These men are dark, bold, and brave. And there is only one woman who can bring them to their knees...
Love takes no prisoners
Piers Gedrick Atherton, the Duke of Redmayne, is seeking revenge and the first step is securing a bride. Winning a lady's hand is not so easy, however, for a man known as the Terror of Torcliff. Then, Alexandra enters his life like a bolt of lightning. When she proposes marriage, Piers knows that, like him, trouble haunts her footsteps. But her gentleness, sharp wit, independent nature, and incredible beauty awakens every fierce desire within him. He will do whatever it takes to keep her safe in his arms.
Release date:
August 27, 2019
Publisher:
St. Martin's Publishing Group
Print pages:
464
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Alexandra Lane had spent the entire train ride from London to Devonshire meticulously pondering those fourteen words for two separate reasons.
The first, she had been unable to stop fretting for Francesca, who tended to give more than the appropriate amount of context. The terse, vague note Alexandra now held was more of a warning than the message contained therein.
The second, she could no longer afford a first-class, private railcar, and had, for the last several tense hours, been forced to share her vestibule face-to-face with a rough-featured, stocky man with shoulders made for labor.
Alone.
He’d attempted polite conversation at first, which she’d rebuffed with equal civility by feigning interest in her correspondence. By now, however, they were both painfully aware she needn’t take four stops to read two letters.
It was terribly rude, she knew. Her carpetbag remained clutched in her fist the entire time, except when her hand would wander into its depths to palm the tiny pistol she always carried. The sounds of the other passengers in adjoining vestibules didn’t make her feel safer, per se.
But she knew they would hear her scream, and that provided some relief.
For a woman who’d spent a great deal of the last ten years in the company of men, she’d thought these painful moments would have relented by now.
Alas, she’d become a mistress of manipulating a situation so, even if she had to endure the company of men without a female companion, there would be more than one man. In the circles she tended to frequent, people behaved when in company.
It had worked thus far.
Alexandra braced herself against the slowing of the train, breathing a silent prayer of relief that they’d finally arrived. She’d been terrified that if she’d glanced up once, she’d be forced into conversation with her unwanted companion.
Rain wept against the coach window, and the shadows of the tears painted macabre little serpents on the conflicting documents in her hands. One, a wedding invitation. The other, Francesca’s alarming note.
A month past, she’d have wagered her entire inheritance against Francesca Cavendish’s being the first of the Red Rogues to capitulate to the bonds of matrimony.
A month past, she’d assumed she’d had an inheritance to wager.
Their little society had seemed destined to live up to the promise they’d once made as young, disenchanted girls to never marry.
Until the invitation to an engagement masquerade—given by the Duke of Redmayne—had arrived the same day of her friend’s cryptic and startling note.
The invitation had been equally as ambiguous, stating that the future duchess of Redmayne would be unveiled, as it were, at the ball. Included in Alexandra’s particular envelope was a request for her to attend as a bridesmaid.
The subsequent plea for help from Francesca—Frank—had arrived in a tiny envelope with the Red Rogue seal they’d commissioned some years prior.
Alexandra hadn’t even known Francesca had returned from her romps about the Continent. Last she’d heard, the countess had been in Morocco, doing reconnaissance of some sort. Nothing in her letters had mentioned a suitor. Not a serious one, in any case. Certainly not a duke.
Francesca had a talent for mischief and a tendency to interpret danger as mere adventure.
So, what could possibly frighten her fearless friend?
Marriage, obviously, Alexandra thought with a smirk. A risky venture, to be sure.
And dangerous.
Alexandra smoothed her traveling skirts, whose smart tweed became more worn and forlorn with each passing year.
She should have taken better care of it. She shouldn’t have taken for granted that her father would always be able to buy her another.
The train trundled up to the Maynemouth platform with a series of lurches, sending the man’s briefcase tumbling from the seat beside him. It landed at her feet before sliding half beneath her skirts.
“Sorry, madam,” he said in heavily accented Continental English as he leaned toward her lap, reaching for the briefcase below her. “I’ll just—”
Alexandra surged to her feet, staggering toward the vestibule door. She burst into the narrow hall, stabilizing herself against the dark wood wainscoting as she passed the more judicious travelers who waited until the train came to a complete stop before disembarking.
Could she have acted more absurd?
Yes. And she had, a multitude of times.
She clung to a rail by the door as the train came to a halt, and leaped into the Devon seastorm the moment the porter opened the door.
She’d forget this interaction, she reminded herself as she sought cover beneath the overhang to wait for her luggage. She always did. Embarrassment was nothing compared to safety.
A half hour later, Alexandra nervously chewed her lip as she stood on the platform, lost in a billow of engine steam and sea mist, ready to debark to the infamous Castle Redmayne.
If Cecelia ever arrived.
The coach was supposed to have met her a quarter hour past, but Alexandra might have known her sweet, disorderly friend would be tardy. As good as the woman was with numbers, a concept as simple as time confounded her. Thus, Cecelia forever functioned a half hour behind the rest of the world.
“You got a chaperone, miss?” The endearingly young, knobby-jointed porter with what appeared to be a penciled-on mustache eyed her impertinently. Smythe, his gleaming name badge christened him. “I got to be about me work, see, but I don’t like to be leaving you alone. We’re running like rats wot with all the toffs arriving for the grand wedding. And … no offense meant, miss, but me mother’s sick, and I’d rather not lose out on the gratuity by standing still.”
By standing next to an impoverished spinster, he didn’t say.
He didn’t have to.
“Of course.” Alexandra didn’t bother to explain that she happened to be one of the bridesmaids in the aforementioned grand wedding. Nor did she inform him of her status as one of the “toffs” to which he referred. It would have been well within her privilege as the daughter of an earl to demand he address her as “my lady” rather than “miss.”
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