate, and she staunchly refuses his desire to wed. Yet fiery kisses and scandalous showdowns tempt this proper country gentleman to win the woman he loves and never let her go.
Warning: This book contains gambling in low-class clubs, deliciously deadpan dialogue, an unplanned swim to rescue doused women, and a fast, furious spanking. She wants it though, so that hardly counts.
Enjoy the following excerpt for An Indiscreet Debutante:
He couldn’t have been more shocked to see her. His lips parted on silence. Someone had found him a banyan. The dark blue silk wrapped around his torso, and he wore dark trousers beneath, but under that his feet were bare. He had pale and slender feet and toes with a tiny sprinkle of dark hairs across the top.
Her fingers curled into her palms.
They’d brought the tea, and he sat at a table next to the window. A tree’s leafy green canopy obstructed most of the view through the window, but she knew that was no hardship. Next door was a brick townhouse.
She needed assistance keeping her brain inside her skull because she was losing it. The throbbing, heavy weight in her blood was expanding through her whole body, the way she’d always feared.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said after a long moment.
Likely he’d tired of waiting on her to be less insane. “It’s my house. I’m allowed to be anywhere I like.”
“I doubt that.” He leaned one elbow on the arm of the chair. The embroidered lapels of the robe parted enough to display three inches of his chest. There was a division between two thick muscles. He was a man who hadn’t ignored his body.
He made her want to not ignore her own body.
Losing her virginity had been an idle thought, one born of convictions and supposition. Not need. Not any amount of want. She ranged closer to the table, closer to him. Her fingers trailed over the cold metal edge of the tea tray.
“I’m all but mistress of this domain.” She nudged a plate of iced biscuits to the side in order to get at a tiny dish of cubed sugar. The piece she picked up was rough between her thumb and finger. She rubbed it over her bottom lip, then licked away the grains left behind. Sweetness burst over her tongue.
He never moved. His hands didn’t shift, nor did his feet, nor any other variety of limbs. The tilted-down angle of his chin stayed still, and he watched her from under thick, dark lashes.
Despite not moving, he was…alive. Aware of her and of the heat that flowed back and forth between them. Far, far away in the recesses of the house a timepiece chimed. Between them was the thick molasses of promise and potential. His eyes all but burned her skin, turning the stretch between her shoulder blades into a tickling, sensitive place that begged for his touch.
Except instead of following through with those silent promises, he shook his head, so very slowly. “You don’t want to head down this route.”
She edged closer. Near enough that her skirts folded over and around his calves. His knees. She managed to smile, but no one would ever know what it cost her. The way her lips felt nearly numb. She wanted to run her tongue over them, just to feel.
Maybe she could feel his mouth instead.
She still held the sugar cube. When she lifted it to his lips, it almost seemed that the room would implode from what built and wove between them. He speared her with that wicked gaze, and despite the reluctance she could feel rolling off him, the tiniest quirk of his lips said she hadn’t gone too far astray.
His lips parted for the cube. His tongue darted out enough to wet the tip of her index finger. A full-body shiver rolled over her skin and dove into her veins, turning her into both more and less.
“Maybe I don’t want to wander down the route. Maybe I want to run.”
Ian knew better.
Sugar melted on his tongue. Granules rubbed across the top of his mouth with sweet abrasion. Comparatively, her finger had little flavor, with the slightest hint of warmth and life.
She made him feel like he were Genghis Khan. A conqueror who didn’t need to be bent on taking because the slave girl was already offering him everything she had. Everything she was.
Her lush bottom lip trembled, but her eyes were wickedly hot. Her gaze scalded him, made his brain fuzzy at the edges. She wanted to be taken, or so she implied.
Unlikely.
His fingers locked around the arms of his chair, but he wasn’t sure what he braced against. The rising need, maybe. He didn’t have time for her. Hell, he shouldn’t have agreed to resting in her house long enough for his clothes to dry. The likelihood of him catching sick in a short carriage ride was negligible. But he’d wanted to help her. Those wide eyes, the obvious distress on her face. It all combined into a compelling desire to give her what she wanted.
Not taking what he wanted. “No,” he growled.
She twitched, her elbows tucking in closer to her ribs. “No?”
His hips shifted in his seat, tipping forward toward her. He slid his knees out a fraction and made room for her voluminous skirts. Apparently his own body didn’t believe his words. “It’s a common word. Do I need to explain its meaning? I’m sure you don’t hear it often.”
She smelled so sultry and edged with temptation that his mouth watered. The sugar slid and spun and washed through him. No substitution.
She laughed. “I hear it often enough.” She leaned down closer. Her hands rested on the chair’s arms. Her dress was modest. Tight. All the way up to her collarbones, with more white lace edging toward her slender, graceful neck. He hated the damn thing. “I don’t like the word.”
He couldn’t reach up and trace her pale neck the way he wanted. Otherwise all his control would snap. He shifted the first two fingers of each hand enough to rest them on her knuckles. Supple and hard in one, she was bone covered with silk. Barely concealed, barely hidden.
Though she didn’t realize it, her every emotion rode right beneath the surface. He was shocked she triumphed in society. Sharks should have scented her blood and taken her down.
“You might be improved by a little extra experience with denial.”
She shook her head. When she’d changed her clothes, someone had tried to repin her hair from the tumbled mess created during the park’s drama. They’d succeeded for the most part, but feathery red tendrils curled around her cheeks and temples. “I’m perfect the way I am. You should kiss me and find out.”
He hadn’t ever laughed while kissing a woman before, but both responses rose together. His lips took hers. His hands lifted to cup her jaw and trace over delicate ears.
All the while, laughter wove between them, trading between their lips and teeth and tongues. She kissed exactly how he’d expected. Complete abandon and rapidly growing joy.
He leaned up even as she leaned down. Her hands came to rest on his shoulders, thumbs tucking beneath the open collar. Those two touches of skin were more than enough. Their lips clung, and Ian and Lottie laughed at the same time. There wasn’t enough air between them. He’d lost control of the situation.
His body woke. Wanted. Needed.
He didn’t dare lower his hands from her face, but he tilted them. Let his thumbs coast over that tender flesh under her jaw. He felt it move and work as she so eagerly kissed him, and he loved that sense of delicacy, with that extra hint of tenderness.
She was gilt. A shiny and beautiful layer over harder, more base emotions underneath. He wanted to see underneath that artificial brightness.
That wasn’t his right. He didn’t get to peel her apart the way he needed, because he’d be damned if he stayed long enough to put her back together. He’d return to his regular existence soon enough, in order to reassure Etta their world was safe. Maybe he’d revisit London to find a wife next Season, but he’d find someone more of his own sort. Ordinary.
He didn’t get to keep Lottie, which meant that he didn’t have the right to take everything he wanted.
His laughter faded.
With his hands as gentle as he could manage, he pushed her away, but he couldn’t resist one last nip of her bottom lip. Flesh gave under his teeth.
She didn’t straighten fully. With her cloud of red hair, she hovered over him like a depraved angel. He liked it. He liked her a hell of a lot, for that matter. Especially the way she grinned. “See? Perfect.”
He chuckled again, until he realized that he’d been unable to let go. His fingertips smoothed over her soft skin, from her nape to her shoulders. “I concede the point.”
Darke London
Coleen Kwan
The only way to save her life is to resurrect the dead…
Uncanny Chronicles, Book 1
Julian Darke was only a newborn when he was abandoned on the doorstep of a gentleman doctor. Though raised with love, he is driven to discover his true origins.
Convinced Sir Thaddeus Ormond knows something, Julian shadows him one night—and is shocked to see a young woman thrown from Ormond’s carriage and accosted by a thug. Julian manages to save her life, but not her face and hands from horrific injuries.
Nellie Barchester doesn’t recognize the scarred, disfigured stranger in the mirror. Though the gifted doctor and engineer has done his best to repair the damage, scars ravage her body, and chill her soul with the realization that her own husband may have plotted her death.
Julian’s tenderness is a balm to her soul, and Nellie is drawn to the edge of passion by a man not repelled by her deformities. But as their pursuit of the truth draws them into London’s underbelly, they cross the path of a ruthless enemy who will stop at nothing to fulfill his schemes.
Warning: Can a brilliant but troubled doctor find happiness with a woman scarred both inside and out? A hint of the supernatural plus a night of passion spice up this Uncanny Chronicle.
Copyright Page
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
Darke London
Copyright © 2013 by Coleen Kwan
ISBN: 978-1-61921-557-3
Edited by Anne Scott
Cover by Kanaxa
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: September 2013
www.samhainpublishing.com
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