by Robyn DeHart
Fielding nodded and continued trying to work the pin out, but it remained lodged firmly in place. If he’d had a sword he could have snapped the chain in half, but seeing as he wasn’t in the habit of carrying swords around with him, that wasn’t an option. There was something he could do, although it would most certainly wake Waters and Thatcher. He didn’t even know this woman, and already she was more trouble that he’d wager she was worth.
But damn it all, he couldn’t leave her.
With brusque motions, he began to run his hands along the skin of her arms, massaging the tender flesh there.
She gasped. “What are you doing?” she asked in a whispered hiss.
“Kneading your muscles.”
“Well, I insist you stop at once. It’s most improper! Furthermore, I can do it myself once you release me.”
“Once I release you,” he explained with forced patience, “we are going to have to move quickly. A cramped muscle could mean the difference between life and death.” He paused to meet her gaze. “Understand?”
Her eyes were wide in the darkness, her breath coming in nervous pants, but she nodded.
He returned to the task at hand, working on her arms first and then turning his attention to her legs, which were longer than he expected for a woman of her diminutive height, and surprisingly sturdy. Supporting her feet, he bent first one knee and then the other, massaging the muscles of her calves and thighs as he did so. Her sinewy flesh convulsed beneath his touch.
He worked quickly, since there was no time to waste. But even so, he couldn’t help noticing her generous curves and the enticing flesh beneath his hands. His body leaped in response, though he tried to stifle his reaction. Much more of this, and she wouldn’t be the only one moving slowly.
“I believe, sir, that my muscles are quite relaxed now.” Her tone was both husky and tense, whether from the situation or his ministrations, he couldn’t tell.
Fielding reached into his boot and withdrew a dagger. He handed it to the woman. “If they come after you, do not hesitate to use this, do you understand?”
She looked down at the knife in her free hand and nodded, but he was uncertain as to whether or not she could actually follow through with such a task. There was no room for error at the moment, else he and the woman would both find themselves prisoners of The Raven.
“Do not bother slashing at their arms. Go straight for their bellies, where you’ll do the most damage,” he instructed.
She shuddered but nodded.
He stepped away from her and aimed his pistol at the top of the chain.
“Are you mad?” she hissed.
He ignored her and took the shot. It did the trick and the chain broke free, but the ricochet rang throughout the room and Thatcher was on his feet in a matter of seconds. Fielding had already grabbed the girl, though, and they were making their way up the stairs.
“Where do you think you’re going, Grey?” Thatcher snarled. The man searched for his gun, but Fielding had already removed it. Just as he’d also disabled their carriage outside and sent their horses running.
“Thatcher, it’s not your style to abduct unsuspecting women.” He slid another bullet into his pistol and leveled it at the men.
Thatcher took a step toward them but stumbled in the darkness. “Grey, you and I both know you’re no different than us, despite that title of yours.”
Waters felt around the camp, crawling on his knees, searching under their bedding, no doubt also looking for a weapon.
“Ah,” Fielding said, “but there is no difference. I have the box and the girl.”
Thatcher snarled. “Give us the box.” He took another step forward. “We’ll split our share of the money with you.”
“Don’t make another move, or I will shoot you,” Fielding said as they backed their way up the stairs. “We’ll be leaving now.” And with that, they turned and ran.
Fielding dragged the woman behind him, knowing that her slippered feet were taking a beating against the cracked stone, but that wasn’t his concern. Carrying her would only slow them down, and he could already hear the men scrambling after them.
He and the woman reached the outside, and the chilled night air slapped at them. With one arm, he jumped onto his horse, then pulled the woman up in front of him. Facing him, actually, which proved a bit awkward, but there was no time to rectify it. He kicked his horse into action, and they rode off just as Thatcher and Waters appeared outside the ruins.
“Thank you for rescuing me,” she said breathlessly.
It was hard not to look at her face when she spoke to him, as she was sitting directly in front of him. And the moon hanging above illuminated her perfectly. She was close enough for him to see the freckles that splattered across her nose, and her large, thickly lashed, river-green eyes. Her hair smelled of lilac, despite the mud covering her.
He merely nodded and returned his attention to the landscape before them.
“Won’t they come after us?” she asked.
“Probably.” Her legs brushed against his, and he looked down—milky white thighs straddled his own. He couldn’t help remembering how those thighs had felt beneath his hands. Firm yet pliant. His senses stirred as his body once again responded to hers. Damn it all.
He could only imagine her indignation if she happened to notice his growing erection. He’d heard more than enough of her prattling earlier to know she was a well-bred lady. A prim one at that, despite the fact that her body was obviously made for sin.
They couldn’t very well ride back to London this way. It was more than twelve hours away, and if she noticed his reaction, chatterer that she was, she’d no doubt preach to him the whole way about sins of the flesh or some such nonsense. The ride would be interminable even if his body didn’t have a mind of its own.
They needed to either take the train or find a coach. He eyed her mud-splattered nightgown. Clearly they couldn’t take the train and avoid being seen, even with a private car. He didn’t even know who this woman was. The last thing he needed was some angry papa coming after him demanding Fielding marry the girl. That left finding a carriage. He’d seen a sign for a carriage house on his way to the ruins.
As he turned his horse down the appropriate road, he detected the sound of pounding hooves behind them. He did his best to isolate the noise, to be certain of what he heard. Definitely horses coming their way.
“Hold on tight,” he told the woman.
“Why?”
“Because we’re being followed.”
THE DISH
Where authors give you the inside scoop!
From the desk of Hope Ramsay
Dear Reader,
Picture, if you will, a little girl in a polka-dot bathing suit, standing on a rough board jutting out over the waters of the Edisto River in South Carolina. She’s about six years old, and standing below her in the chest-high, tea-colored water is a tall man with a deep, deep southern drawl—the kind that comes right up out of the ground.
“Jump, little gal,” the man says. “I’ll catch you.”
The little girl was me. And the man was my Uncle Ernest. And that memory is one of those touchstone moments that I go back to again and again. My uncle wanted me to face my fear of jumping into the water, but he was there, big hands outstretched, steady, sturdy, and sober as a judge. He was the model of a man I could trust.
I screwed up my courage and took that leap of faith. I jumped. He caught me. He taught me to love jumping into the river and swimming in those dark, mysterious waters, overhung with Spanish moss and sometimes visited by snakes and gators!
I loved Uncle Ernest. He was my favorite uncle. He’s been gone for quite a while now, but I think of him often, and he lives on in my heart.
There is even a little bit of him in Clay Rhodes, the hero of my debut novel, WELCOME TO LAST CHANCE. Jane, the heroine of the story, has to learn that Clay is the type of guy she can always trust. A guy she can take a leap of faith with. A guy who will always be there to catch her, even
when she has to face her biggest fears.
And isn’t love all about taking a leap of faith?
I had such fun writing WELCOME TO LAST CHANCE, because it afforded me the opportunity to go back in time and remember what it was like spending my summers in a little town in South Carolina with folks who were like Uncle Ernest—people who made up a village where a child could grow up safe and sound and learn what makes a life meaningful.
I hope you enjoy meeting the characters in Last Chance, South Carolina, as much as I enjoyed writing them.
Y’all take care now,
www.hoperamsay.com
From the desk of Cynthia Eden
Dear Reader,
Have you ever wondered how far you would go to protect someone you loved? What would you do if the person you loved was in danger?
Love can make people do wild, desperate things… and love can certainly push people to cross the thin line between good and evil.
When I wrote DEADLY LIES, I created characters who would be forced to blur the lines between good and evil. Desperate times can call for desperate measures.
The heroine of this book is a familiar face if you’ve read the other DEADLY books. Samantha “Sam” Kennedy was first introduced in DEADLY FEAR. Sam lived through hell, and she’s now fighting to put her life back on track. She knows what evil looks like, and she knows that evil can hide behind the most innocent of faces. So when Sam is assigned to work on a serial kidnapping case, she understands that she has to be on her guard at all times.
But when the kidnapper hits too close to home and her lover’s stepbrother is abducted, the rules of the game change. Soon Sam fully understands just how “desperate” the victims are feeling, and she vows to do anything in her power to help Max Ridgeway find his brother.
Anything. Yes, desperation can even push an FBI agent to the edge of the law. Lucky for Sam, she’ll have backup ready to help her out—all of the other SSD agents are back to help track the kidnappers, and they won’t stop until the case is closed.
I’ve had such a wonderful time revisiting my SSD agents in this book. And I hope you enjoying catching up with the characters too!
If you’d like to learn more about my books, please visit my website at www.cynthiaeden.com.
Happy reading!
From the desk of Robyn DeHart
Dear Reader,
There have always been certain things that fascinate me—the heinous crimes of Jack the Ripper; why cats get up, turn around, then settle back into the exact position they were just in; people who can eat only one Oreo cookie; and the ancient legend of the Loch Ness monster. Recorded sightings of the creature date all the way back to the seventh century, and not all of these sightings have been water-based—there are those who claim to have seen the monster walking on land.
Regardless of what you believe, it’s interesting to think that there just might be some prehistoric animal hiding in a loch in the Highlands. It was this interest that compelled me to write TREASURE ME.
Another interesting tidbit about this book is that it was actually the first romance novel I ever wrote. Okay, that’s not entirely true, but the concept of a couple who fall in love near Loch Ness, centered around adventure and action and danger, well, that was all in that first book—even the characters’ names stayed the same. But I didn’t keep anything else. When it came to the third book in my Legend Hunters trilogy, I took my basic concept and started from scratch.
If you’ve read SEDUCE ME and DESIRE ME (the first two books in the series), then you might remember meeting Graeme, the big, brooding Scotsman who looks and sounds remarkably like Gerard Butler. Graeme has been after the authentic Stone of Destiny for years, because he believes the one sitting in Westminster is a counterfeit. He’s gone back to his family’s home in the Highlands to do some research, and meets with trouble in the form of a delectable, self-proclaimed paleontologist named Vanessa. She’s just run away from her own wedding and is determined to make a name for herself as a legitimate scientist.
Add in a marriage of convenience, a deadly nemesis, and some buried treasure and you’ve got yourself a rollicking adventure full of intrigue and seduction that will leave you as breathless as the characters.
Dare to love a Legend Hunter…
Visit my website, www.RobynDeHart.com, for contests, excerpts, and more.
Enjoy!
From the desk of Kira Morgan
Dear Reader,
It’s easy to write about a match made in heaven. Cinderella meets Prince Charming, they fall in love at first sight, and they live happily ever after.
But for my latest book, SEDUCED BY DESTINY, I wanted to take on the challenge of star-crossed lovers, characters like Romeo and Juliet—a man and a woman cursed by fate and thrown together by chance, who have to overcome their tragic history to find true love.
In SEDUCED BY DESTINY, set in the time of Mary Queen of Scots, Josselin Ancrum and Andrew Armstrong each have a dark secret in their past and deadly peril looming in their future. They have little in common. They should avoid each other like the plague.
She’s Scots. He’s English.
She likes to stir up trouble. He likes to fly under the radar.
She’s a tavern wench who loves to play with swords. He’s an expert swordsman who’d rather play golf.
Her mother was killed in battle.
His father was the one who killed her.
Talk about Fortune’s foe…
All this would be fine if only they hadn’t started falling in love. If they hadn’t felt that initial spark of attraction… if they hadn’t begun to enjoy one another’s company… if they hadn’t succumbed to that first kiss… their story might be a simple tale of revenge.
But Drew and Jossy, unaware of the fateful ties between them, are drawn to one another like iron to a magnet. And by the time they discover they’ve fallen in love with their mortal enemy, it’s too late. Their hearts are already tangled in a hopeless knot.
This is where it gets even more interesting.
To make matters worse, outside forces are working to drive them apart. What began as a personal mission of vengeance now involves their friends, their families, and ultimately their queens. Suspected of treason, hunted by spies, they become targets for royal assassins.
The uneasy truce between Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary is mirrored in the fragile relationship between Drew and Jossy. The lovers are swept into a raging battle bigger than the both of them—a battle that shakes the foundation of their union and threatens their very lives.
Only the strength of their fateful bond and the power of their love can save them now.
Of course, unlike Romeo and Juliet, Drew and Jossy will triumph. Nobody wants to read a historical romance with an unhappy ending! But just how they manage to overcome all odds, when their stars are crossed and the cards are stacked against them, is the stuff of nail-biting high adventure and a story that I hope will keep you up all night.
To read an excerpt from SEDUCED BY DESTINY, peruse my research photos, and enter my monthly sweepstakes, visit my website at www.glynnis.net/kiramorgan. If you’d like to read my daily posts and interact with other fans, become my friend at www.facebook.com/KiraMorganAuthor or follow me at www.twitter.com/kira_morgan.
Happy adventures!
Table of Contents
FRONT COVER IMAGE
WELCOME
DEDICATION
A PREVIEW OF SEDUCE ME
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTE
R SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
THE DISH
ALSO BY ROBYN DEHART
PRAISE FOR DESIRE ME
COPYRIGHT
Also by Robyn DeHart
Seduce Me
Desire Me
PRAISE FOR DESIRE ME
“A wildly inventive and original plot, a captivating cast of secondary characters, and an unforgettable hero and heroine (whose sexual chemistry is strong enough to generate actual sparks) add up to a scintillating addition to DeHart’s Victorian-set Legend Hunters series.”
—Booklist
“Sexy, daring treasure hunters… wild escapades… This is one great ride of a read.”
—RT Book Reviews
“5 Stars! Robyn DeHart has written a treasure trove of trouble that will have you reading at top speed!”
—HuntressReviews.com
“Adventure, romance, and wonderful writing… a thrilling read… Robyn DeHart writes delicious heroes, sharp-witted heroines, and adventurous plots that rival any Indiana Jones movie… will undoubtedly entertain you and leave you wanting to read the next adventure as soon as possible.”
—FictionVixen.com
“Great read from start to finish!”
—TheMysticCastle.com
“4 Stars! A delightful story!… kept me turning the pages wondering what would happen next.”
—TheRomanceDish.com
“A great addition to any tote bag for a day at the beach or curled up on a hammock for a light and breezy read.”
—NightOwlReviews.com
PRAISE FOR SEDUCE ME
“Robyn DeHart’s vibrant characters sweep the reader into a clever and sensual romp that is not to be missed.”
