Last week we did heroes. Today we’ll show off our heroines. Please post the first page of your heroine’s POV from your latest release, a next release, or your WIP!!
Here is mine from Enticing Miss Eugénie Villaret.
July 1816, St. Thomas, Danish West Indies
Miss Eugénie Villaret de Joyeuse followed Gunna, an old black slave, down a narrow back street lined with long houses in Crown Prince’s Quarter. Her maid, Marisole, stood watch as Eugénie and the woman entered the building.
“He be here, miss.”
A baby, not older than one year, sat in the corner of the room playing with a rag doll. His only clothing was a clout, which, by the strong scent of urine, needed to be changed.
She and Gunna and the boy were the only occupants of the cramped, dark room. She crouched down next to the child. “What happened to his mother?”
“Sold.”
Naturally; why did she even bother to ask? It was cruel to separate a mother and child, but there was no law against it here.
“When?”
“A few days ago.” Gunna glanced at the child. “He be gone to a plantation soon.”
Even worse. He’d likely die before he was grown. Eugénie placed the small bag she carried on the floor. “Help me change him. He can’t go outside like this.”
A few minutes later the baby’s face and hands were clean, his linen was changed, and he wore a fresh gown.
She handed the woman two gold coins. “Thank you for calling me.” Gunna tried to give the money back, but Eugénie shook her head. “Use it to help someone else. Our fight is not finished until everyone is free.”
One tear made its way down the woman’s withered cheek. “You go now, before the wrong person sees you.”
Eugénie pulled a thin blanket around the babe’s head, thankful her wide-brimmed hat would help hide his face as well as hers, and stepped out into the bright sunshine.
“That’s her!” a male voice shouted.
She shoved the babe at Marisole. “Take him and run! I’ll catch up.”
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Now it’s your turn!! I can’t wait to read them!
Ella Quinn ~ Author 
“If the new earl doesn’t arrive soon, I shall throttle him!”
Lily, Lady Langley paced up and down in the conservatory behind Langley Abbey, alternately staring outward into the gloomy day and then inward at the slightly sickly-looking plants arranged around her path.
“You can hardly throttle him if he hasn’t arrived, dear,” said the elder of her two companions, not taking her eyes off the embroidery she was attempting. “In any case, we need him alive, so you may not throttle him.”
“Well, you know what I mean, Eleanor. Decisions need to be taken, and without his lordship I have no real power to do so. It’s becoming ever more urgent, and he is delaying everything while he enjoys himself in London.”
Her companion had heard these complaints many times before. “I am sure he will arrive any day now. The last correspondence you received from the lawyer said that he was on the point of selling out of the army, and that was ages ago, so he must be here soon to take up his inheritance. Do stop pacing up and down, it is unsettling. Amy is trying to read to us from that extremely unedifying Gothic novel of her mother’s, and she can’t do it with you distracting her.”
Thank you Ella for this opportunity! This is from my WIP, The Mistress of Blackstairs.
“Close the door if you’re staying, sir,” Charlie called from behind the counter with laughter in his words. “Or you’ll have us all laid up come advent.”
That simple observation seemed to break the spell that had fallen over the coffeehouse and as the door closed with a bang Georgie turned her attention back to the task in hand, spreading the cards momentarily on the table top with a flick of her wrist.
“Et bien,” she said to no one in particular, sweeping her palm over the deck to gather it again. As the men watched her hands, she in turn watched the newcomer, finding some small fascination in him simply because he was somebody new, something unfamiliar. As he approached the counter he glanced back over his shoulder and then turned away to address Charlie quietly, showing him a piece of paper that elicited a momentary shake of the older man’s bald head. At that the stranger looked back into the room and pushed his hand through his hair, clearly unhappy with the response.
There was something self conscious in that simple gesture and as Georgie watched she found herself wondering if he felt her gaze on him in the gloom, dropping her eyes immediately. A few moments passed and then he turned and looked around the room for an empty seat, eyes settling on the table a couple of feet from where she sat.
Years beneath the veil had robbed Georgie of any lingering suspicion that she could be seen and she lifted her gaze again to watch him negotiate the crowded tables without fear of comment. She saw that he watched her in return as he drew closer, obviously surprised to find himself in female company in such a place but his fascination with her was fleeting and as soon as his eyes settled on Georgie, they moved off again to roam the faces as though looking for someone.
You look so cold, Georgie thought suddenly, frowning beneath her veil; it’s too dark a night to be amongst strangers.
Thank you again, I can’t wait to read more!
Do visit me at http://www.madamegilflurt.com or http://www.twitter.com/madamegilflurt for all sorts of 18th century history bits and bobs!
Elizabeth sat in the parlor wrapped tight in her shawl, feeling cold and strangely hollow inside. His coming had been so unexpected. She had feared at first that it was Benjamin at her door until she remembered he was dead. Perhaps it was shock that left her feeling numb. She laid her head back and listened to the rain, softer now, pattering on the pane. The fire had died to coals, its merry crackle now nothing more than the occasional hiss and pop. She blew out the lamp, and as darkness engulfed her, her loneliness did, too. She turned her head as if she could see through wooden door and plaster wall to where he lay sleeping, and then she stood and started down the hall.
Mary Stubben was scared. Really scared. Tess Kelly didn’t need any special reporter skills to recognize it. Mary’s hands shook visibly as she spiraled her napkin into a thin tube. Twisted shreds of paper littered the small table in front of her.
Tess had done her usual quick character study, and nothing about Mary’s appearance, demeanor, or background even hinted that she was an attention-seeker. In fact, just the opposite. Her beige blouse and skirt did nothing to enhance her petite figure and the neutral shade leached the color from her fair skin. Her medium brown hair tucked under her chin like a brown football helmet, and her face was as clean of makeup as a five-year-old’s.
Despite her mousy appearance, this soft-spoken, nondescript secretary knew everything about what went on in the office of Chanter Construction, and she wanted to talk about her suspicions.
During their phone conversation the night before, Tess had noted the fear in Mary’s voice, so she chose a time when the downtown San Diego Café Curiosite’ would be less busy, so they could talk freely. Hoping to make Mary more comfortable, she’d selected a table to one side of the restaurant, hidden from direct view of anyone coming in the front door. It hadn’t helped. The woman was so shut down, so frightened, the charming atmosphere of the unique Café—its glass-fronted display cabinets full of antique jewelry and knickknacks, the eclectic, oddball furniture—was completely lost on her.
A waitress swung by their table, scooped up the shredded paper, asked if they needed anything else and dropped a fresh stack of napkins next to them.
Tess waited for her to wander away before asking, “Was Mr. Frye aware of how many bids they were competing against for the Ellison project?”
“Yes. Thirteen.” Mary stirred her cold coffee but didn’t attempt to drink any. “But he knew their stiffest competition was Hamilton Construction and the Brittain Development Corporation.”
“How did he plan to outbid them?” Tess asked.
“He couldn’t afford to undercut them. He could only propose an amount equal to Hamilton’s or Brittain’s. No one but the planning commission knew what the bids were, because they were sealed and confidential. But they did release the names of the corporations who were competing.”
New Release!! Building Ties
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Thank you, Ella! This is from my latest release, DEVIL’S RETURN:
“Have you heard?” Mrs. Major Nathaniel Ryder said at the breakfast table in her very fashionable London town house that morning. “Mr. Alexander Crenshaw has returned.”
Her husband raised his brows. “Indeed? I didn’t know you had an interest in adventurers, my dear.”
Mrs. Ryder giggled prettily. “Oh, there is no need to worry about a possible competitor, major. We practically grew up together. Didn’t you know? The Crenshaw lands neighbor on our father’s estate. Quite a wild boy, he was. The despair of his parents. A nice, good family, the Crenshaws. Though not,” she added quickly, lest there should be any doubt about it, “quite as grand as the Harringtons, of course. There was some bitterness about that, wasn’t there, Frances?”
“There might have been,” her sister murmured, her lips white, her hands firmly intertwined on her lap so nobody would notice how much they were shaking. Thank God, nobody had noticed the rattling of her teacup as Victoria had made her surprising announcement.
Hot tea had spilled over her fingers, but Fran had welcomed the sharp pain, a distraction from the even sharper pain in her heart.
That it could still sting, even after all this time…
Seven years, her contrary mind reminded her. Seven years and one month and nine days. It had been March, a wet and windy March, but so full of the promise of spring, so full of—
“He was always wild, that Alexander Crenshaw,” Victoria continued. “They called him the Devil even back then. I don’t think I shall know him when I meet him now. He is not the kind of acquaintance one would want to acknowledge in any way. Lord, if I think of the scrapes he got into! It was quite shocking!”
“All boys get into scrapes,” the major said mildly, as he cut into his bacon and eggs.
“Not such scrapes! And the worst thing,” Victoria went on, “the absolute worst thing was when he asked father for Frances’s hand in marriage. Can you imagine? The gall of that man! As if a Miss Harrington would ever marry into a family that was still in trade two generations ago! And a younger son at that! It was preposterous!”
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MTH7PC8/
Very nice! Here’s the 1st page of Evelyn’s POV in Great & Unfortunate Desires, part of the boxed set of historic romance novels, Tempted by His Touch!
London, 1869
Gaslights glowed faintly around the room, aided by the flames from the old-style candelabras, dancing across the white marble floor and the white walls decked with floral swags. Lady Evelyn Hurstine, daughter of Lord Bernard Hurstine, the Baron Brimridge, watched the swirling of silk gowns in pinks, yellows, blues, and pale greens joined with black cutaway jackets and trousers of the couples on the dance floor. Fanning herself with the lightweight paper and lace fan, she swallowed the lump in her throat, forcing herself not to run from the balcony.
This was a ball. A dance, nothing more. This mantra repeated in her head over and over again. But it wasn’t just a soiree of the usual sort. Lord Sexton’s Solstice Ball was one of the Season’s beginning crushes. Everyone in London Society wanted an invitation to it. One she prayed to Heaven above to avoid.
She breathed deeply but it wasn’t calming. Floral scents, mixed with wax, gas fumes, wool and wafts of heavy perfume filled the air. London in High Season, and she was here to find a husband. Again, to attract some gullible fool, or so her father had stated, for he’d no longer abide her past beau. No, she needed to be married. Her skin crawled at the thought…oh, there were plenty of men here looking for a wife, preferably of a good family, one that still offered a generous dowry.
Her hands clenched. Men and their preferences. Obedience, subservience, a hefty dowry and maidenhead intact.
Eyes shut, she remembered back before that night when her life drastically changed. It was just before his departure close to three years ago. Grifton Richard George Reynard, Viscount Stauton, stood before her, dressed in his uniform, his hat sat cockily on his head, and a lopsided grin spread across his face. She missed him so, like a deep stabbing pain. Three long years since he left, promising to return. No word from him in over a year. Her argument to her father that Grifton, or Richard as he liked to be called, had asked for her hand and she had agreed. Though Richard hadn’t formally spoken to her father, she assured Papa that would be rectified on his return.
She still waited as her father’s patience waned.
And in the interim, her fear grew that Richard might not come home…
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Thank you! 🙂
I just read this box set and really liked this book. Great plot.
From The Sound of Deception, available at Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Sound-Deception-Puget-Alive-Love-ebook/dp/B00LDXYO46
Morgan resisted the urge to breathe a sigh of relief. She’d managed to sink the eight ball before the rest of her solids thanks to Jenny’s distraction, so she popped the cue stick into the rack and found her way to the bar for a drink. It wasn’t a coincidence the spot she occupied was right next to where Bryan had been holding vigil for the last twenty minutes.
She spoke without looking at him, hoping the intentional avoidance didn’t look so obvious to their friends. “If you don’t stop looking at me like that, we’re going to have a lot of explaining to do.” Had they not been out with their friends, Morgan would have encouraged rather than deterred him. His heated gaze had her skin practically burning through her clothes and she was uncomfortably aroused.
“You make it hard for a guy not to look at you, Morg. Bend over in a short skirt and a low cut shirt. See how many men don’t look.”
“I dress like this all the time,” she said.
“And I look all the time. It’s never bothered you before.”
“Yeah, well, Jenny’s never commented on you staring before. If she’s making comments to me, you know she’s making them to Stacie. Then guess who’ll be invited to the party.”
“We could just tell him,” Bryan muttered. He’d wanted to since that first night. She both loved and hated the loyalty between him and Owen, but no way did she want her brother to know what was going on between her and Bryan.
“He’ll either drag us to the courthouse to get married or he’ll lock me away and do who knows what to you. I’m pretty sure you want to keep your little sailor fully attached.”
“Big sailor,” he corrected when she teased him about his size. There certainly wasn’t anything little about Bryan, but she didn’t need to stroke his ego. “This is the twenty-first century, we’re free to do whatever we want. Besides, I betrayed him. I’m willing to suffer the consequences.”
Morgan rolled her eyes at his noble gesture. Men were such idiots. “Are you willing to give up the fun we’re having? Because that’s what will happen if he finds out.”
“Morg,” he groaned, but not in that pleasurable way that she loved.
Oh Ella, that sounds so exciting already.
Here’s the first scene with Lady Sarah Steele from A Desperate Wager which releases on Wednesday.
“Pardon?” Sarah cried as her father stood in the doorway to her room.
“The Duke of Kirkbourne has agreed to marry you,” her father said petulantly, tugging at his cravat and thus proving that he knew he was in the wrong.
“Why would he? I have never set eyes on the man in my life.”
John Steele coughed. Once, twice and then it became a paroxysm of coughing. Goodness, she should not be shouting at him, no matter how ridiculous he was being.
He was not well. His skin was grey and waxen these days, and he had been fretting about who would care for her once the inevitable happened. But now he had somehow engineered for a duke to marry her. How could that have happened? Had it not occurred to her father to introduce them first, at the very least?
“I… umm, well that is to say… he is an honourable man, Sarah. I picked him out personally. He has been a bit overindulgent with the old sauce recently. A nasty business. He blames himself, of course, but marriage is just the thing to bring him out of the doldrums.”
“He drinks too much?” she asked, her brows furrowing as she wondered exactly what her father was getting her into. “How old is he?”
Her father waved his hand in a vague gesture. “Yes, he does drink but the man has his reasons. I do not know his age. A bit older than you, I suppose.”
A bit older. That could be anything between five and twenty and five and fifty. Perhaps she could look him up in Debrett’s.
But at that moment, she heard a knock on the front door.
“Oh, that will be Kirkbourne now. Wait here until I call for you. I shall meet with him in the drawing room rather than my study so you can join us.”
“Papa, does he know about my legs?”
“I assume so,” said her father as he left the room.
Hell. The man may not know he had agreed to wed a cripple. How dreadfully embarrassing. He may think her feeble-minded because her legs did not work. He could be a brute and her defences against him would be useless at best.
Well, she was just going to have to give him the opportunity to get out of the marriage. But then she would be left alone when her father died. And what would become of her? The earldom would revert to the crown and so would all entailed property. And there was not much besides the entailed estate.
She placed her crutches in front of her, and holding onto them with one hand, she used her other to lever herself out of her seat. Her room was on the ground floor. It had been her father’s study until her accident. He had moved to her old bedchamber and her bed was now underneath dusty, empty shelves. But it was better than footmen carrying her up and down the stairs all the time.
She sighed. She was not willing to wait for her father to call her until she learned her fate. She had better face the Duke of Kirkbourne and let him see exactly what he had agreed to marry.
I don’t have a link yet but you can add it to your goodreads TBR shelf https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23006645-a-desperate-wager or follow me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EmTaylorRegency or Tumblr: http://courtoftheprinceregent.tumblr.com/
This is Vic’s first POV in my Late Victorian sleuth series: The Troublesome Apprentice.
Vic Hamilton stood in the morning room, enduring the death grip of a young woman’s embrace as she wept dramatically over the death of Maddy. While Vic commiserated with the sentiment, there remained a great need to escape the young’s lady’s grasp before she realized Vic’s chest seemed a bit softer than most gentlemen’s. She had just lost her Aunt Maddy; Vic was not about to lose her manhood, as well.
In desperation, she sought Claire or Gregory to come to the rescue before the girl unmasked the young Mr. Hamilton as an impostor—a woman dressed as a man. When Gregory left the library and headed towards her, she sighed in relief.
As he neared, the pinched expression forewarned her something had not gone to his liking.
“Problem?” she asked in her naturally low voice.
“I’m afraid a situation requires your attention immediately, sir.” Gregory glared at the young girl with his intimidating stare until she released her captive. He clasped Vic’s arm and headed to the library.
“Do you think it wise to be embracing a lady?” Gregory hissed.
“I didn’t hug her. She had me in a stranglehold before I knew what she planned. Is something wrong other than that? You do seem out of sorts.”
“Me out of sorts? Never!” he said. “However, the man in the library is abominably rude. I trust you will not be picking up his manners along with his skills.”
“Aunt Maddy said he’s all bark and no bite.”
“Well, no reason to bark at me. I perform my job to perfection.”
“Always,” Vic agreed and squeezed Gregory’s arm before she entered the library.
“You coming, Lil?”
“On my way.” Lily Halderman’s hands trembled with exhaustion as she filled her cup from the big silver pot sitting on a table in the back of the Methodist church’s meeting room. She poured in a splash of cream and added too much sugar before sliding into the chair next to Maggie who’d already taken the seat closest to the leader’s chair. “Made it.”
Maggie’s hazel eyes filled with compassion. “Long day?”
“Plowing.” Lily shrugged one aching shoulder. “You know how that goes. Sunup to sundown on a tractor.”
“I bet. I remember putting in our trees all too well. And it would have been harder than hell without Stan.” Maggie’s chin trembled. “I miss him so much.”
Nodding in understanding, Lily grasped her friend’s hand, noticing the how the purplish age spots on the older woman’s skin seemed to have worsened. Widowhood was hard on Maggie. She’d expected Stan to be around for their old age; enjoying retirement after all their years of growing apples on their farm.
“Good evening.” Taralyn, the group leader, moved to her seat. “How is everyone tonight?”
“Okay,” Lily murmured automatically. The same answer she’d given for months. Once the initial shock of Jeff’s death had worn off she’d answered the same way pretty much any time anyone bothered to ask how she was holding up. Okay. Or all right. The simplest, safest answers to a question that would take forever to answer.
“Terrible,” Bridgit, one of their oldest members, said.
Taralyn’s voice filled with sympathy. “Hard week?”
Lily let her mind wander as Brigit launched into how lost she felt without her teenage son who had been killed in a drunk driving accident. The incident had been four years ago. Why wasn’t she doing better by now? Lily immediately banished that thought. Greif was grief was grief. It didn’t matter if you’d lost someone at ten, thirty-five, or ninety, it still hurt like hell. Although Brigit had longer to process her feelings than Lily, the woman was caught in her pain, seemingly unable to move forward.
http://www.amazon.com/Lilys-Summer-Cowboy-DAnn-Lindun-ebook/dp/B00L6J9S20/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1404052260&sr=1-1&keywords=lily%27s+summer+cowboy
I just read this scene from your book last night, Ella. It was wonderful! I am so excited to keep reading. 🙂
This scene is from Royal Regard, to be released Nov. 26.
Teeth clenched against the wrong thing she was sure to say, shoulders cramped and stomach churning, Baroness Humphrey smoothed down the tiers of ruffles on her borrowed dress, tapping her toe out of rhythm to the music. The stays she wore so infrequently, but would never abandon in London, dug into her waist like a fork into flummery.
Bella tried not to stare into the looking glasses lining the Almack’s ballroom, hoping to appear insouciant, well above silly concerns of wardrobe and hairstyle, ignoring the sight of her lips trembling. However, this only left her to look at the overwhelming crowd of vexatious people, not just their harmless reflections.
The music had already started for a quadrille, but she paid little attention to the dancers taking their places, distracted by the bright candlelight mirrored in the gilt trim along every wall. She stopped her toe drumming against the parquet floor; given her situation, there was no prospect of dancing, so it made no sense to engage even one foot with the music. Of course, the only other activity to engage in was gossip, from which she would be excluded by virtue of being the primary topic.
She patted at her chignon, searching out loose tendrils of her stick-straight hair. Surely, it would be falling out of the tight ringlets by now, a style that made her face look ten pounds heavier and had no chance of surviving the heat of the crowds, no matter how chilly the early spring evening outside the door. As suspected, loose strands were already sticking to the back of her neck above her nearly bared shoulders, and she grimaced, envisioning the sweaty mess in plain view of anyone behind her.
Her eyes sought out her husband in the crush of bodies, neck craning, hands fluttering, nose wrinkled against too many colognes barely masking the smell of too many people. Instead, her cousin Charlotte, the Marchioness of Firthley, came from behind and snapped her fan across Bella’s arm.
“You look like you have a palsy, Bella. Stop twitching. They will be along in a minute or two. Are you so dependent on Myron you can’t be separated?”
“I am not.” She reined in her movements, but her eyes didn’t settle. “I just…”
Smiling more gently, hand patting the mark her fan had left on Bella’s forearm, Charlotte reminded her cousin, “Even after fifteen years, they are the same people they were when you left, and you are now a baroness with a goodly fortune and a husband distinguished in the diplomatic service. You may find you are made a countess before long. Alexander says four-to-one at White’s.”
Thanks for the opportunity, Ella. This is from LADY ELINOR’S WICKED ADVENTURE, coming out on November 4 from Sourcebooks:
Carruthers had timed it quite neatly, she thought. As the music ended and he twirled her into the final spin, they came to a halt just before the terrace doors. These were standing open, letting in the scent of roses on the breeze of the soft June evening.
“It is rather warm in here, Lady Elinor, is it not?” he said. “Would you care for a turn on the terrace?”
Before she could answer, a strong hand clasped her arm just above the elbow. “Lady Elinor, your mother wants you.” When she turned to object to this high-handed treatment, she found herself staring up at the all-too-familiar scowl of Lord Tunbury. “Harry…” she started to protest.
“If Lady Elinor wishes to return to her parents, I will be delighted to escort her.” Carruthers spoke frostily.
“Lady Penworth requested that I find her daughter.” Harry’s even icier tone indicated that there was nothing more to be said on the subject.
Lady Elinor looked back and forth between them and wanted to laugh. Carruthers was tall, dark, and handsome, or at least decorative, with a pretty bow-shaped mouth. Harry, equally tall, had broad shoulders and a powerful build. His square face was pleasant rather than handsome, his middling brown hair tended to flop over his middling brown eyes, and his wide mouth was more often than not stretched into a broad smile. Not just now, of course.
One would say the two men were not much alike, but at the moment they wore identical scowls. They did not actually bare their teeth and growl, but they were not far off. She could not manage to feel guilty about enjoying the sight. It was too delightful.
Carruthers stopped glaring at Harry long enough to look at her. He may have stopped scowling, but he was not smiling. He was stiff with anger. “Lady Elinor?” He offered his arm.
Harry’s grip on her arm tightened and he pulled her back a step. His grip was growing painful, and she would have protested, but she feared it might create a scene not of her own designing, so she smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Carruthers, but if my mother sent Lord Tunbury, perhaps I should accept his escort.”
Carruthers bowed stiffly and sent one more glare at the intruder before he left . That left her free to turn furiously on Harry. “There is no way on earth my mother sent you to fetch me. What do you think you are doing?”
There are some great stories here!
I’m adding the opening from “Bella’s Band”, coming September 3, 2014 from Soul Mate Publishing:
London, 1817
On these London streets, a lady with lads in her keeping needed the sharp eye of a military scout.
The damp December greyness seeped through thick woolens, sent chills into the skin, and settled over dangers. Yet Annabelle Harris could see very well, and she had spotted the gentleman on horseback a block earlier. That he’d kept pace with them, his eyes burning her back, proved the need for her watchfulness.
“That swell, Mum.” The finger poking out at the man had a coating of grime as thick as the boy’s accent. She’d fetched Thomas from chasing the cat in her small garden and dusted him off. Somehow he’d managed to get dirty again.
And lose his gloves. Annabelle captured the chilled hand. “We do not point, Thomas, especially with a finger this dirty. And how cold you are.”
“Aye, but he’s starin’. An’ I’m too old for hand-holdin’.”
“Nevertheless.”
Curse her stubbornness. She should have taken Rosalyn’s offer of transport. “Come now. Her ladyship is expecting us. Robby?” She gripped the smaller boy’s hand. “My two handsome lads, let’s walk a little faster.” Away from the curious gentleman.
This world was not always kind to handsome boys. This world needed climbing boys, and beggars, and pickpockets, and . . . and others.
She’d learned about the others from a girl who’d handed over her brother, a boy no older than five, before their so-called father could sell him to work in a den far fouler than any conventional brothel.
Annabelle had not wanted to believe such places existed. Mr. Quarley, the vicar who came to tend their abandoned sheep—and chase her friend Rosalyn Montagu—had listened, shocked, and, without confirming or denying, had bidden Annabelle to speak no more of it.
The memory still made her bristle. She was no addlepated woman, no weak-kneed silly young lass who fainted at the mention of body parts.
The clop-clop of that horse brought her back to the present. A fine handsome animal it was, like the man riding it, she’d seen that quickly enough. His coat and cravat and hat spoke of privilege. The wrinkles in the fabric, the flop of the neckcloth, and the skew of that fine beaver at this hour? Ah, he’d been up all night drinking, gambling, and whoring. A very fine gentleman, indeed.
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Thanks, Ella!
Here’s mine: The Guardian – short story Historical romance with a paranormal twist – one of 5 different stories written by 5 different authors – currently #FREE for a limited time only.
Her voice stuck in her throat. “I— there’s an extra room you may use.”
He dipped his head in a bow and her knees weakened.
“It’s just for the night. You’ll be gone by tomorrow.” She stopped past him and outside. She could not allow him to get too close to her. Already, tears threatened to make her weep like a young child when their father goes off to war knowing, somehow that they will never return.
Shielding her eyes, she glanced into the sky. Black clouds made the hour seem later than it was. Kaden came towards her, then rain fell so hard and fast they were soaked in moments.
She was too overjoyed to run inside the cabin. Instead, she shouted and laughed. Kaden swept her up into his arms and swung her around. Her black hair loosened from the movement and the rain.
When they stopped spinning, both of their clothes clung to them. His muscled chest, arms, and legs made her want to run her hands over them. To remove the barriers between them. Maybe just once. A night for her to cherish.
I know his lovemaking will be better than even his cooking. She flushed with the thought, wondering if she would be brave or stupid enough to go through with it.
Their breath came in gasps and she could not tear her eyes from his full lips when his arms felt so right around her.
He dipped his head and brushed his lips against hers, sending shivers of desire coursing through her.
“I-I cannot.” She must not yield to her passions. She would be no man’s property. Never again! Before her body and heart betrayed her, she tore from him and ran inside the cabin. Thankfully, the rain helped mask her tears.
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