Introduction

The would-be Earl of Ashwood sets his romantic sights on a forbidden prize in the enchanting third novel from Julia London's addictively sexy new series.

The surprising news that dashing steward Harrison Tolly, illegitimate son of the Earl of Ashwood, is the rightful heir to his father's estate comes at a most inopportune time. With a wedding on the horizon and a baby on the way, a new life of privilege and prestige would be a blessing but for one problem: his heart belongs to another woman.

Harrison keeps his desires for his employer's wife, Lady Olivia Carey, so hidden that even she does not know of his devotion. Her callous husband, Marquis Carey, went into a rampage after Olivia's troublesome younger sister returned from her tour of Spain pregnant, and Harrison impulsively stepped in to save the entire family from scandal. Now, like Olivia, he is trapped in a loveless arrangement. When a tragic accident claims the marquis? life soon thereafter, can Harrison seize his chance and cast aside one sister for another? Or will doing so expose the Carey family's darkest secret?and ruin his only chance to win Olivia's heart?

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Excerpt

Excerpt:

On a warm spring day in Regency England:

Harrison Tolly rode down the forest path that led to the river road, and as he emerged from the forest, he came upon Lady Carey in the grassy clearing beside the river.

She was standing before an easel. She wore a wide-brimmed hat and held a palette in one hand. She was dressed in a white muslin gown and a rose-colored spencer. A footman was sitting on a rock on the river’s edge, a fishing pole in his hand.

Harrison trotted up to her. Lady Carey turned her head; when she saw it was him, she smiled beatifically.

That smile drifted through Harrison like stardust. “Mr. Tolly!” she said, her voice full of delight. “What a pleasant surprise! You are just the person to give me an honest opinion of my painting. Will you have a look?”

“I wasn’t aware that you were an artist,” he said as he hopped down from the gelding.

“No?” she asked, smiling coyly.

He walked over to have a look at her handiwork. He had to cock his head to one side and squint a little, but after careful consideration, he determined that the painting was of a goat eating daisies in a field. And the goat had a man’s face. A vaguely familiar face at that. It rather looked like the marquis.

“What do you think?” she asked brightly. “Do you like it?”

“Well…it is very colorful,” he said.

“Colorful! How kind.”

He gave her a sidelong look; she had a playful smile on her lips as she casually studied her work. “My skill at interpreting works of art is lacking,” he said, “but if I am not mistaken, you have painted a goat with a familiar face.”

Her smile brightened. “I have, indeed! Are you impressed with my skill?”

“Ah…” He looked at the painting again. “I am impressed. But not with your skill.”

Lady Carey burst out laughing—a deep laugh that made her eyes shine. “I share your opinion,” she said laughingly, and touched her brush to the goat’s tail. “However, my husband believes ladies of leisure should paint. And therefore, I paint,” she said, and dabbed at the palette. “I have an affinity for wildlife,” she continued, and began to touch up the daisies that were sticking out of the goat’s mouth. “You know, horses and birds. Goats. Even donkeys.” She winked.

Harrison couldn’t help his chuckle. “You are perhaps the finest painter of goats I have ever seen.”

Lady Carey laughed warmly.

“Is your sister about?” he asked, looking around them as Lady Carey added a few more daisies to her field.

“Unfortunately, no. Alexa is a bit under the weather.”

Harrison thought that Miss Hastings was a bit of a problem. Certainly the marquis did not care for her. “She’s a light skirt, that one,” he’d said one day for no apparent reason. “A disgusting lack of decorum.” Harrison had no idea why the marquis felt that way—he’d never heard any such thing about Miss Hastings. He rather thought the marquis simply did not care for her.

“I am distressed to hear it,” he said.

She smiled prettily at him, but her eye caught something behind him. “Is that a new horse, Mr. Tolly?” she asked, leaning to her right to see around him.

“In a manner of speaking,” Harrison said. “My friend, Mr. Dembly, would like me to purchase him. He does not care that I have no need for a horse.”

“Haven’t you? For that one looks to be quite fine. He looks as if he would be a good runner.”

Harrison looked at the horse, then at her. “Would you care to ride him?”

She gasped with delight. “May I?” she asked, already putting her palette aside.

“Of course you may. However, the horse is not saddled properly—”

“Oh, that’s quite all right,” she said with a casual flick of her wrist. “I shall make do.”

She moved around to the side of the gelding, and Harrison cupped his hands for her. She slipped her foot into his fingers and leapt up as he lifted her. She landed squarely in the saddle and hooked her knee around the pommel. Her other leg was exposed from the calf down, and though she wore white stockings, Harrison could see the line of her shapely leg.

“Oh, he is indeed a fine horse!” she said, and leaned forward to stroke its neck. “And strong.”

Her breasts strained against her spencer jacket as she reached for the horse, and Harrison unwisely imagined those breasts straining against him.

“Perhaps you might give him a bit of encouragement?” she asked.

Harrison obliged her by slapping the horse’s rump. The horse started off in a slow canter. Lady Carey rode him expertly, leading him to trot around the clearing, making a big circle around her easel and Harrison, who stood with his legs braced apart, his hands on his hips. Her bonnet toppled off her head, but her footman was quick to retrieve it.

“Do you recall the race between Mr. Williams and Mr. Janus a few years ago?” she called out to Harrison as she trotted by.

As if Harrison could forget any moment he’d spent in her company. On that particular day she’d convinced him, with her winsome smile and charming laugh, to make a few wagers on her behalf. “My husband will not allow any wagering, you know,” she’d whispered. “He thinks it quite unladylike. What do you think, Mr. Tolly?”

“I think you are mad to wager on Mr. Janus,” he’d said low. “He is a stone heavier than Mr. Williams and cannot possibly out run him on that steed.”

“I have faith in Mr. Janus,” she’d insisted pertly, and had pressed some coins into his palm. “Would you care to wager with me?”

Harrison would do anything to prolong his time in her company. “What do you have mind, madam?”

“If Mr. Janus wins by a length, you shall give me ten pounds.”

“Ten pounds?” he’d said, cocking one brow high with amusement.

“I beg your pardon, is that too rich for you?” she’d teased him.

“I think it is too confident for you.”

“So you say,” she’d said coyly. “If Mr. Janus wins by less than a length, I shall give you ten pounds.”

“And what if,” he’d said, his eyes locked on her sparkling blue eyes, “he doesn’t win at all?”

She’d shrugged. “Then I shall give you twenty pounds.”

He’d laughed. But he’d taken her bet.

Mr. Janus had won handily that afternoon, putting fourteen pounds in Lady Carey’s pocket. But he won only by a nose, which meant that she’d lost to Harrison. But that didn’t dampen her triumphant spirit.

Nothing did until the marquis discovered that the only person to wager on Janus and win was his wife. He’d been quite angry about her “impudence” and had forced her to give him her earnings.

“You are silent, Mr. Tolly,” Lady Carey said as she trotted past him now. “Surely you’ve not forgotten?”

“You know very well that I recall it,” he said. “Particularly how pleased you were with yourself.”

She laughed. “Naturally! I proved that I was the only one amongst us who could read a horse.” She kicked the gelding in the flank and sent it into a gallop.

Harrison watched as her pale blonde hair was jostled from its pins and began to fly out behind her. When she rounded the end of the clearing and galloped back, the blond tresses had come wholly undone and drifted down around her shoulders.

“I owe you ten pounds,” she said.

“I scarcely remember it,” he said.

“I do not believe you. I think you are a dear friend and are gamely trying to conceal the fact that I have failed to honor my wager.”

A dear friend. Harrison’s chest tingled a little with that admission. “It was a friendly wager,” he said. “May I help you down?”

“Please.” She reached out to him; he caught her about the waist as she braced her hands against his shoulders and lifted her down. Her skirts and legs brushed against his, her hair drifted between them. God, how Harrison longed to touch that hair, to feel it between his thumb and fingers. He set her on the ground and she looked up at him with affection in her eyes.

It was affection, was it not? His mind was not playing tricks? Whatever he saw there, it made his blood rush.

Lady Carey’s hands slid from his shoulders and she smilingly patted his chest. “I should finish my painting so that I may show my husband I have done as a lady ought.” She stepped away from him, and it felt to Harrison as if a draft of cold spring air filled her place.

“You will help me with the seating for the supper party, will you not, Mr. Tolly?” she called over her shoulder as she retrieved her palette.

“That depends,” he said, and grinned when she turned back to him. “Will Mr. Wallaby be in attendance?”

“Even worse,” she said, as Harrison watched her gracefully re-pin her hair. “Lady Ames will be joining us.”

“Good God,” he said, and clapped a playful hand over his heart. “I shall don my heaviest armor.”

Lady Carey’s laughter filled the air. “You always make me laugh so,” she said as she accepted her hat from the footman. “Good afternoon, Mr. Tolly.”

“Good afternoon,” Harrison said.

She turned back to her painting, her face once gain obscured. He swung up on the horse and turned it about, trotting off in the direction of Mr. Fortaine’s cottage, his body a mass of jumbled nerves and conflicting emotions. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. Lady Carey suffered from an emotionally abusive relationship, yet she refused to leave it to be with the man she loved. Instead, she pushed her sister into his arms. Did she do the right thing? Is there another way she might have handled that complex and emotional situation?

2. In Regency England, men held all the power. Harrison Tolly’s mother, Lady Carey’s mother, and Lady Carey herself had only their bodies and the trinkets men had given them as tools of power for themselves. How has the balance of power shifted for women today? In what ways has the balance remained the same?

3. If Alexa Hastings’ secret was revealed, the damage to her reputation would be so great that she would be shunned from society and would extend to her unborn child. Alexa is presented with an option that will save the reputation of her child, but will compromise who she is. What was the correct thing for her to do?

Weblinks

»	Check out the Publisher's book info
»	Visit author Julia London's web site
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