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Spotlight on Lady Be Wanton

The lady wants to be good.

Lady Imogen has reformed! She’s witty, from an old Irish family, in pursuit of a fine man to marry—and she swears she’ll never indulge in her little…um…peccadilloes again!

She’s arrived in Brighton with her two sisters and her cousin for the Season—and she’ll ignore anyone who gossips about Grandpapa’s notorious odd talents—or her own tiny scandal. After all, a lady can change.

The gentleman wants revenge. 

Returning home after the wars, Lex Rowlandson, the Earl of Martindale, vows to find the cur who sold him and his father into the hell of Napoleon’s dungeons.

With a few clues to the identity of the creature who stole years from his life and caused the death of his father, Lex seeks out suspects at a Brighton ball. But he’s captured by the effervescent woman whose smiles light the dark corners of his heart.

He should not be distracted from his cause. Yet he cannot resist the lure of Imogen’s charm. When he witnesses her plight at the hands of one fellow who threatens her reputation, Lex saves it—and marries her.

Falling in love with her husband, Imogen sees that the best way to thank him for saving her is to commit the very crime she vowed never to repeat.

But can a man whose life was stolen from him love a wife whose skill is taking from others what is not hers?

Release Date: March 8 

Order now on: https://amzn.to/3Hfcm0G

First kiss excerpt

“You are a rare woman. And I applaud you.” He brushed the pad of his thumb over her lips. “Will you come see me to the door?”

His sweetness and his sorrow filled her with relief. “If you tell me when I’ll see you again.”

He tossed his head back and forth as if he considered the possibility. Then he threw her a lop-sided grin. “I will if you kiss me goodbye.”

“Now?” She feigned horror, a hand to her throat.

“The best time.”

She threw back her head to laugh. “Such bribery.”

“Larceny with good purpose. To see you laugh is worth every crime.”

She clutched the superfine of his frock coat. Such endearments lifted her to heaven. “Be careful, sir. You turn my head.”

“I mean to.” He caught her against him, mid-chuckle. His body was made of iron, rippling massive heat that zipped through her like shards of desire. “Though I never planned it. I find that you call to me. Irresistible Imogen. I want to make you laugh each day.”

“And each night, too?”

“Do, but give me the chance,” he murmured as he threaded his fingers up into her hair and cupped her throat. He kissed her with a bright hot promise of delight. His lips eager and searching, hard with need. And oh, such delicious madness, pressing her flesh to his.

He broke away with a start and steadied her on her feet. “Oh, Imogen, tonight, any night, I want to kiss you again.” He stepped away, his brown eyes bright, his countenance tight with control. Then he grinned. And winked at her. And spun off down the stairs.

Meet Cerise DeLand

Cerise DeLand loves to write about dashing heroes and the sassy women they adore.

But I bet you knew that!

Did you know that she’s known for her poetic elegance and accuracy of detail?

That she’s an award-winning author of more than 40 novels and was first published in 1991 by Kensington, then Pocket Books, later by St. Martin’s Press and independent presses?

That her books have been monthly selections of the Doubleday Book Club and the Mystery Guild? Right. And she’s won awards. Lots of them. Need details? Write to her. She’ll send you the list!

https://cerisedeland.com/contact/

 

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Flashback in WIP Wednesday

As a reader, how do you feel about flashbacks? Do you use them as an author? Please feel free to share them in the comments. I’m going to make quite heavy use of them in one of my current works in progress, when my hero (a former expeditionary officer and current Thames Police Surveyor) and my heroine (a former freedom fighter and current assassin) look back on their joint past. The first flashback is a dream. Afterwards, Matt realises that, when a fellow officer claimed to have been Ellie’s lover (and not the first) before Matt, he lied.

It was a dream, but it was also a memory, complete with sights, scents, sound, touch and taste.

The wind cut through the camp, howling between the tents, so that canvas flapped and poles creaked. The men on watch were out in it, poor buggers, and would likely still be on duty for the storm it presaged. The horses in their picket line would also have to take whatever nature chose to throw at them. Everyone else was hunkered down.

Except Matt. Matt was using the skills he’d learned in the slums and honed as an exploring officer in the motley group known as Lion’s Zoo because their major’s nickname was Lion. He was ghosting through the camp, silent and stealthy despite the lack of observers. 

There. His destination. A small tent sheltered in the l-shape formed by the major’s two tents—his quarters and his command station. 

Matt’s care increased. He was here by invitation, but didn’t fancy explaining himself to the major. Besides, he needed to be careful of Ellie’s reputation. 

Thanks to Major Ruthford’s influence, backed by his and Bear’s muscle and Chameleon’s lethal reputation, she had been accepted as a warrior and off-limits for dalliance. His pulse kicked up at the notion that she had chosen him to be her lover. No one could know, or even Lion’s Zoo could not keep her safe.

From outside her tent flap, he murmured her name, and then he was inside.

In the way of dreams, it skipped forward—past the conversation, the kissing, the cuddling. Past her shy admission that this was her first time. Past his labours to prepare her, efforts that brought her to her climax and over, and that raised his own arousal to a peak he’d never before known.

In the dream, he was entering her for the first time. She was slick with need, but tight and tense, and his control was held by a thread. “Relax,” he told her, and logic told him to get the pain over. Surge inside. Sheath himself fully in her welcoming warmth. Or was it his own self need that drove him? 

He didn’t know. Couldn’t think. Could only hold her close, kiss her with all the feelings he was afraid to acknowledge, and thrust through the resistance until he was buried balls deep, shuddering with the effort to hold still while she froze in pain and clenched against the invasion.

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Tea with a lover

Eleanor kept peeking at her lover over the rim of her tea cup.  Strictly speaking, she supposed, he was her betrothed. Certainly, he had stated his intention to marry her. It had been thrilling, at the time.

“I want to take you back to the townhouse you have rented, lock all the doors, take you to bed, and show you those young people at the farmhouse had no expertise in what they were doing. And after that, I want to marry you, make you my duchess, and spend the rest of my life loving you.”

She supposed, in accepting his invitation, she had replied, in a way. She would be his wife and his duchess soon. But meanwhile, she had taken a lover for the first time in her life, and she intended to enjoy the naughtiness of it.

“A penny for your thoughts, my love,” James said.

Eleanor felt the heat rise. She must be bright scarlet. She had been thinking about precisely how naughty James had been when he took her to bed not three hours ago.

She had been nervous, and no wonder. Though she had been a wife for thirty-six years and had given birth to two sons, both now adults, she knew next to nothing about bed sports. Just what she had picked up from the gossip of wives who had been more fortunate than she. Since Haverford appeared to have no trouble attracting women of every class, she had always wondered if some sort of a lack in her caused his perfunctory attention to bedding her, as if it was a tedious duty to be completed as quickly as possible.

“I don’t know what to do,” she had told James, shyly, as he helped her out of her clothing. He was kissing her back, going lower with each button opened, and there were a lot of buttons. But at her comment, he stopped. “Anything you wish, Eleanor,” he said.

“But I don’t know what to wish,” she objected, annoyed at herself for her own ignorance. She should have asked more questions when the conversation turned risque, instead of reminding those present that they were ladies by introducing another topic of conversation.

James turned her in his arms so that she was facing him. He had removed his outer clothing, and his shirt gaped at the neck. She stared at a patch of dark chest hair, wondering if it would be soft or wiry to the touch.

“Tell me what troubles you, my love. If you wish, we can wait until we are wed.”

For pique at his obtuseness, and to distract him, she almost reminded him that he had not proposed and she had not accepted. But that was hardly relevant to her dilemma. “I want us to be lovers, James. Now. Today, that is. But I have never done this before. Haverford never…” She took a deep breath and shut her eyes so that she did not have to seem him. That made it easier to explain. “In my marriage, I waited in bed. He visited. He pulled back the sheets, climbed on top, pushed himself into me, heaved a few times until he was done, and then left. I know there is more, and I trust you to show me, but James!” Her voice rose into a wail. “You have to tell me what to do!”

His voice was strained when he replied. “Give me a minute, beloved. I am fighting the urge to mount horse immediately, ride to Kent, fetch your husband out of his tomb, and kill him again.”

Her eyes flew open. Her lover’s face looked as if it had been hewn from granite, and his eyes blazed. His anger reassured her. James didn’t believe that her dismal experience of marital relations had been her fault. “A better revenge, I suspect, would be to thoroughly tup his wife.”

He laughed at that. “True. And show her the many ways that our bodies can give one another pleasure. Let me take you to Heaven, Eleanor. You don’t need to do a thing, but anything that occurs to you is good, too. Do whatever pleases you. And if anything I do does not please you, then tell me, and I will stop.”

It had worked. And it proved to be true that a man of his age had stamina and staying power. She smiled at her lover as she recalled her three occasions of pure bliss before he found his own completion.  “I was thinking that we should finish our tea then go back to bed and do it all again,” she said.

The proposition above is what James, the Duke of Winshire, said to Eleanor, the Duchess of Haverford, towards the end of Paradise At Last. Come on! It’s hardly a spoiler. You knew they were going to end up together, but what a journey they had to get there! Between the end of the last chapter of that book and the Epilogue that follows (a letter to her son who is on holiday in Europe), they clearly followed through on James’s suggestion, but I don’t show that in the book. So here is part of that scene. I left the bedroom door shut for the crucial part, because Eleanor is, after all, a lady and little shy about such things. Except, as it turns out, with James.

Paradise At Last is being published on March 15th, as part of Paradise Triptych, and is available on preorder.  Order now on https://books2read.com/Triptych

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Spotlight on Paradise Triptych

Long ago, when they were young, James and Eleanor were deeply in love. But their families tore them apart and they went on to marry other people.

Paradise Regained

James Winderfield yearns to end a long journey in the arms of his loving family. But his father’s agents offer the exiled prodigal forgiveness and a place in Society — if he abandons his foreign-born wife and children to return to England.
With her husband away, Mahzad faces revolt, invasion and betrayal in the mountain kingdom they built together. A queen without her king, she will not allow their dream and their family to be destroyed.
But the greatest threats to their marriage and their lives together is the widening distance between them. To win Paradise, they must face the truths in their hearts.

Paradise Lost

In 1812, the suitor Eleanor’s father rejected in favour of the Duke of Haverford has returned to England. He has been away for thirty-two years, and has returned a widower, and the father of ten children.
As the year passes, various events prompt Eleanor to turn to her box of keepsakes, which recall the momentous events of her life.
Paradise Lost is a series of vignettes grounded in 1812, in which Eleanor relives those memories.

Paradise At Last

Now Haverford is deceased nothing stands between the Duchess of Haverford and the Duke of Winshire. Except that James has not forgiven Eleanor for putting the dynasty of the Haverfords ahead of his niece’s happiness.
Can two star-crossed lovers find their happiness at last? Or will their own pride or the villain who wants to destroy the Haverfords stand in their way?

Paradise Triptych contains two novella and a set of memoirs: Paradise Regained (already published), Paradise Lost (distributed to my newsletter subscribers) and Paradise At Last (new for this collection).

Preorder now for 15th March: https://books2read.com/Triptych

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Calculating sea journeys

I was trying to work out the length of a sea journey from the borderlands with Scotland on the east coast to near Bristol in the west, and I came across a modern sailing distance calculator, which was just the thing. It allows you to plot your course, and then tells you the nautical miles. From there, it’s a simple (hah!) matter of working out the likely speed of your craft, taking into account the season (and therefore the weather and the prevailing winds and currents), the likelihood of pirates and storms, and any time in port along the way. And there you have it.

You’re welcome.

https://plainsailing.com/sailing-distance-calculator

See also my other posts on this perennial topic:
Average travelling times in the Regency
Travel times from port to port in the Mediterranean in the Regency

 

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Flaws and idiosyncrasies in WIP Wednesday

 

Characters can’t be perfect, or there isn’t any story, but the flaws and idiosyncrasies that make them human need to be believable, and possibly endearing. This week, I’m sharing a piece from one of my current works in progress, called either Catch the Wind or One Hour in Freedom, in which my hero and heroine are trying to enter a building without being seen. If you have a passage to share that shows a character’s flaws, please include it in the comments.

Matt’s eye caught movement on a rooftop overlooking the street they were on. “Stop!” he commanded, drawing her under the awning of a shop. She followed his gaze, then turned worried eyes to him.

“The building opposite is the one that belongs to my cousin.”

“Then we had better find out who those people are and what they are looking for,” Matt replied. “First, though, is there a back way into the warehouse?”

He knew she would know. Ellie would never have left her daughter in a place she had not thoroughly scouted. Undoubtedly, she knew every path in and out of all the buildings for streets around.

Her mischievous smile confirmed his assessment, though it didn’t touch the worry in her eyes. “Not exactly. Are you still uneasy about heights?”

She tugged on his hand, and he followed her back the way they had come, but only until they could no longer see the observers on the roof.

Across the road and down a little alley between buildings, so narrow that the top levels cut out the daylight. When someone came towards them, Matt had to drop back so they could pass single file, and even then, both they and the other person had to press themselves against the buildings.

Ellie stopped a few yards further on and watched the passerby. He was outlined against the light at the mouth of the alley and then gone. He hadn’t looked back.

As soon as he was out of sight, Ellie opened a door onto a narrow stairwell. Matt followed her inside with a sinking feeling. They were several buildings from Ellie’s cousin’s warehouse, and there were at least two alleys between them and their destination.

Sure enough, they came out on the roof, several floors higher than the observers across the road.

“I am not afraid of heights,” Matt declared. Heights scared him witless.

Ellie had pulled out a plank half buried in rubbish just behind the parapet. Oh, God.

“Help me with this?” she asked.

He took one end of the plank, then helped her push it out until it sat across the alley to the next building.

He thought he was maintaining a stolid expression, but perhaps not, for Ellie took a good look at him and said, “If you want to meet me in the street in thirty minutes, I can do this.”

“I’m coming with you,” Matt insisted, as his gut urged him to let her go on her own.

She didn’t argue, but leapt up on the parapet and ran lightly across the plank to the next roof.

Matt climbed up a little more slowly. Don’t look down. Don’t look down. It’s only two or three paces. You can do this.

Five steps, to be precise, though none of them were long enough to be called a pace. His feet felt like lead and his hips and knees didn’t want to bend. He reached the other roof and jumped from the parapet, his legs nearly buckling as they suddenly loosened. Sweat rolled from his brow and he was shaking all over. He braced himself. There was at least one more alley to cross.

“Next?” He asked, with a fair assumption of calm.

“Two more crosses,” Ellie told him. “The next building is lower, so we need to go down several floors.” She led the way into another stairwell, and then along a hall and through a huge echoing storage place that was currently empty. On the far side of the room, she stopped at a window that was just a rectangular hole in the wall, the glass and frame long gone.

“The alley is much narrower, so it is just a step from one window to another,” she said, and she took that step and dropped before his eyes. He darted forward in a futile effort to catch her, but she halted before he reached the hole.

There she was, perched on a narrow ledge, busy pushing up a sash window. She was right. Once the window was up, all he had to do was step across. It wasn’t even a long step, but every particle of his body was conscious of the drop below.

He took a deep breath and let it out, then took the step.

Two alleys crossed, and he had not shamed himself in front of Ellie. She knew, of course, that he had some difficulty. He hoped she had no idea how much. He hoped he could nerve himself to make the last cross.

 

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Tea with James

(Or brandy, to be precise. This is another excerpt post from Paradise at Last, which will be published as part of Paradise Triptych. It’s on preorder now and out in three weeks. In the excerpt, Eleanor has been sitting by Cherry’s bedside.)

When the clock struck the hour—three bongs—Ruth yawned and stood. “Go to bed, Your Grace. Get some sleep. Please send someone to sit with these two, and I will go to bed myself.”

Eleanor found a footman in the hall, waiting to take messages. She told him to find someone to replace Lady Asbury, and he said Lady Rosemary had asked to be fetched. He set off to knock on the lady’s door.

When he was out of sight, Eleanor realised that she had no idea which bedchamber she had been assigned. She set off for the guest wing on the other side of the stairwell, hoping a footman might be awake there to direct her. But as she crossed the upper landing, she saw light spilling from a doorway downstairs. Someone was in the drawing room.

Perhaps it was Rosemary. Eleanor should check, and if so, send her up to Ruth.

But when she entered the room, she found James sitting, staring into the embers, deep in thought. He must’ve heard her in the doorway, for he turned, stood, and took a step towards her. Whatever he saw on her face, he held out his arms and Eleanor ran into them and burst into tears.

***

James had no idea what kind of nonsense he spouted as he held Eleanor tenderly, supporting her weight with his arms around her, patting her back, letting the long hours of iron control loose in an abandonment of grief.

He had heard the reports, how she had taken charge at the scene of the accident. She did everything that needed to be done, except, perhaps, she could have thought to send someone after the assailant. All the reports he had received so far said the same thing—no one had a single clue that led anywhere.

He was thinking as a military commander. Eleanor’s focus was on Cherry, as it should have been—on getting her to help as quickly as possible. Then she spent fifteen hours supporting Cherry and Haverford through their ordeal—always calm, always encouraging, Ruth had said when he had met her on her way to bed.

The respect she had won from him since his return to England four years ago, that he thought lost, had returned full force.

Eventually, the stormy tears settled to a quieter weeping. He coaxed her to the chair by the fire and sat, settling her on his knee. He wiped her eyes with his handkerchief. She rested against him, totally spent, occasionally hiccupping another sob. “I have made your shoulder all wet,” she murmured.

“Not for the first time,” James assured her. “I have four daughters, remember.” Although it had been years since his had been their favoured shoulder when life was too cruel to bear. He had not held a woman in his arms for a long time, and this one was not his daughter. Tired as he was, his body reminded him that he desired her.

He shifted her slightly away from the evidence of his inappropriate response. “Would you like a port or a brandy? Something to help you sleep?”

She chuckled. “I will sleep as soon as my head hits the pillow. But I don’t know which room my things are in. I saw the light and came to see if it was someone who could direct me.” She reached and cupped his face with her hand, and he had to exert an iron control not to turn his mouth into her palm and kiss it. He would not seduce her while she was so emotionally raw.

And his mind raced on to a future time, when she was not so vulnerable. For he would seduce her. Yes, and marry her, too, if she would have him.

She was speaking again, and he must pay attention. “I did not intend to weep all over you. I apologise, James.”

“It was my privilege. You have carried your family today; I am proud to be the person you did not have to be strong for. I think, perhaps, you do not realise how amazing you are, for it is what you always do. It is I who should apologise to you, for my cruel words and my coldness after your mistake with Cherry and your son. I hope you will forgive me for being such a self-righteous idiot. My female relatives have pointed out that I am not so perfect myself that I have a right to demand perfection from my friends. Can we be friends again, Eleanor? Will you forgive me?”

The tears welled again but she smiled as she dashed at them with his handkerchief. “I am not usually such a watering pot,” she complained. “James, if you can forgive me, I can forgive you.

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Spotlight on A Time to Wed

On the run from the life that has let her down time and again, Jaime Abernathy escapes to Scotland – where she falls through time and into the arms of a man from centuries past.

For years, Jaime has yearned to find a place she can call home – and has been let down time and again. She finally followed her heart to Scotland, the home of her ancestors. When she falls in the woods near her ancestral family home, she awakens with a pair of strong arms wrapped around her – and is convinced that she has finally gone mad.

Son of the laird of the McDermonts, Alec is torn between avoiding his arranged marriage and keeping peace with a warring clan. Convinced treachery is on the horizon, he needs a plan – and when he finds Jaime alone in the woods, he senses a way out.

When Jaime agrees to a fake marriage, little does she know the depths of Highland clan politics she is falling into. Finding herself caught between Alec and his family, she must help keep the peace before she returns where she belongs… if only she can discover just where that is.

Series Title: To the Time of the Highlanders Book 1

Genre: Steamy Scottish Time Travel

Buy Link: https://mybook.to/ATimeToWed

Excerpt:

“How could the path just disappear?” she muttered in between gasps. 
There! From the edge, she saw the expanse of grass she had been searching for. 
As relief flooded through her, she started running again, this time unaware of where she was stepping. As she reached the place where she expected to be surrounded by lush grass, she found nothing more than a clearing in the woods.
 “Damn it!” she screamed to the trees. Why was nothing making sense?
 Jaime bent down to catch her breath, fighting back the tears of panic stinging her eyes. The light was almost gone now, but she didn’t want to stop yet. Striding fast, but not quite at a jog, Jaime moved through the woods searching for any sign of familiar surroundings. Something, anything that she had seen on the way into the forest.
 As she stepped forward, expecting to feel the soft earth beneath her feet, her body fell forward into the darkness. She shrieked in terror as she flailed her arms wildly around her. The wind rushed past her, and the sides of the dark hole began to move so quickly it looked like stars surrounding her. She fell faster and faster until her vision finally gave out and darkness overtook her.

Meet Ellie

Ellie has always loved reading, writing, and history. For many years she has written short stories, non-fiction, and has worked on her true love and passion — romance novels.

In every era there is the chance for romance, and Ellie enjoys exploring many different time periods, cultures, and geographic locations. No matter when or where, love can always prevail. She has a particular soft spot for the bad boys of history, and loves a strong heroine in her stories.

Ellie and her husband love nothing more than spending time at home with their children and Husky cross. Ellie can typically be found at the lake in the summer, pushing the stroller all year round, and, of course, with her computer in her lap or a book in hand.

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Witch persecutions, Satanist cabals, plagues of dancing and meowing nuns

The case of the meowing nuns is one of the more bizarre cases of mass hysteria recorded in history. In the 14th century, a nun in northern France began meowing like a cat. Within a week, the rest of the nuns had picked up the practice, and they would spend hours together meowing and purring, sometimes for hours. In the sixteenth century, hundreds of people in Strasburg, also in France, were subject to a dancing frenzy so prolonged that some died of heart attacks and strokes. In both cases, the official explanation was possession by the devil, and the sufferers were forced to pray until they were cured.

In the 17th century, over 19 counties in England organised militias to defenced against ‘Wild marauding Irishmen’, who they believed to be on their way, despite a complete lack of evidence (and Irishmen). That’s a pretty impressive misinformation campaign, and completely without the benefit of the Internet.

The persecution of witches in one place after another over a period of around 500 years is another example of how easily people believe something that isn’t true and not only twist the facts to fit but also see, hear, and otherwise sense things that didn’t happen. Likewise the rash of ghost and monster sightings of the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century, police in a number of countries spent weeks, even months, investigating non-existent crimes because of a whole group of witnesses sincerely believed they had seen them happen, or even been victims.

The Satanist ritual abuse scare of the 1980s and 90s was another widespread phenomenon that has been thoroughly exploded in investigation.

We are creatures of our environment, affected by the beliefs and practices of those near to us. If there is a lesson to learned from this, it is be careful who you listen to.

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Second chances on WIP Wednesday

Second-chance love is a great trope, whether with the original lover or with someone new. One of my current works-in-progress has my protagonists coming back together after an explosive parting years earlier. These two fell in love when they were adolescents running wild in the streets of London. They fell into bed when they met again in Spain during the war, and parted when each believes the other a traitor. Five more years on, he is a Surveyor for the Thames River Police, and she is an assassin sent to kill him.

If you have a second chance love on the go, please share an excerpt in the comments.

Rather than stay awake until the early hours of the morning, Matt had feinted going out to dinner, and his pursuer turned quarry had taken the bait. He’d subdue the man, find out what he wanted and who sent him, hand him over to the local constables, and still have an early night.

The light glinted on a pair of weapons in the intruder’s belt and suddenly Matt knew why he had been dogged all evening by the sense he was missing something obvious. He knew who was breaking into his room, even in dim light when all he could see was her back. Who else carried short daggers with three blades in a trident? His subconscious had seen past her male disguise. Probably even the disguise as the veiled widow.

Once, he would have said his heart would recognise her anywhere. Apparently, that was still true, which was why he had long since stopped listening to the unreliable organ.

She bent to his door, a lock pick at the ready.

“No need, Elektra,” he told her. “It is unlocked.”

He had to give her credit. She did not start, nor show any other outward sign of alarm. Perhaps she froze for a brief second, but nothing more. “Matthias. It has been a long time.”

“If you have come to finish what you started in Spain, I suggest you turn around and leave. And keep going.” He was annoyed at the bitterness in his voice. His feelings for Ellie—any feelings, including the hatred he had nurtured since her betrayal—were a weakness. She was a vicious she-wolf, and would tear into any weakness without mercy.

“I made a mistake in Spain,” Ellie told him. “I trusted the wrong person. I have regretted it ever since. I am not here to attack you, Matthias.”

An apology? Did she think that would make things right between them? “Whatever your errand, you have wasted your time. We have nothing to say to one another.” No point in letting fly with all the accusations he could mount against her.

After their last confrontation—after she had sworn she was only following orders and then disappeared into the night never to return—he had set out to prove her innocence of the accusations against her, only to find her treachery confirmed at every turn.

If he let go of the volcano of words stored up inside him, he knew he would not stop. It would be no wiser to begin a verbal battle than to let free the physical desire that had sprung to full life as soon as he had seen her. Hatred and lust could apparently coexist, but he would as soon touch a viper. “Leave, Elektra.”

Instead, she opened his bedchamber door and stepped inside.