THE ROGUE
Devil's Duke #1
Katharine Ashe
Releasing February 23rd, 2016
Avon Books
In
the first book in Katharine Ashe’s stunning new historical series, to capture a
duke, a lady must first seduce a rogue.
Lady
Constance Read is independent, beautiful, and in need of a husband-now. The
last man on earth she wants is the rogue who broke her heart six years ago,
never mind that his kisses are scorching hot…
Evan
Saint-André Sterling is rich, scarred, and finished with women-forever. He’s
not about to lose his head over the bewitching beauty who once turned his life
upside down.
But
Constance needs a warrior, and Saint is the perfect man for the job. Only as a
married woman can she penetrate Scotland’s most notorious secret society and
bring a diabolical duke to justice. When Constance and Saint become allies-and
passionate lovers-he’ll risk everything to protect the only woman he has ever
loved.
Prologue
The Danger
Of
the dozen men in the room, he was the only man she should not be staring at. He
was not a lord. Not an heir to a fortune. Not a scion of impressive lineage or
a favorite of the prince. He wasn’t even really a gentleman.
Yet
she could not look away.
It
shouldn’t have mattered; a hidden niche was an excellent place from which a
young lady could spy on a risqué party. Until someone else discovered it.
Unless
that someone else were the right someone else.
For
four nights now no one had noticed her peeking from a door that could barely be
called a door in the corner of the ballroom. These passages had been fashioned
in an earlier era of rebellion, and everybody had long since forgotten them.
Except
her.
And
now him.
A
quality of familiarity braided with danger commanded the breadth of his
shoulders and the candlelight in his eyes as he watched her. Yet she did not
duck back into the dark passage and escape. She had no fear that he would know
her. Like the women who had actually been invited to the party, her mask hid
the upper half of her face. Anyway, she knew no one in society. Her father had
not yet taken her to London, only deposited her here at Fellsbourne, where he
imagined her safe in the company of his dear friend’s family. Where she had
always in fact been safe. Teased, taunted, treated like an annoying younger
sister, and very carelessly acknowledged. But safe.
Until
now.
Not
removing his eyes from her, the stranger unfolded himself from the chair with predatorial
grace. He moved like a hunter, lean and powerful and aware. Not entirely human.
Even at rest he had watched the others, disinterested in the amorous
flirtations of the other men and the women here to entertain them, yet
keen-eyed. Like an elven prince studying mortal beings, he observed.
For
four nights she had wondered, if she were one of those women would he be
interested in her? Would he seek her attention? Would he touch her as the other
men touched those women—as she longed to be touched—held—told she was
special—good—beautiful?
She
was wicked to her marrow.
Wicked
to want a stranger’s notice. Wicked to relish the thrill in her belly as he
walked
straight
toward
her.
Under
normal circumstances her tongue was lithe enough. But normal circumstances had
never in her wildest misbehaviors included a man with eyes like his—green,
clear and shining, moonlight cast upon the waters of a forest spring. Perhaps
he was not entirely human. This wasn’t Scotland. But England had its
fair share of mystical beings too.
When
he stood within no more than two wicked feet of her, her tongue failed.
“You
were staring at me,” he said in a voice like fire-heated brandy—rich, deep.
“You
were staring at me.” The low timbre of her own words startled her.
“One
of us must have begun it.”
“Perhaps
it was spontaneously mutual. Or it was coincidence, and both of us imagined the
other began it.”
“How
mortifying for us both then.” The slightest smile appeared at the corner of his
mouth that was beautiful. Beautiful. She had never thought about men’s
mouths before. She had never even noticed them. Now she noticed, and it did hot
things to her insides.
“Or
fortunate,” she ventured. She was grinning, showing her big teeth. But she
couldn’t care. A young man was smiling at her, a young man with sun-darkened
skin and whiskers cut square and scant about his mouth, like a pirate too busy
marauding to shave for a day or two. Not very mystical, true. His
hair was the color of ancient gilt, curving about his collar and swept dashingly
back from his brow. A military saber hung along his thigh, long and encased in
dark leather. Its hilt glittered.
He
was staring at her lips, and so she stared at his. Giddy trills climbed up her
middle.
Kisses.
His
lips made her think of kisses. Want kisses. Kisses on her mouth.
Kisses on her neck like those that the loose women got from the other men.
Kisses wherever he would give them to her.
Wicked
wicked wicked.
“Dance
with me,” he said.
She
darted a glance into the ballroom. All of the women wore costumes, scanty,
sheer, slipping from shoulders beneath gentlemen’s bold fingertips. Jack was
throwing a masquerade for his friends and these women. Women she should not
envy.
She
should not be here. She should be at the dower house a quarter mile distant,
where Eliza had drunk whiskey with dinner and now snored comfortably by the
parlor fireplace.
“I
cannot dance tonight,” she said with more regret than she remembered ever
saying anything.
“Cannot?
Or will not with me?” His tongue shaped words decadently, as though the
syllables were born to kiss his lips and taunt her with what she could not
have.
“If
I could, I would only with you.”
He
seemed to study her face: her too-big eyes, her too-small nose, the mouth that
was too wide, brow that was too spotted, and cheeks that were too round. She
knew her flaws, and yet he seemed to like studying them.
“What
is your name?”
“I
haven’t one.” Not that she could tell a stranger with elven eyes and pirate
whiskers.
He
smiled, and it was such a simple unveiling of pleasure that her heart thumped
against a couple of her ribs.
“I
will call you Beauty,” he said, then his brow creased. “But you have heard that
before.”
“Then
I suppose I must call you Beast,” she replied. She liked the tingling tension
in her belly that he had deposited there with only his smile.
“For
what I’m thinking now, you should,” he said . . .
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Katharine lives in the wonderfully warm Southeast with her beloved husband, son, dog, and a garden she likes to call romantic rather than unkempt. A professor of European History, she writes fiction because she thinks modern readers deserve grand adventures and breathtaking sensuality too. For more about Katharine’s books, please visit www.KatharineAshe.com or write to her at PO Box 51702, Durham, NC 27717.
1 comment:
Thank you for hosting THE ROGUE today!
Crystal, Tasty Book Tours
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