Excerpt & Giveaway: Lady Windermere's Lover by Miranda Neville
Lady
Windermere’s Lover
The
Wild Quartet Series Book Three
By:
Miranda Neville
Releasing
June 24th,
2014
Blurb
Damian,
Earl of Windermere, rues the day he drunkenly gambled away his
family's estate and was forced into marriage to reclaim it. Now,
after hiding out from his new bride for a year, Damian is finally
called home, only to discover that his modest bride has become an
alluring beauty—and rumor has it that she's taken a lover. Damian
vows to keep his wife from straying again, but to do so he must
seduce her—and protect his heart from falling for the wife he never
knew he wanted.
Cynthia never aspired to be the subject of scandal. But with her husband off gallivanting across Persia, what was a lady to do? Flirting shamelessly with his former best friend seemed like the perfect revenge . . . except no matter how little Damian deserves her loyalty, Cynthia can't bring herself to be unfaithful. But now that the scoundrel has returned home, Cynthia isn't about to forgive his absence so easily—even if his presence stirs something in her she'd long thought dead and buried. He might win her heart . . . if he can earn her forgiveness!
Cynthia never aspired to be the subject of scandal. But with her husband off gallivanting across Persia, what was a lady to do? Flirting shamelessly with his former best friend seemed like the perfect revenge . . . except no matter how little Damian deserves her loyalty, Cynthia can't bring herself to be unfaithful. But now that the scoundrel has returned home, Cynthia isn't about to forgive his absence so easily—even if his presence stirs something in her she'd long thought dead and buried. He might win her heart . . . if he can earn her forgiveness!
Excerpt
Attending
the theater with the Duke of Denford was not the wisest way for
Cynthia to spend her first evening back in London. He’d escorted
her before, to plays, the opera, and less decorous events like masked
balls at the Pantheon. But this was the first time she’d been out
with him when she, Denford, and her husband were in the same country.
Receiving
word from the Foreign Office of Windermere’s imminent arrival from
Persia, she’d pressed the horses over winter roads from Wiltshire,
thinking she’d find him already at home in Hanover Square.
Her
stomach fluttering, she had climbed down from her chaise and up the
steps into the marble hall. She found all serene: no excitement at
the presence of the master of the house, no evidence of luggage from
abroad. The Earl of Windermere wasn’t at Windermere House. The
servants hadn’t seen him or even heard of their master’s return.
The surge of optimism that she’d maintained for two days on the
road dissipated like heat through a leaking roof. There and then,
Cynthia determined to deny that foolish hope had ever existed.
There
was no reason to be disappointed, she told herself firmly.
Disappointment suggested the existence of expectations. Cynthia would
be a fool to expect anything from Windermere. He hadn’t
disappointed her, merely let her down. During just over a year of
marriage, most of it spent apart, Damian Lewis, Earl of Windermere,
had been consistent in that regard.
Lord
Windermere might not have been present to greet his faithful wife,
but the devil next door was. Not half an hour after her arrival from
the country, the Duke of Denford stepped along the pavement from his
house and welcomed her home as Windermere had failed to do. Despite
at least two very good reasons why she should refuse, Cynthia was now
dressed in her favorite evening gown, sitting in a box at Drury Lane
with temptation incarnate.
“I
didn’t expect to see so many people in town just before Christmas.”
She leaned over the rail, peering at the sweep of seats opposite,
five tiers of them, thronged with increasingly well-dressed patrons,
ranging from clerks and servants in the highest gallery under the
roof, down to the expensive and fashionable boxes nearest the pit.
She and Denford occupied one of the latter, the sidewalls of which
offered an illusion of privacy, despite being open to the gaze of the
world.
“What
an excellent box, Julian. You know I like being near the stage.”
“You
also like being invisible to most of the gossiping tabbies.” He
knew as well as she that her flouting of convention was largely
bravado. Fewer than half the occupants of the vast horseshoe-shaped
theater could see the inhabitants of the front boxes.
“I
don’t even know why I worry about being discreet. I’m not
well-known in town.” She waved her hand to indicate the opposite
seats. “It’s quite possible that not a soul in the place knows
who I am.”
“They
know me.”
“That’s
because you are notorious and therefore interesting to everyone.”
“The
world is filled with fools.”
She
turned to look at her companion, whose low voice dropped to an
impossibly deep bass when he was particularly amused or especially
cynical. His appearance alone was enough to make him stand out. His
tall, lean figure was habitually clad in unrelieved black—this
evening in satin breeches and an evening coat and waistcoat of velvet
embroidered in black silk. Even his neckcloth was black. The gloom of
his costume enhanced the satanic effect of dead-straight black hair,
which he wore long and tied back in a queue with a silk bow. He sat
upright beside her with arms extended, hands resting on the
silver-chased knob of the ebony walking stick he rarely left at home.
His dependence on the elegant staff was an affectation for a man
under thirty in perfect health. Some people, including Cynthia, found
it amusing. Others found it just one more reason to detest him. The
Duke of Denford had plenty of enemies.
“I
believe you enjoy shocking people, Julian.”
Denford’s
mouth curled unpleasantly, then the thin face with the hawkish nose
made one of the mercurial transformations that fascinated Cynthia,
and had sent her scuttling out of town a few weeks earlier, terrified
she would succumb to the heady seduction of the duke’s brilliant
blue eyes.
“I
enjoy shocking you,” he said. A man shouldn’t be allowed such
devastating features, especially when he had the ability to change
them from ice to fire beneath her gaze.
“I’m
not as easy to shock as I was when we first met.”
“No,”
he said. “Thank God for that. You have become a fascinating
challenge.”
It
didn’t seem possible for pure sky blue to exude heat, but Denford’s
eyes made every inch of her skin flush warm. How did he manage it?
Without moving a muscle, he examined her face with concentrated
intensity for some seconds, then his gaze dropped to the white
expanse of her bosom, the bodice cut so low that the blue silk and
lace barely concealed her nipples. She felt them hardening, and a
curl of fire kindled in her in belly. A familiar sick panic gripped
her chest at the clash of attraction and repulsion, longing and fear.
She
jerked her head toward the stage and stared at the obstinately closed
curtain. Surely it was time for the play to begin.
“Why
did you leave London?” The question was almost a whisper, close
enough to caress her ear.
“Anne
wanted to go to Wiltshire,” she said with determined nonchalance.
“As her temporary chaperone, naturally I had to go with her.”
“Was
that the only reason?”
“Why
else?”
It was
true, in as far as it went. Her houseguest Anne Brotherton had a
reason to visit Hinton Manor, where she’d remained. But Cynthia had
seized on the excuse it offered to escape Denford’s dangerous
attentions. And Denford knew it.
“You
like to accommodate your friends,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Am
I your friend?”
She
laughed nervously. “Of course you are.”
“I
look forward to being accommodated.”
Her
laugh degenerated to a titter. She grew warmer and more panicked,
torn between the competing urges of flight and surrender. Desperate
to break out of the sensual net he wove about her, she resorted to
frankness. “I’m not like this, Julian,” she said, staring with
dogged, unfocused eyes at the mass of humanity in the crowded pit. “I
am the daughter of a clergyman. I am married. I would never break my
marriage vows.”
“Would
you not?”
“I
will not.”
She
sensed him retreat, lean back in his chair. Julian had always been
clever that way. He would press her so far, then withdraw before she
became alarmed and ran away. Except that one time. The one kiss.
Which had resulted in her fleeing London and the temptation to sin.
Because
she was, despite everything, a married woman and she would not betray
her husband, however much he might deserve it. Besides, she wasn’t
sure of Denford’s motives.
He
desired her. She did not believe that his carnal interest was
feigned. But he had also once been her husband’s best friend.
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Author
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Miranda
Neville grew up in England. During her misspent youth she devoured
the works of Georgette Heyer, Jean Plaidy, and any other historical
novels she could lay hands on. As a result she attended the
University of Oxford to study history, ignoring all hints that
economics might be a more practical subject. She spent several years
writing catalogs of rare books and original letters and manuscripts
for Sotheby’s auction house in London and New York. Much of her
time in this job was spent reading the personal correspondence of the
famous. This confirmed her suspicion that the most interesting thing
about history is people.
Since
moving to Vermont, she has worked in Special Collections at Dartmouth
College and as an editor and journalist on Behind the Times, a
small, idiosyncratic (and now defunct) monthly newspaper. She is the
owner and editor of a weekly advertiser in the Upper Valley, a job
that leaves her enough time to write fiction.
Her
first book, Never Resist Temptation. was published by Avon in
2009. The first two books in the Burgundy Club series will be
published in 2010.
She
lives with her daugher, Becca, a college student and confirmed drama
queen, and two cats who are never on the right side of any door.
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