I’m so pleased to have with me one of my critique partners, Christi Caldwell visiting today with her new book, Forever Betrothed, Never the Bride, which releases in January!!! She’ll be giving away a digital copy to one lucky commenter who leaves a comment saying she/he wants the book.
Let’s look at the cover first.
Then the blurb:
Hopeless romantic Lady Emmaline Fitzhugh is tired of sitting with the wallflowers, waiting for her betrothed to come to his senses and marry her. When Emmaline reads one too many reports of his scandalous liaisons in the gossip rags, she takes matters into her own hands.
War-torn veteran Lord Drake devotes himself to forgetting his days on the Peninsula through an endless round of meaningless associations. He no longer wants to feel anything, but Lady Emmaline is making it hard to maintain a state of numbness. With her zest for life, she awakens his passion and desire for love.
The one woman Drake has spent the better part of his life avoiding is now the only woman he needs, but he is no longer a man worthy of his Emmaline. It is up to her to show him the healing power of love.
And finally an excerpt.
A vulgar shout and frightened screams split the cacophony of mundane street sounds.
Lady Emmaline Rose Fitzhugh paused on the pavement and raised a hand to shield her eyes against the sun’s brightness. She frowned.
Lord Whitmore and Lord Cavenleigh.
Two of Society’s most dandified fops.
Lord Whitmore tugged hard at the reigns and leapt from the still moving conveyance. “You filthy cow!” He raged at the poor woman in the street.
Lord Cavenleigh, jumped down from his carriage and muttered a string of curses.
Emmaline’s skin heated at the rather descriptive obscenities they unleashed on the woman. Having an older brother, she’d heard her fair share of inappropriate words, but Cavenleigh’s litany was rather original even on that score.
As the street erupted with the panicked cries of young ladies, the peddler bowed her head. Stringy gray hair straggled into her eyes. “Oi’m sorry, m-my lord.”
Cavenleigh kicked a tomato at the old woman, and smattered her skirts with the ripened fruit.
Emmaline gasped.
Her maid, Grace, took her by the arm and attempted to steer her away. “Please, come away, my lady.”
Emmaline ignored her efforts and rushed into the fray. “Cease, immediately.” She stepped into the street just as the assailant launched another tomato at the peddler.
The projectile missed its intended mark and splattered onto the embroidered lace edging of Emmaline’s ivory silk skirts.
Hands squared on her hips, she glared at the two men. “How dare you?”
Whitmore, with his slickly oiled and very deliberately curled red hair, stepped around Emmaline to launch a barrage of insults at the quaking woman. He brandished his riding crop. “Sorry? You’re sorry? We could have been killed and for what? Your meaningless life and rotten vegetables?”
Emmaline threw herself in front of the aged peddler. “What manner of gentlemen would torment a defenseless woman?”
“No, my lady,” Grace cried.
A tall figure stepped into the fray and positioned himself between Grace and the two assailants.
Society knew the gentleman as the Marquess of Drake.
Emmaline knew him as her betrothed.
Lord Drake wrenched the whip from the cad’s fingers, cracked the instrument in half, and tossed the two pieces aside.
She swallowed hard. Lord Drake stood more than a head taller than her and possessed the kind of hardened masculine perfection Michelangelo would have ached to memorialize in stone. The harsh angles of his face bespoke power and commanded notice. With rugged cheeks, aquiline nose, and squared jaw, he conveyed raw vitality. The hint of a curl to his unfashionably long golden hair seemed suited to this real life David.
“You clearly have very little value for your life,” Drake was saying to the two fops who’d moments ago tormented the poor old woman.
Emmaline’s stare collided with Drake’s emerald eyes. The green irises pierced through her with heated intensity; robbed her of breath.
Get a hold of yourself, Em. He is just a man. A gloriously, stunning man—but that was neither here nor there.
She looked toward Whitmore and Cavenleigh. Cavenleigh had the good sense to stagger backwards and scurry from the incident like a rodent discovered by Cook in the kitchens.
About the author:
Christi Caldwell blames Judith McNaught’s “Whitney, My Love!” for luring her into the world of historical romance. While sitting in her graduate school apartment at the University of Connecticut, Christi decided to set aside her notes and pick up her laptop to try her hand at romance. She believes the most perfect heroes and heroines have imperfections, and she rather enjoys torturing them before crafting them a well deserved happily ever after!
Christi makes her home in southern Connecticut where she spends her time writing her own enchanting historical romances, teaching history, and being a full-time wife and mother!
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Ella Quinn ~ Author 