childhood sweethearts

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Spotlight on The Raven’s Last Bet and a bonus book

The Raven’s Last Bet
By Cerise DeLand

She won’t be sold into marriage.
He won’t wed her for any amount of money. Only love.
If he can just figure out a way!

Harry Seymour arrives home from years of fighting abroad to learn he must clean up the family mess. His father demands Harry honor a deal he made with his best friend for Harry to marry the man’s daughter…for money.
Harry, who’s loved Sara Fleming since she was four, has no problem marrying her. He never did, even when she was denied him because she was the Whiskey King’s daughter.
But he won’t wed her for money.
Sara cannot accept the bargain her father made. She’s already left two men at the altar because she didn’t love either one. And if she can’t wed Harry for love, she’ll marry no one. But she wagers she’ll walk away a spinster…and happy if Harry will do her the favor of ruining her.
It’s a bet Harry can’t refuse.
Can he?
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Bonus Book!

LORD STANTON’S SHOCKING SEASIDE HONEYMOON

She is so wrong for him.
Miss Josephine Meadows is so young. In love with life. His accountant in his work for Whitehall. Her father’s heir to his trading company—and his espionage network.
Lord Stanton cannot resist marrying her. But to ensure Wellington defeats Napoleon, they must save one of Josephine’s agents.
Far from home, amidst a horrific storm, Stanton discovers that his new bride loves him dearly.
Can he truly be so right for her?
And she for him?

 

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Men in love on WIP Wednesday

My hero wanders in the rain, thinking about his beloved.

Ash walked through the streets of London in something of a daze. Hackman followed along in the curricle, shaking his head at his employer’s unaccountable decision to walk through the drizzling rain, but making no comment.

All of his intimate encounters had been, at root, transactional, though he had been fond of each of his mistresses and, he hoped, they with him. They said so, in any case. Being with Regina was so different that he was utterly at sea.

Their first kiss had rocked his world. It had begun as a yearning caress and become a carnal meeting of lips, teeth, and tongue. He had kissed before, and with women who were far more experienced in receiving and giving pleasure. This was Ginny and that made all the difference.

He had, somehow, managed to keep that encounter to a meeting of mouths. Her innocence helped. She followed his lead, but she initiated nothing. It was, as he’d thought at the time, as if she had never been kissed as a lover kissed.

Unlikely as it seemed, he was even more certain now that his first impression was right. She was a quick learner, though. As soon as their lips met tonight, his self-control almost escaped its leash. He managed to retain enough consciousness to keep his caresses within bounds; to slowly introduce her to the feel of his hand on her breasts, to kisses that crept every closer before he had one of her lovely nipples in his mouth.

Her fragrance, her soft skin, her moans of pleasure, the arch of her back as she lifted towards him, all tempted him to take it further, but he managed to resist. When she gave herself to him, and he was almost sure that she would, it would be a free choice, not one coerced through seduction.

A choice of forever, for he could bear no less. To bed her without promises was to risk destruction. Already, it was too late for him to walk away without a broken heart, but he still did not know if she wanted him for a lover or for a husband.

You may tell William you are courting me, she had said. But did she mean to accept him when he asked her to marry him? If she allowed him the honour of full intimacy and then refused his proposal, he did not know if he could survive it.

Holding to his honour by a thread, he had reversed his progress, gentling his caresses, kissing back up to her lips, invading her mouth one more time with the rhythm of coitus, and then retreating to closed mouth kisses and a final hug.

Hackman drew up beside him. “Sir, you are walking the wrong way.”

Ash realised that the drizzle had turned to a serious downpour. Hackman must have decided he had had enough, and he was right about Ash’s direction, too. He was further away from Artie’s townhouse than he had been when he started.

“Let me drive,” he said, and leapt up into the driver’s seat of the curricle, taking the reins from the servant.

The wise thing would have been to take the fastest route home, but he could not resist driving back past Ginny’s townhouse.

Hackman cast him a worried look when he made the turn. Ash couldn’t possibly subject the poor man a prolonged loiter outside the building while he mooned beneath his love’s lit window. But he wanted to.

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Spotlight on To Claim the Long-Lost Lover

The early reviews are beginning to come in for To Claim the Long-Lost Lover, which will be released this coming Friday. Here’s one of them.

This third offering the The Return of the Mountain King series is, in my opinion, the best one so far. A reader can not help falling in love with the characters and root for them to find their HEA. Jude Knight tells a story of love, love lost and love found once again. I really enjoy a book that serves up not just romance but also a bit of intrigue, a villain who just will not go away, and visits with old friends from other tales. The author sets up the next book in the series, which may be an even better tale. Will that dastardly villain finally get his just reward?

Isn’t that neat?

To Claim the Long-Lost Lover

The beauty known as the Winderfield Diamond hides a ruinous secret. Society’s newest viscount holds the key.

Sarah Winderfield has refused every suitor since Nathaniel Beauclair convinced her to run away with him seven years ago, and then disappeared without a word or a trace. But now she needs a husband. She has a child to love and to protect, and the child needs a father.

She does not expect to meet Nate also on the marriage mart. Should she let him explain? Can she believe him?

Dragged back to England to feed his father’s pride in family, Nate refuses to give into the man’s demands that he take a wife. Those who beat and abducted him seven years ago said the only woman he will ever love would be married within the month to a husband chosen by her father.

But when he finds that Sarah is still single, he rushes to London. Surely, they can find again the promise they believed in when they were young?

Through a labyrinth of old rumours and new enemies, two long-lost lovers must decide whether or not to claim one another, and win the bright future they both desire.

Short blurb: Sarah’s beloved abandoned her eight years ago, leaving her to face the anger of her family and worse. And now he is back, more compelling than ever. Sarah is even lovelier than when she was a girl, but what did she know about her father’s revenge on Nate: forcible enlistment into the navy and years of servitude?

Buy Links

Books2Read: https://books2read.com/CMK-Claim

Jude Knight’s book page  https://judeknightauthor.com/books/to-claim-the-long-lost-lover/

Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B096RLJJBZ

Excerpt

She is safe. Nate bounded up the stairs of the rooming house next door, having given the landlady such a generous bribe she would probably have sold him half the tenants, and not just access to the roof. The fear and anger that had driven him across London still roiled in his gut, a hollow burning ache.

She is safe, he thought again as he stepped out onto the roof and she walked into his arms, filling the emptiness. “I have never been more frightened in my life,” he murmured in her ear.

“I knew you would come to rescue me,” she replied, snuggling in as if she wanted him to absorb her, lifting her mouth to his.

He met her lips partway, lingering over a kiss that heated him to the core, transmuting what remained of his distress into a different kind of passion. He caught at the shreds of his self-control and reminded her, “You rescued yourself.”

Another kiss. He felt the urgency in her response; understood that it mirrored his own. But a roof in the slums was no place to celebrate her survival, especially when one of the duke’s men had followed him up and was leaning over the edge of the roof, signalling to the group below.

“I have a phaeton below. Let us go home.” He released her reluctantly, but took her hand to lead her down the narrow stairs. “Your sister will be beside herself.”

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Tea with Joselyn

Joselyn, Lady Maddox, had resisted her cousin’s machinations for years, had helped feed the village through the troubled times when the men were away fighting Napoleon and harvests were poor, and had faced down a gang of smugglers.

“But I have never had afternoon tea with a duchess,” she informed the large raven who sat on the window ledge, watching her flutter from one place to another in her anxious preparations. She aligned the cups on the tea table, plumped the cushions on the couch, moved the plate of delicate cakes a little to the right, dusted a spot on the mantlepiece with her handkerchief, and swapped two of the cushions over for a more pleasing colour combination.

The raven made a derisory remark in Raven. “That is easy for you to say,” Joselyn scolded. “She is Felix’s godmother, bird. And I want her to like me.”

“I am already predisposed to do so, my dear,” said Eleanor Haverford, from the doorway. Behind her, the butler was gesturing helplessly. Her Grace had simply swept ahead of him, and what was a butler to do?

“Your Grace.” Joselyn curtsied, trying hard to ignore the blush she could feel heating her face and her chest. “Please. Come in. May I offer you a seat?”

The duchess took her by the hand, and she rose from her curtsey to be engulfed in a perfumed embrace. “You have made my godson a very happy man, my dear Lady Maddox — or may I call you Joselyn? A cup of tea would be lovely, and I would very much like to meet your raven.”

Jocelyn is the heroine of The Raven’s Lady, a short story in my collection Hand-Turned Tales. Hand-Turned Tales is free as an ebook — click on the name to see what other stories are in the book and to find links for download.

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Tea with Callie

Her Grace has heard about the wedding, and sent her carriage and her companion to the hotel Magnus chose as a refuge for the rescued bride. Caroline Thrushnet was carried off to Haverford House to be cossetted, cherished, and prepared for a second wedding, to Magnus and not Lewis, in a few days time.

Now she has followed the footman assigned to wait in the corridor outside her bed chamber, and is being ushered into a small private sitting room, clearly the domain of the duchess, who waits for her behind a large tea tray.

“Miss Thrushnet, come and sit down, my dear. Tea?”

“It would be welcome, Your Grace. I hardly know whether I am on my head or my heels.”

“Indeed. You have sustained several shocks in quick succession.”

That was putting it mildly. First being forced to marry Lewis, who had cruelly closed all other avenues when he threatened Nanny, the only person Callie had left to love. Then being rescued moments before the vows by a man she thought long since dead. And now contemplating marriage to that man, who swore that marriage to him was her only safety.

The duchess asked how Callie took her tea, and busied herself preparing a cup. “Fenchurch is my godson, Miss Thrushnet. He was a fine boy, but his sufferings have changed him. If you wish to marry him, you may do so from Haverford House. If not, then you may remain here with me.”

“But Lewis, Mr Colbrooke…” Lewis had threatened to tell the whole world that she was his whore, and she could not deny that she had lived in his house, though he had done no more than tell her in salacious detail what he would do when they were wed.

The duchess patted her hand. “I cannot deny that marriage to the Earl of Fenchurch is the best answer to his cousin’s lies, my dear. But I am not without my own resources. If you do not wish to marry Fenchurch, we shall contrive.”

Callie is the heroine of Magnus and the Christmas Angel, a story in my forthcoming collection Lost in the Tale. Magnus and the Christmas Angel is set six months after Magnus and Callie marry, and tells how they became reconciled. The excerpt that follows is from a start I made to turn the short story into a full novel or novella.

He was always correct and pleasant in front of others, and she made certain to stay in company as much as she could, but if he caught her alone she could expect to be stroked, fondled, squeezed, even pinched. And at any time she could expect him to sidle up beside her, and bend to whisper in her ear.

Such disgusting things: what he planned to do to her, what he would teach her to do to him. ‘Train’ her, he said, as if she were a dog to be brought to heel or a filly to be taught manners with a curb rein.

One of his delights was to speculate about whether he should wait until after their wedding to introduce her to her marital duties, and each night she propped a chair under the handle to prevent his entrance. Not that such a measure did more than postpone the inevitable, but at least she did not have to fear him entering to rape her while she slept. Nanny had insisted on sleeping in the dressing room, but her presence would not dissuade Lewis if he had not chosen to stay away for his own purposes.

Nor did he do more than frighten and dismay her during her waking hours. No mercy, that. He wanted to give her fear time to build, and it had worked. Now, as each turn of the carriage wheels carried her closer to the church and the vows that would imprison her for life, she fantasised about hurling herself screaming from the carriage and throwing herself at the knees of the kindest looking passer-by to beg refuge. Only the knowledge that the alternative might be even worse—for Nanny, if not for her—kept her in her seat. That, and the watchful presence of Lewis’s guard dogs.

The ride was interminable and over too soon. She climbed the steps of St George’s, flanked by the footmen, and entered at the back of the huge church; walked the great empty length of the nave towards the small crowd of Lewis’s hangers-on, sycophants, and cronies.

They watched her approach, avid-eyed, spectators at her execution. They believed her to be Lewis’s mistress already; had she not lived in his house these past six weeks? For some reason of his own, he had taken her to a hotel when they came up to London yesterday, but her reputation could now only be restored by this marriage.

She kept her back straight, her face calm; stilled the trembling of her hands by sheer force of will. No one would know she was afraid. No one but Lewis, who knew and was pleased.

When she was close enough, Lewis grabbed her hand and squeezed hard enough to leave bruises, digging in his fingers. She hid her wince, but the minister noticed and frowned, and frowned still further when Lewis instructed him to begin.

“She’s here. Get on with it man. Splice me to the damn chit. I have other engagements this afternoon, and a wife’s maidenhead to breach before I can get to them.”

“Sir!” The minister was horrified. “Your rudeness is not to be tolerated in this sacred place, and in the presence of a lady. Miss Thrushnet, such lack of respect does not bode well. It does not indeed. I urge you to consider carefully before you proceed.”

Callie shook her head. “I have no choice. Do it quickly, please.”

The minister  shook his head, but he began the words of the service. Callie barely listened, until he reached the point that he spoke to the congregation, almost, it seemed, begged the congregation. “If any of you know cause or just impediment why these two persons should not be joined together in Holy Matrimony, ye are to declare it.”

He fell silent and waited. If only someone would speak up! They would not, of course, but even so Callie turned to look at those witnessing this travesty of a wedding, ignoring Lewis’s foul words as the minister ignored his commands to proceed.

The door to the church crashed back, and a large angry man shouldered his way past Lewis’s footmen, beating them off with his walking stick and shouting, “Stop the wedding!”

His face. Callie knew that face. This was a man, and not a stripling boy, and barbaric black whorls and dots disfigured all of one side—forehead, cheek, chin, and half the nose. But she would have known him had the tattoos covered all, by his resemblance to his father and by the leap of her heart as he fought his way furiously up the nave of the church.

Magnus. It was Magnus returned from the dead to save her.

Her head felt light, and then the world spun around her and went black.

The minister caught Callie as she fell, fainting at the horror his face had become. He would have to explain. The men on the ship that rescued him grew used to his tattoos during the long voyage home. Could Callie?

But no time for that now, with Lewis shaking his fist in Magnus’s face and demanding he be removed, not that anyone seemed anxious to oblige him. Lewis’s lackeys were unconscious on the ground at the back of the church; the onlookers eyed Magnus’s stick warily, and his grin with even more caution.

Magnus looked Lewis up and down and his grin broadened. The monster who had made his youth a torment was now six inches shorter than him, and showing signs of dissipation in his broadening girth, his soft jowls. While he indulged every vice in London, Magnus had survived shipwreck, fought to earn his entrance into the elite of a warrior culture, and worked his way home from the other side of the world on a naval vessel.

Lewis turned his shoulder, ostentatiously. “Get on with it,” he told the minister. “This madman has nothing to do with us,”

The minister had lowered Callie to the ground and now stood protectively over her. His words were addressed to Magnus. “Who are you, sir? And what cause or impediment do you bring?”

Lewis argued. “He is mad, I tell you. Will no one rid us of this violent lunatic?”

Magnus ignored his cousin, but raised his voice for the benefit of the onlookers. “I am Magnus Colbrooke, Earl of Fenchurch, and this lady is my betrothed.”

Amid exclamations and questions from the onlookers, and shouted imprecations and denials from Lewis, the minister and Magnus locked gazes for a long moment. Then the minister nodded, and turned his attention to Callie, who was stirring.

Magnus had to attend to Lewis and one of the footmen, who had recovered from the blow that knocked him out and was gamely approaching again. He backed off when Magnus shook the stick at him, more frightened of another blow than of his master, who was red faced and hissing like a steam kettle.

“This is not my cousin,” Lewis shouted. “My cousin is dead. I am the Earl of Fenchurch.”

Magnus would have known Callie’s voice anywhere, though maturity had given it a depth and richness. “My dear Fenchurch,” she said, and the church hushed as everyone turned to listen. She was shaking off the minister’s supporting hand, crossing to Magnus with her hands outstretched in welcome. “You are very welcome. Sir,” she glanced back at the minister, ignoring the avid audience, “this is indeed Magnus Colbrooke, Earl of Fenchurch, and my betrothed.”

Another surge of comment from the rabble, which Magnus did not bother to untangle, instead enjoying the sensation of Calllie’s soft hand in his, and keeping a watchful eye on Lewis and his henchman.

Lewis was shaking his head. “No. I don’t know where you found him, Caroline, but this masquerade won’t work, and you will pay for it in the end.”

“You will be receiving notice from my lawyer, Lewis. I am returned, and I will be taking back my own.” Magnus gave Callie’s hand a comforting squeeze. “Starting with my betrothed, but also my houses, my estates,” he looked pointedly at Lewis’s hand, “my signet ring.”

“I deny it. I deny it.” Lewis shook his fist at the minister, who was smiling. “Do you hear me? I deny it.” He threw a threatening look at Callie. “You came here to marry me. I demand that you marry me. You promised.”

Magnus took a step towards the cur, but Callie pulled on his hand and spoke her own defiance. “I came here to marry the Earl of Fenchurch, to whom I was betrothed before he left for the ends of the earth. I stand ready to do so.” She looked up at the unscarred side of Magnus’s face and smiled. “For here he is.”

“Now?” Magnus asked. “I am willing.”

The minister, though, was shaking his head. “Miss Thrushnet, I cannot wed you to any man today. The impediment to your marriage to Mr Colbrooke is clear, and the name on the licence must be changed if you are to marry another man.”

Lewis blustered some more, but Callie ignored him, thanking the minister politely.

“I am staying at Grillions, Fenchurch,” she said. “Shall we return there so that we can talk in private?”

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Opportunity knocks on WIP Wednesday

This week, I’m thinking about opportunities lost and opportunities seized. Do your characters steal a kiss or catch a ship or turn left instead of right, and that made all the difference? Or do they miss their chance, and the story unfolds from their regrets?

Share an excerpt of the opportunity or the aftermath. Mine is from The Realm of Silence. My hero and heroine are travelling alone, posing as husband and wife, but sleeping in separate bedrooms. I’m being economical and squeezing two opportunities into one segment. One recent, and one long past.

Susan managed not to break into a run, but only because five paces took her to her door. Once it was safely shut behind her, she sagged against it, tipping her head back, eyes closed, heart racing.

She heard Gil’s door slam. Perhaps the wind caught it, though she preferred to think he had been shaken out of his imperturbable calm. Serves him right.

Why did she kiss him? She did not even like him. And why on earth did he kiss her back, taking over the embrace and setting her on fire. Annoying, arrogant, overbearing.

She crossed to peer into the mirror, tracing her lips with one finger. They tingled, tender from his passionate assault. Or from hers, since it had begun gently enough. Her body hummed; demanding that she march across the hall and finish what she started.

Her breath huffed; a laugh that caught like a sob. She had come full circle. Long ago, on the other side of her entire adult life, she had been kissed by Gilbert Rutledge, had kissed him back, had waited with all the confidence of her seventeen years for him to speak to her father. Until she learned from gossiping matrons that he had been posted overseas.

She had read into the kiss more than he intended. She would be a fool to repeat the error.

 

 

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Disagreements on WIP Wednesday

lady in snow broughtonI nearly forgot to post my work in progress Wednesday post! Does it still count if it is Thursday in a fair part of our spinning world?

Today’s topic is the conflict that stops our romance story from being over before it even begins! Have you ever read a story that went: they met, loved at first sight, married with the blessings of all their family and friends, and lived peaceful and prosperous lives? All very nice for the participants, but not at all exciting!

My sample comes from the made-to-order story I am writing for the person who won my cat day story. My heroine has just found her husband holding the body of her pet cat, and has leapt to an immediate conclusion.

A gasp behind him told him he was no longer alone; a voice he knew, a scent he would recognise till the day he died even if he never smelled it again, composed of the herbs she strewed among her clothes, the flower oils she used to scent her soap, and something that was ineffably Callie.

He turned to meet blazing blue-green eyes in a white face. “Imp! You brute, Magnus! What have you done?”

“I just found her, Callie. She must have been trying to bring the kitten home.”

The name just slipped out. She had told him that first day, after he had interrupted her wedding and proposed himself as groom, that no-one called her Callie anymore. So he honoured her wish, and called her Caroline. But in his heart, she would always be Callie.