Diana heard the door open behind her but didn’t turn. The sudden charge in the air told her exactly who it was.
Strong arms circled her waist and drew her against a hard male body. “They’re kindred spirits, aren’t they?” Tarquin’s voice was a baritone rumble in her ear.
She relaxed back against him, glorying in the warm security of his embrace. When she’d married him, she’d loved him to distraction, but two years together had deepened and strengthened the bond between them until she felt they shared the same heartbeat.
“How I wish I had his magic with her.”
“You have plenty of magic for me.” Tarquin nuzzled her neck and desire sizzled through her. She’d wondered if time would temper her physical response to him. But she wanted him more with each passing day.
She placed her hands over his where they laced at her waist. “I should hope so.”
Not that it had been unalloyed tranquillity and joy since her wedding. Her father hadn’t immediately reconciled himself to her union with a man of Lord Ashcroft’s reputation. At first, his hostility and disappointment had been marked, for all that he’d accepted Tarquin’s offer to live with them. Lately, to her relief, she’d noticed a thawing in John Dean’s attitude, but a distance still extended between the men she loved. Perhaps it always would.
Her father had needed time to forgive her too, although these days, they regained much of their former ease. Hester helped. It was hard to be on one’s dignity in her vivid presence.
The sticklers in society treated the earl and his lowborn wife with disdain. Tongues still wagged about the Ashcrofts’ quick marriage and the untimely arrival of their first child. Wild stories about Tarquin’s dramatic appearance in the church at Marsham had circulated, and a large segment of the ton was convinced Burnley must be Hester’s father.
Diana hardly cared. A little ostracism was small price to pay for happiness. And she couldn’t help but be thankful that none of the gossip, however vicious, verged near what had actually happened between her and Tarquin and Burnley. That would ignite a scandal indeed.
“I just went through the post,” Tarquin murmured against her skin.
“Oh?” He found the spot on her neck that always drove her wild, and she couldn’t summon much interest in letters.
To her regret, he lifted his lips and rested his chin on her shoulder. “The new Marquess of Burnley is setting the ton on its ear. He chews tobacco, he wears moccasins to assemblies, and he refuses to allow people to address him by his title. He’s a backwoods democrat through and through.”
She laughed softly. “Oh, poor Burnley. He’ll be rolling in his grave.”
Or burning in hell. Tarquin didn’t need to say the words.
Burnley had died at Cranston Abbey a few months after Diana deserted him at the altar. He hadn’t lived to learn that his longed-for male heir was in fact a girl.
In her white-hot outrage after discovering how Burnley had ordered Tarquin beaten, she’d wanted him to atone painfully and publicly for what he’d done. But her husband, whose judgment she’d come increasingly to admire, had reminded her that people other than Burnley would suffer if details of their tangled past emerged.
She’d had to find satisfaction in the knowledge that Tarquin’s enemy spent his last days stewing on the collapse of all his wicked plots. For a man as addicted to power as Burnley, his impotence in every sense would sting worse than acid.
Tarquin’s arms tightened around her, drawing her closer into his big, powerful body. “I’m considering asking for the American’s support in Parliament.”
“He’s your cousin, I suppose.”
“He’ll never know.”
She and Tarquin had discussed ways to straighten the snarled threads of family history. In the end, it seemed best to leave well enough alone. He was Earl of Ashcroft for good or ill. Too late to go back on that, even if he could. But in an attempt at recompense, he’d gifted the eldest sons of the various branches of the Vale family with estates. Most of which the spendthrift fribbles were quickly driving into bankruptcy.
The best of it was that in the process, Tarquin finally made peace with his past. He’d even called Hester after his mother. Yet again, Diana marveled at his generous heart.
“Are you busy?”
A slow smile curved her lips. She knew where this was leading. “Not right now.”
“I think Laura and your father will be occupied for a while. Don’t you?”
Her smile broadened as she looked out on the sunlit landscape. “It’s likely. But I don’t want to take you away from anything important.”
She still loved to tease him. That hadn’t changed.
His hands tautened on her arms, and she felt the impatient nudge of his erection against her buttocks. “Believe me, this is important.”
“A large matter indeed.”
“Definitely.”
As he turned her to face him, she didn’t resist. She responded to his kiss with joyous abandon. When he lifted his head, she was breathless.
“You still drive me mad,” he groaned.
“I’m glad.” She traced the thin white scar down his cheek, the only relic from his savage beating. She rather liked it. It made him look dangerous, a pirate. Her pirate. He no longer walked with a limp, and his body had regained all its former strength and vigor. “But you should be gentle with me today.”
He frowned in quick concern. “Aren’t you feeling well, Diana?”
Her laughter bubbled with joy. “I’m feeling marvelous. Although that may not last. With Hester, I cast up my accounts with revolting regularity the first few months.”
Pleasure illuminated his intense features, and he kissed her quickly. “I’d hoped. When?”
“If I’m correct, next spring.”
His stare was purest jade. “Diana, you make me so happy.”
The sweet sincerity of his words brought tears to her eyes. “I was horribly weepy in the first weeks too.”
The devil’s smile appeared on his face, more devilish these days because of his rakish scar. “You just need distracting.”
Excitement made her heart race. “Here?”
He arched his eyebrows in the familiar expression. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
She twined her arms around his neck and yielded to bone-melting anticipation. “You’re insatiable.”
His smile was all libertine. His smile was all for her.
“For you, my darling, always.”
Have you missed any of these unforgettable romances by Anna Campbell?
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Captive of Sin
Returning home to Cornwall after unspeakable tragedy, Sir Gideon Trevithick stumbles upon a defiant beauty in danger and vows to protect her—whatever the cost. Little does he know the waif is Lady Charis Weston, England’s wealthiest heiress, and that to save her he must marry her himself! But can Charis accept a marriage of convenience, especially to a man who ignites her heart with a single touch?
There is one alternative.” Gideon’s tone was neutral, artificially so, Charis thought. His eyes didn’t waver from her face. “We could get married.”
For one radiant moment, joy flared inside her.
Married…
She rose and took an unsteady step toward him. “Gideon…” she began as wild happiness exploded in her breast.
His troubled expression halted her in her tracks and reminded her of his pain when she’d told him she loved him. She sucked in a tremulous breath and looked at him properly.
Her glittering palace of hope disintegrated. The hands that had risen toward him fell back to her sides and formed fists of anguish.
“What’s this about?” she asked in a flinty voice.
He shifted away from the windows, back toward the fire. He stopped before her, still too far away to touch. Of course.
“It’s the obvious solution, Charis.” An unexpected moment to realize he�
�d started to use her real name naturally. He spread his gloved hands as if appealing to her to see things his way. “If we’re wed, I have a husband’s legal rights.”
Since she’d met him, becoming his wife had been a hopeless dream. Now he proposed, and she wanted to run away and cry her eyes out. Because he married her to save her, not because he wanted her as his life companion, the woman in his bed, the mother of his children.
“You said you’d never marry. Never have a family.” Her lips felt as if they were made of wood. “That’s changed?”
“No.” He held himself rigid as a soldier on parade. His voice was implacable. “It will be a marriage in name only.”
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Tempt the Devil
Olivia Raines has ruled London’s demimonde with an iron will and a fiery spirit. Sought after by London’s most eligible men, she has never had cause to question her power until she meets the notorious Julian Southwood, Earl of Erith. From the moment he saw her, Julian knew he must possess her. So when he discovers a secret that could destroy her livelihood, Olivia has no choice but to bargain with the devil.
Even as Olivia spoke the words to place her in Lord Erith’s bed, her instincts screamed to deny him. Her mind told her she risked no more than she’d risked with any other keeper. Her deepest self insisted the earl threatened everything she’d created since she’d accepted harlotry as her inevitable fate.
Unreasoning fear tightened every muscle.
Fear was her oldest, most insidious enemy. More powerful than any man.
I will not surrender to fear.
And why should she be frightened? Since reaching womanhood, she’d never met a male she couldn’t dominate. Lord Erith was nothing special. She’d have great pleasure proving that. To the world. To him. To herself. Her reluctance now was just part of the odd humor that had gripped her since she’d ended her last affair, months ago.
A sharp ache in her wrists made her realize how hard she clutched her hands together. Deliberately, she relaxed her grip, although she already knew he’d noted the betraying gesture.
Something—satisfaction, triumph, possession?—gleamed from under his heavy eyelids.
“Good.” He stood and stared down at her. She’d never been so conscious of his impressive height or the latent power in his body. “I’ll see you tonight, Olivia.”
It was the first time he’d used her Christian name. Given what they’d soon do to each other, the small intimacy shouldn’t matter. Somehow it did. That deep voice saying Olivia shredded her protective formality and laid her bare as if she already stood naked before him.
I will not surrender to fear.
She tilted her chin and glared. “I don’t entertain my lovers in this house,” she said icily.
“I didn’t imagine you would.” His narrow, sensual mouth curled into a sardonic smile. “I want every man in London to know you’re mine. I want to see you. It builds the…anticipation.”
How could he make such a harmless word sound more decadent than all the profanities she’d heard in a lifetime of whoring? The temperature of her voice sank another couple of degrees. “I belong to no man, Lord Erith.”
“You’ll belong to me,” he said steadily.
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Untouched
When Grace Paget is kidnapped and spirited away to a remote manor and told she is to grant the inhabitant his every desire, she risks everything to save her virtue…Lord Sheene knew nothing of the plan to bring him this woman, and wants nothing to do with the scheme. But as the unlikely pair find themselves ensnared in a deadly web, they also discover freedom and breathtaking passion in each other’s arms.
Lord Sheene kept his back to Grace as he looked out into the twilight. Yet again, his isolation struck her. His physical isolation. And also his spiritual isolation. Perhaps that alone constituted his madness. So far, she’d seen little other sign of his affliction.
He spoke without turning. “Stay away from Monks and Filey. They don’t make idle threats.”
Again, that instinctive animal awareness of what happened around him. Were all madmen so attuned to their surroundings?
She wouldn’t have thought so.
A sudden memory pierced her of his intense concentration on the spindly rosebush that morning. His hands had been so deft, their very sureness breathtakingly beautiful. Her wayward heart dipped into an unsteady dance at the thought of those hands on her skin.
Grace, stop it! You’re in enough trouble as it is.
Heavens, she must regain self-control and quickly. The last thing she needed was an infatuation with her fellow captive. She hadn’t thought about a man touching her for pleasure in years. Certainly not since her marriage and the collapse of her girlish fantasies.
She stepped up to stand beside him. The window faced the darkening woods. The day had been clear. Now the first stars shone in the cloudless sky. It could have been a landscape by Claude. If one didn’t know an unscalable wall circled the trees or two homicidal devils guarded the gate to this perilous Eden.
The silence allowed her to say something she was guiltily aware she should have said earlier. “Thank you, my lord. If you hadn’t come…”
“Don’t think about it.” He focused those uncanny eyes on her. Except that after a day and a half, she noticed their strangeness less and their beauty more.
“I can’t help it.” She’d been frightened and wretched for so long, even before her abduction. But nothing matched the horror that had gripped her when Monks stared into her face and promised rape and death. Compared to that, the mad marquess was a bastion of security. The clinging ghost of today’s panic made her speak more freely than usual. “You were magnificent.”
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Claiming the Courtesan
The Duke of Kylemore knows her as Soraya, London’s most celebrated courtesan. Men fight duels to spend an hour in her company, and only he comes close to taming her…Dire circumstances have forced Verity Ashton to barter her innocence and change her name for the sake of her family. All she wants is her freedom, but with a notorious rogue determined to possess her in every way possible, can Verity ever escape the man who claims her both body and soul?
I thank Your Grace for your continuing kindness.” Soraya stepped toward Kylemore and kissed him on the mouth.
They rarely kissed, and a kiss as a gesture of affection was an unprecedented event.
But that was what this felt like to Kylemore. She wasn’t trying to seduce him. After a year, he would recognize seduction. And he’d already given her the extravagant pendant. Even greedy as she was, she couldn’t hope to coax another maharajah’s bauble from his pocket.
No, he could only assume she kissed him because she wanted to.
That revolutionary idea had just taken hold when she drew away. The soft pink lips that had clung so sweetly to his, and sweetly was the only word he could bring to mind, curled into a faint smile. “Good day to you, Your Grace.”
He snatched at her hand and, still lost in the memory of her kiss—which was absurd given the debaucheries they had indulged in all afternoon—raised her slender fingers to his lips with the reverence due a princess.
When he lifted his head, he caught a bewilderment that matched his own in her silver eyes. “Good day to you too, madam.”
He released her and strode from the room, down the stairs, and out of the villa he’d bought her a year ago. But no matter how far he went, he couldn’t quite banish the memory of her mouth on his in a kiss that was almost…innocent.
His infamous, dangerous, enigmatic Soraya. And he was no closer to understanding her now than he’d been six years ago.
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k at the latest installment in Blake’s Destiny series…
Sugar Creek
When Rachel Farris ran from Destiny, Ohio, fifteen years ago, she had no intention of returning. But with her grandmother in danger of losing her apple orchard to a family enemy, Rachel decides to head back long enough to save the day…and then leave just as quickly. Gruff, by-the-book police officer, Mike Romo, wanted the land stolen from his family decades ago, but he wasn’t prepared to contend with shapely trouble in tight designer jeans. And neither sexy cop nor prodigal hometown girl anticipated the snapping electricity that threatens their most carefully laid plans.
The first thing Rachel noticed was the way he scowled at her from behind typical mirrored cop sunglasses.
And the second was…oh dear. Oh my. Her throat went dry.
He was no Deputy Dawg—and a far cry from Barney Fife. In fact, he was…a cop god. With thick, dark hair and olive skin, a day’s growth of stubble covering his strong jaw, and shoulders that filled out his beige uniform quite nicely, he was…shockingly hot. Even behind mirrored sunglasses. And in Destiny, of all places! How was that possible?
But then she recalled her friend Amy—who still lived here—mentioning some sexy-as-sin Romo being a town policeman. Her heart beat faster than before, and she suddenly had to work to control her breathing.
Even while he snarled at her.
But wait—stop. Get hold of yourself.
Sure, he’s hot—but he’s a Romo. And a mean, growly one at that.
He proved her point by glancing back down to grouse, “Out-of-state license.”
“That would be because I live out of state,” she heard herself reply dryly. She didn’t normally talk back to cops, but apparently she just couldn’t take this attitude from a Romo lying down.
My Reckless Surrender Page 34
