The Tenacious Miss Tamerlane

by Kasey Michaels

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The sun was well up when the Duke rose the next morning, his head cleared of drink this time, but groggy none-the-less due to the fact that it was almost dawn before he got to bed at all. As he stood glowering into the mirror above his dressing table, Farnley was pushed to remark that a face such as that was apt to crack the glass, bringing on seven years of sure bad luck.

  “Six years, nine months, and three or four days, Farnley,” his grace corrected.

  The valet was confused, for he had never heard of this particular omen. “Sir?” he questioned.

  Avanoll sighed. “Miss Tamerlane arrived in March. It is now late June. I do not believe any further explanation is necessary.”

  Farnley bobbed his head in enthusiastic agreement, then wisely handed the duke his cravat in silence. Suddenly the door to his dressing room, that most private of sanctums a gentleman can hope to have, was thrown open and Aunt Lucinda, draperies at full mast, came sailing in to exclaim, “‘It was not for nothing that the raven was just now croaking on my left hand.’ Plautus.”

  “What idiocy is this?” Avanoll bellowed in confused rage.

  In answer his aunt stuck a piece of folded foolscap in his face, nearly taking the tip off his Benedict nose. “‘I have found it!’ Archimedes,” she pronounced in tones of high drama.

  Avanoll grabbed at the paper, more in self-defense than anything else, warning dryly, “Don’t carry on so, Aunt, you’ll do yourself an injury.” He then retired to the window, where the light was better, and unfolded the crumpled note—for he could tell it was a note—and began to read. Seeing at once that it was addressed to him, he shot his aunt a quick look, knowing full well she had already read it.

  Dear Ashley, the note began quite simply, and then went on to thank him, in the most formal of terms, for his gracious extension of aid when she (by now he was sure the note was from Tansy) was sorely in need of it.

  She asked only that he look kindly on a match between Emily and Digby and put himself out to be nice to the servants, pointing out that it would be only polite to learn their names as a start. In the same paragraph she begged that, since it would be impossible to take him along, could Horatio remain under Avanoll’s roof (“he adores marrow-bones, but insists upon burying them under your Grandmama’s bed, so please try to discourage him”). The note ended with her assurances that she would soon find a suitable post, along with denials of any need for any of them to worry a jot about her in the future. This last bit of heroic sacrifice fell short of the mark, however, when the Duke detected what looked suspiciously like dried tearstains on the paper.

  “Hell and damnation!” he shouted, crumpling the note into an untidy ball and flinging it in the general direction of the fire. Hair still uncombed and untied cravat flying, he set off down the hall for the dowager’s room, with Aunt Lucinda in hot pursuit.

  Farnley headed in the opposite direction, quickly ascertained that his beloved Pansy was also among the missing, and boldly joined his master in the Duchess’s chambers just in time to hear Aunt Lucinda say sulkily, “‘There are some who bear a grudge even to those that do them good.’ Pilpay.”

  “Do me good? Oh, that fairly ties it, doesn’t it? You, Aunt, and you, me dear old grandmother, have between the two of you with your machinations bungled my entire life,” he said, glaring at them both with venom and—at last, at least verbally—showing some resemblance to his sister Emily.

  Obviously the story of the plot was “out,” and just as clearly Avanoll did not like being moved about by his female relatives like a pawn in a perverted chess game. He turned to his aunt in astonishment.

  “Only a complete ninnyhammer such as you could believe for one moment that my current position has even a mote of ‘goodness’ about it.”

  The dowager, whose day so far had been one simply crammed full of joyous plotting and scheming, took a moment to inform her grandson that they—she and his aunt—had between themselves succeeded in bringing to a head a situation that he, being a lowly and somewhat slow mere male, would have allowed to drag on for heaven only knew how long.

  “Within the span of a few weeks we have settled Emily and forced you to admit to a feeling for Tansy that is more than cousinly. I have no doubt you all will soon be quite comfortably leg-shackled, and I will be free to retire to my estate to wait in peace for the arrival of my first great-grandchildren,” she observed smugly.

  Avanoll ran his hand through his already disheveled crop of curls and said tightly, “Emily and her moonling calf may be all right and tight, I grant you, but with Tansy gone to ground, God only knows where, and me about to go to the gallows for the cold-blooded murder of my aunt and grandmother, I fail to see why you should look so pleased with yourselves.”

  “I knew it would come to this,” wailed a distraught Farnley.

  “‘I would rather be ignorant than wise in the foreboding of evil.’ Aeschylus,” Aunt Lucinda gritted.

  “Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am, but I can only calls ’em as I sees ’em, so they say,” Farnley retorted, quite overset by the defection of his lady-love. “Besides,” he added, with commendable if self-serving foresight, “I’m just trying to serve my master, poor demon-ridden soul that he is.”

  ‘“There is also a sure reward for faithful silence.’ Horace,” his tormentor quipped acidly, and the valet retired from the field in defeat.

  There was silence in the room for a few moments while the Duke paced, the servant moped, the aunt preened herself, and the dowager sat back and enjoyed the show. Finally she broke the uneasy peace by asking if Avanoll knew why Tansy had taken flight so precipitously.

  He hung his head. “I believe it was something I said, but for the life of me I didn’t know the thought of marriage to me was so repugnant she would rather run away than face it.”

  The dowager smiled. It was a wickedly satisfied smile that lit her eyes and curled the corners of her mouth with unholy glee. “It was not the marriage Tansy flew from, but the proposal. If memory serves, and I must admit understanding little of Tansy’s hysterical mouthings this morning, I believe your declaration lacked for something in romance, Ashley.”

  The Duke flushed an angry red and retorted, “Well, what would you have me do, Grandmama? Say I love her and take the chance she would turn me down anyway? I would have confessed more than a companionable affection immediately if she had only given me some sign she returned my feelings.”

  ‘“The cat would eat fish, and would not wet her feet.’ Heywood,” his aunt purred archly.

  The Duke ignored this remark and zeroed in on his grandparent’s hints. “Tansy came to you? Ah-ha! Then you know where she has gone.” He loped over to leer down at the old woman and warned, “Tell me her direction you crafty old crone, or I’ll cut off your sugarplums for a month.”

  The dowager stalled for time, arranging her shawl about her thin shoulders before saying, “She and that ninny Pansy are in my closed coach, heading north to Olivia Rockingham’s. You know where she is situated, don’t you? I sent them off with some farradiddle about companioning Olivia, who needs a keeper far more than she needs a dogsbody, secure in the knowledge that you would have the pair of them back safe in Avanoll House before the day is out. That is, if you don’t bungle it again, grandson.”

  “And you think that simply by saying I love you, Tansy will fall on my neck and agree to become my wife?” Ashley asked doubtfully.

  ‘“Love conquers all.’ Virgil,” his aunt suggested.

  The Duke of Avanoll, that mature man about town, that notable whip, excellent sportsman, and admired statesman, stood like a gawking schoolboy and blushed to the roots of his hair.

  His aunt sighed. “‘I loved thee, Atthis, once—long, long ago; long, long ago—the memory still is clear.’ Sappho.”

  Enough was enough, and too much was definitely too much. Avanoll quit the room, with Farnley close behind saying he would ready his grace’s traveling clothes and order the racing curricle. Left
behind in the dowager’s chamber, two old ladies clung to each other and chortled with a depth of humor denied them for many a long day, until tears of joy ran down their cheeks.

  While the Duke was springing nimbly up behind his spirited team of four (only a nonpareil such as he or a man deeply in love would dare drive a curricle with four in hand), the dowager’s coach—with a deliberately plodding Leo at the reins—was rumbling along the North Road with its two dispirited occupants.

  Tansy’s mind was full of conflicting thoughts as she remembered she had yet to see the Elgin Marbles, or take in the theatre on a night when the great Kean was to trod the boards. Oh, well, she could put paid to excursions like that now and forevermore. Perhaps she had been hasty—may be even guilty of looking a gift horse in the mouth—in turning down Avanoll’s cut and dried offer. But, no. She could not endure a one-sided love any more than she could a completely loveless marriage.

  If only Pansy would cease her sobbing that had only just moments ago finally diminished from a loud caterwauling that had nearly driven Tansy to distraction for the entire passage across Hampstead Heath.

  In time the coach was pulled into a small wayside inn—none too soon for Tansy, who was experiencing an almost overpowering need to put some space between herself and her watering-pot abigail. Since assurances that she would be returned from Mrs. Rockingham’s with Leo had not stifled her tears, and threats to box her ears had met with similar failure, physical separation for a few temper-cooling minutes was the only avenue left open.

  While Pansy, sniffling and gulping, dragged herself off behind Leo, who was giving orders to have the horses seen to and a private parlor laid with luncheon, Tansy took off in the opposite direction at a bracing pace that ended abruptly when she turned a corner and literally barged into a well-dressed gentleman just approaching from the side of the stables.

  “Why, stap me if it ain’t Lady Emily’s rescuer! “a voice cried out, and Tansy lifted her head to see the grinning face of Godfrey Harlow looking down at her. Since he had grasped her by both elbows to halt her possible spill to the ground, Tansy was unable for the moment to do more than remain still and return his greeting.

  “I appreciate your saying you’re happy to see me, miss, though I doubt I’m as welcome as the flowers in spring, but I must admit I have thought of you more than once since that fateful day in March. Thanks to you I took myself off to Ireland and, would you believe it, I am now on my honeymoon with a grand, grand girl. Rich as Golden Ball she is, and with no smell of the shop,” he went on, still not relinquishing his hold.

  Tansy looked him up and down, taking note of his rather foppish finery, and summoned up a weak smile. “I am happy one of us has come about so nicely.”

  Another man would have realized his joy was one-sided, but not Mr. Harlow. Carried along by the mood of the moment he went on amicably, “And I owe all my present happiness to you, dear lady!”

  With that he swooped down to deliver an exuberant smacking kiss right on Tansy’s startled lips, a kiss that ended abruptly when a hand of iron pulled Mr. Harlow about before a fist of similar strength caused his body to take up an acquaintance with the dirt pathway.

  Tansy put a hand to her head and leaned weakly against the stable wall. “Oh, Ashley, you’ve done it again,” she groaned.

  “I say,” came a voice from the ground, “who the devil are you?”

  “Emily’s brother,” Tansy supplied gently.

  “Oh,” Godfrey Harlow said hollowly. “Isn’t it a bit late for revenge?”

  At Avanoll’s quelling look, Godfrey prudently skittered back a few feet on his haunches while Tansy, now quite beside herself with rage, performed the introductions and explained that Mr. Harlow was just thanking her for a service she had performed for him some months past.

  Just then a Junoesque creature with flaming red hair came down upon them with a wrathful look on her freckled face and demanded to know “jist what the divil is goin’ on here?”

  Avanoll tried to speak, but had trouble locating his voice. This mattered little to the woman, who had already single-handedly hoisted her slight husband to his feet and was dusting him off with a vigorous hand and dusting him down with an equally vigorous tongue.

  “I can’t leave you alone for a minute, can I now, Godfrey, me love? Come off with Kathleen now and I’ll be hearin’ the whole of it over a nice cup of tea.”

  Harlow made a hasty bow and went off with the love of his life, his arms flapping wildly as he endeavored to talk himself back into her good graces.

  Avanoll looked after the pair, well and truly puzzled, while Tansy held on to the stable wall, convulsed as she was with laughter. “Poor besotted fool, he’ll not have an easy life with that one, I wager,” she chortled.

  Seeing his quarry in good humor, the Duke dismissed Harlow and his outrageous wife, and concentrated on making it up with Tansy. He held out his hand—the same hand that had milled down two innocent men in less than four and twenty hours—and pleaded, “Please, dear, stop all this nonsense and come home with me. I know you love me.”

  So the dowager had betrayed her! “How dare you!” Tansy shrieked, and bolted for the road. Avanoll caught up with her just as she reached the roadway and stopped any further recriminations with a sound kiss.

  When he at last lifted his head Tansy opened her mouth to tell him a thing or two, but he cut her off by claiming her lips yet again, so gently and with such vast feeling in his embrace that her arms had no choice but to curl up and around his neck.

  When he was sure he had at last robbed her of the strength to spurn him he lifted his lips slightly and blazed a path of kisses and gentle nips along her cheek to her ear. Once there he whispered, “I love you, too, you know. Quite desperately, in fact.”

  Instead of answering in kind, Tansy dredged up enough spirit to return a bit of his deviltry. “You took your sweet time letting me in on the secret, your grace,” she suggested insolently.

  “Oh, and when did you know you cared for me?” Avanoll retorted with a nasty grin.

  Tansy blushed, then recovered and said with complete candor, “From the time I sat behind a nag named Horace and first looked up into those horrid, mocking eyes of yours peering out at me from behind the Benedict nose. I was immediately resigned to donning my caps and living the rest of my life as a female ape-leader, my charges all agog at my secret sighs and silent tears, knowing me an unlucky victim of unrequited love. It was very romantic, but hardly practical.”

  “There’s a lot to be said for romance, I suppose. Perhaps I should have taken it up sooner. Go on.”

  “You won’t stop until you have the whole of it, will you? Very well. That’s why I so readily fell in with your inane suggestion to chaperon Emily. I had hoped familiarity would either cure me of my affliction or—wonder of wonders—allow you time to notice all my sterling qualities as I made myself, as you so meanly guessed, indispensable to you.”

  So much honesty nearly overwhelmed Tansy, and she buried her head against his broad shoulder.

  Avanoll chuckled wryly. “As for your charms, my pet, I noticed them all right. Me and half of London. I never much cared for crowds. I think I counted on your good sense, seeing through all those fops and halflings surrounding you morning ’til night like barnacles on a hull. Then, at the end of the Season, when we retired to my house in the country, I would have pleaded my case.”

  “Is that so?”

  “I think it was, yes. Of course,” he admitted truthfully, “I didn’t know this was my plan until I was wearing the willow at Newmarket, but when I was finally honest with myself I realized I was lost from the moment you alluded that I was a blundering idiot—which is the same as saying from the moment we met.”

  “You were—acting like an idiot, that is. You were also arrogant, overbearing, disgustingly objectionable, and irritatingly...”

  “Drat you, woman. Will you always be so brutally honest?”

  “Yes, my dear,” she replied, gaining confi
dence by his declaration of affection, “I shall. Even now, I am afraid. It seems debutantes of six and twenty are very practical types. I feel bound to point out that at the moment my shoes are soaking through in this muddy road, I am hungry, tired, and nearly overwhelmed with happiness all at the same time. Still, my discomfort is winning out. Is it possible for us to climb upon your curricle that I see back there in the inn-yard, leaving Leo and Pansy to make their way back themselves?”

  “Leo, Pansy, and Farnley,” the Duke corrected. “You cannot know what I have been through with that carrion crow riding beside me all the way from Grosvenor Square, not to mention the sound tongue-lashing I had to take from Dunny—I mean Dunstan—before ever I was allowed to leave at all,” he told her, kissing the tip of her nose. “But first things first. My grandmother informed me it was my lack of form that sent you fleeing in the first place. Therefore, before we go another step, I must ask formally for your hand.”

  So saying, the staid member of Parliament pulled out his snowy linen handkerchief and proceeded to, with a fine flourish, spread it on the muddy roadway. Before Tansy could stop him, he was kneeling in broad daylight on the fringe of the heavily-traveled Great North Road.

  “My dearest Tansy,” he began solemnly, “for a long time now I have regarded you with deep respect and admiration—admiration that has deepened to devotion. I pray you to consider my petition and agree to become my Duchess, making me the luckiest and happiest of men.”

  “Oh, Ashley, get up, do,” Tansy giggled. “There is a rider approaching.”

  “Hang the man. I’ll not move until I get my answer.”

  “Good God, here comes a sporting curricle. We’ll be run down! Let loose my hand, Ashley, and get up.”

  The Duke remained where he had knelt. “My answer first, if you please, madam.”

  Tansy looked about with no little agitation and finally sputtered, “Oh, confound it all, yes.”

  “What? I’m afraid I was not attending. The mud is penetrating to my knee and my attention wandered,” Avanoll excused himself. “Would you please to repeat that last part?”

  “I said, yes, you lovable loose-screw. Yes, yes, yes! A thousand times yes. Only move or I’ll be a widow before I can ever become a wife!”

  In one motion Avanoll rose, lifted her high in his arms, and walked to the curricle where Leo, his face beet-red and nearly choking from the effort of trying to hide his laughter, was barely holding the four matched bays in check.

  “Turn your back, Leo. You’ve enough sport for one day.” The groom turned obediently. “Madam,” Avanoll said, “I claim my betrothal kiss.”

  Leo, sneaking a quick look over his shoulder, grinned broadly at the sight of his master thoroughly kissing the nice young Miss Tansy. He then turned to direct a stony stare at the farmer who had stopped dead in his tracks, completely forgetting he had to get his only horse to the blacksmith or there’d be no plowing tomorrow, and another at the young gentleman in the smart black-and-yellow curricle who was holding onto his reins with both hands—a gold rimmed quizzing glass stuck to his eye.

  “Beggin’ yer grace’s pardon, but we seem to be, er, puttin’ on a bit of a show, like,” Leo whispered hoarsely.

  Avanoll raised his head and looked rather dazedly at his audience. “Bladesham, your servant sir,” he said as calmly as if he were just passing the Viscount on Bond Street. “Like to introduce you to my affianced wife. Miss Tansy Tamerlane.”

  “Ch-Ch-Charmed, I’m sure, ma’am,” stammered his lordship, his horses dancing as he released one hand to tip his curly-brimmed beaver. “Wish you happy.” Then he seemed to comprehend the import of the situation. By Gadfrey, he’d be the center of it all at White’s tonight with this story, hang that visit to his Uncle Chester anyway.

  “You there,” he called to the farmer. “Shove yourself off, I’ve need of some room to turn my pair.” The farmer looked glad for any excuse to quit the scene and its balmy gentry. Kicking his poor horse in its skinny flanks, he bounced off down the road, never once looking back.

  “Where to, Bladesham? Have you forgotten something in London?” Avanoll inquired innocently.

  “No. Yes!” answered the Viscount. “Recall an engagement. Bad ton to neglect my fellows when they wish to gather. No fourth at cards, you know. Must fly now,” he ended desperately before adding, “Felicitations again, old fellow.” With a turn that spoke more of haste than whipmanship, his lordship was off.

  Avanoll threw back his head and roared. “That turn won’t get him any votes for the Four Horse Club, I can tell you. Ah, you’re good for me Tansy. I feel young and gay and quite deliriously happy. And you can’t back out now, my love. By the time we get to Grosvenor Square, half of London will have already had the whole of it from Bladesham.”

  “Nor can you withdraw, your grace,” Tansy pointed out, “for I am thoroughly compromised, besides being able to sue for breach of promise. You claimed me as fiancée before witnesses. Isn’t that right, Leo?”

  “Me? I ain’t heard a word if you don’t wish, your grace,” Leo avowed fervently. “Though I think it downright balmy to pass up a right ’un like the miss, your grace, if I may be so bold.”

  Avanoll laughed again as Tansy calmly thanked Leo and told him she thought he was a right ’un too, “a real prince of a fellow,” before the Duke sent him off to the inn to drive Pansy and Farnley back to town while he and Tansy followed in the curricle.

  Once Leo was out of sight, Avanoll hoisted Tansy up to the seat and joined her, but another kiss seemed in order before they set out on their journey. As the two new lovers blissfully indulged in what seemed a very edifying pastime, the South Bound Mail Coach pelted by them, loaded to the rails with outside passengers.

  “Coo,” one passenger shouted, relinquishing part of his two-handed hold on the coach roof to point out something to a fellow traveler. “Now there’s somethin’ you don’t see every day, Chumford, two gentry morts kissin’ and huggin’ out in the open for all to see, just like regular folk. Give her another one, sport!” the man had time to yell before the coach rounded the next bend.

  Over Tansy’s embarrassed protests, Avanoll proceeded to do just that.

  By just a little past nine of that same day, the dowager and Aunt Lucinda stood in the foyer of Avanoll House while behind two closed doors two separate sets of lovers were allowed a few short moments alone. Hand to heart, a sign of deep emotional involvement, Aunt Lucinda at last gushed, ‘“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind.’ Shakespeare.”

  The dowager answered this observation with her usual vague, “Yes, yes, Lucinda,” before suddenly jerking up her head—an expression of horror on her face. “Shakespeare? Sh-Shake-speare! Oh, no Lucinda, say it isn’t so! You haven’t been dipping into my private library?”

  Aunt Lucinda smiled serenely, so sure her little surprise had gladdened the dowager’s heart—Shakespeare being the lady’s favorite poet, and nodded her head in a gesture of farewell before turning to mount the stairs.

  The dowager took a step toward her and ordered, “Lucinda, you just march yourself back over here and we’ll have this thing out right now and for all time. I will house you once Ashley is wed, I will clothe you, I will feed you, I will even allow you use of my library in your asinine and never-ending search for quotes. But I will not, I repeat, will not countenance the wanton bantering about of Shakespeare’s immortal words whenever you wish to remark on such subjects as cinch bugs on my roses or the proper time to turn sheets. Do you hear me, Lucinda?”

  The offended woman nodded sadly.

  “Good,” said the satisfied Duchess. “It’s late. You may now retire.”

  Aunt Lucinda again made to mount the stairs, this time crooning softly, “‘To sleep: perchance to...’” She cut off the end of the Hamlet quote as the dowager began to make noises like an angry bear and improvised quickly as she hastened her ascent. ‘“To err is human, to forgive divine.’ Pope.”
>
  “What a maddening loose-screw; sixty and two and with all the brains of a chamber pot and twice the brass,” lamented the dowager before lifting her skirts and striding toward the drawing room, determination lending speed to her stiff limbs.

  “Ashley,” she called out as she burst open the doors and stepped inside. “Grandson, if you will but leave off pawing that poor child a moment I have a proposition to put to you both. I will turn over to your first-born those cozy estates in Hampshire as well as the coal mines your grandfather won so long ago at Faro, which are now producing greater profits every year, if you will but agree to making Lucinda a part of your household.”

  Tansy giggled. “What is she up to this time, your grace?”

  “What is she up to?” the dowager parroted distractedly. “I’ll tell you what that feather-wit is up to: she has set her pointed little teeth at chewing up and spitting back her own interpretations of the Bard himself. It’s sacrilege, I tell you. And if you condemn me to a lifetime of listening to her, you will have murdered me as surely as if you had stuck a knife in my heart. I’m not a young woman anymore, Tansy,” she pleaded, falling back on the excuse of her advanced years. “Have pity on me, please. I’ll toss in my ruby pendant to sweeten the pot. You can have it made into a ring if your first is a boy.”

  Tansy stood on tiptoe and whispered into her beloved’s ear. He smiled and turned to address the older woman.

  “Tansy, the dear darling, may have a better suggestion for you, Grandmama. Keep your pendant and your coal mines and all but one of your Hampshire estates to dispose of later on as you wish. Simply turn over one of the smaller homes—retaining control of the land, of course—to Aunt Lucinda, and promise to provide her with a generous allowance for the rest of her life on the condition she never darken your door again. It should suit her to feel more independent as mistress of her own household once more, besides giving her a room in which to place her horrid chairs.”

  The Duchess grinned and clasped her gnarled hands in glee. “Why didn’t I think of that? Not that I shouldn’t have presently if I were not so overset. You are quite capital, Tansy; you too, Ashley. I shall talk to my man of business first thing in the morning and order him to have all in train by the end of the week. She can return for the weddings; never let it be said I was not magnanimous. I shall also have him sign over those mines to you both as a wedding present. Tut, tut,” she warned as they made to protest. “You’ve earned it. You may go back to what you were doing now. Goodnight, my dears, for you have made me a very happy old lady.”

  She left then, pausing only once at the door to shake her head in seeming amazement. “Getting that dratted woman to do justice to dear Will’s pearls of wisdom would be about as possible as teaching Horatio to sing Italian opera,” she said to no one in particular.

  Ashley and Tansy shared a smile, content that every last loose end had now been neatly tied up—at least for a while—and obediently returned to their earlier occupation. With bodies softly pressing together and arms firmly entwined, their lips alternately advanced and engaged or retreated to whisper inane love words—quite expected murmurings when spoken by the very young (like the two lovebirds in the small salon), but uncommonly touching when uttered by two people who have had to wait so long to share the heady giddiness of true love.

  If Aunt Lucinda were there, and it must be noted her presence was not missed, she quite possibly might have said, “‘All’s well that ends well.’ Heywood.”

  And she would have been quite right.

  The End

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  Thank you for reading!

  Kasey Michaels

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  Kasey Michaels

  Kasey Michaels began her career scribbling her stories on yellow legal pads while the family slept. She totally denies she chiseled them into flat rocks, but yes, she began her career a long time ago. Now Kasey is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than 110 books (she doesn't count them). Kasey has received four coveted Starred Reviews from Publishers Weekly, three for historical romance, The Secrets of the Heart, The Butler Did it, and The Taming of a Rake, and for the contemporary romance Love To Love You Baby (that shows diversity, you see). She is a recipient of the RITA, a Waldenbooks and Bookrak Bestseller award, and many awards from Romantic Times magazine, including a Career Achievement award for her Regency era historical romances. She is an Honor Roll author in Romance Writers of America, Inc., and is a past president of Novelists, Inc. (NINC), the only international writers organization devoted solely to the needs of multi-published authors. Please visit Kasey on her website at www.KaseyMichaels.com and connect on Facebook.