Authors: Eileen Dreyer
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Historical, #General, #FIC027050
Never a Gentleman (50 page)
Reaching out, he pulled a pin from her hair, loosing a thick curl. Kate shivered, frozen with memory. Suddenly she was fifteen
again, standing on the edge of womanhood. Trembling with possibility, with wonder, with hunger. For the first time in ten
years she remembered what it had felt like to anticipate, and shredded her control.
And then, Harry made his mistake. He took that last step as if he had the right. As if she would never defend herself, or
maybe simply succumb to his pressure. “Or would you like to offer me a bit of incentive not to look?” he murmured into her
ear. “I’m sure it wouldn’t be too difficult a task. From what I hear, it’s your favorite thing to do.”
He was too close. He wrapped one hand around her throat. Not squeezing, just controlling. It was enough. It was too much,
and she had nowhere left to run. She felt the familiar wings of terror beating against her chest. She did the only thing she
could. She rammed her knee straight up into his bollocks.
Wheezing out a strangled cry, he went right over on his knees. Head down, hunched over, as if folded into the position of
supplication.
It took a moment for Kate to get enough air into her lungs. Her legs had gone liquid and her belly hot and shivery. She almost
lost her lunch over Harry’s bent form. Her body was shaking so badly she was amazed she could take a step.
But she did, using every ounce of strength she possessed to pull herself up into perfect duchess posture. Projecting an air
of bored disdain, she stepped past him. “I knew you weren’t honorable anymore,” she said, pulling open the door. “I didn’t
know you’d also lost your manners.”
She had meant to run down the steps and out the front door. One look into the hallway stopped her. It wasn’t the hulking pair
who stood, arms crossed, five feet away. It was the fact that she recognized where she was.
Hanging in the stairwell was a portrait of a grim-faced stick of a man in bagwig and black serge. Great Uncle Philbert, who
had willed Diccan what was left of his ramshackle estate when he died. Kate knew. She’d toured the place with Diccan right
after he’d inherited. They’d had a lovely day making absurd plans for its renovation into a premiere spa or even more expensive
madhouse.
Harry hadn’t lied. Diccan had told him to kidnap her and bring her to this dilapidated pile of stone in the middle of nowhere
to torture information out of her she didn’t have. She had no one to go to for help.
Turning back into her room, she stepped aside so Harry could limp past.
“You’re not going to get out of here until you admit your guilt,” he rasped.
She tilted her head, sure he could smell the despair on her. “I would be tempted to tell you that the only thing I’m guilty
of is being too naïve when it comes to men. But it would be such a cliché.”
“Well,” he said, walking out. “You’ve certainly made up for lost time.”
She couldn’t imagine how she could still be hurt by anything Harry said. But she was, the wound sawing against the other emotions
that roiled in her chest. And then Harry slammed the door and she heard the unmistakable screech of a bar being slid home.
She was left staring at the scarred wood, her brain frozen. She was closed into a house with a man who hated her enough to
torment her with her own body. She didn’t even want to think of what he would do if he found out about her fears.
She could feel the darkness begin to grow around her, swelling against the pitiful light of the candle. She turned, searching
for the windows, to find them shuttered, and the shutters nailed shut. Harry had prepared well. She wasn’t getting out of
here. And she couldn’t give him the verse, because she didn’t have it. She didn’t even know what it was. And from what she’d
heard, no one else did either.
Until they did, she was locked in a dark room in a dark house, imprisoned by a dark man. Edwin himself couldn’t have come
up with a better torture.
Where authors give you the inside scoop!
Dear Reader,
I know it’s right out of the
Romancing the Stone
opening credits, but I do usually get a little teary when writing the final scene of a book. Maybe my heart and head are
fried from months of storytelling, maybe the looming deadline gets the best of me, or maybe I just adore a good Happily Ever
After and can’t resist writing one that tugs at my heartstrings.
But when I wrote SHIVER OF FEAR, I admit I shed some
serious
waterworks—and not just because the hero, Marc Rossi, has found true love after never believing he could again… and the heroine,
Devyn Sterling, is finally part of a big, happy family after a lifetime of loneliness. I was emotional because I set the scene
during
La Vigilia
, also known to Italian families as The Feast of the Seven Fishes. What better place for a happy ending than around the dining
room table during a meal that has deep personal meaning for me and for most members of a big Italian clan? No, I’m not Italian
by descent, but my husband is “first generation”—the son of an immigrant and, therefore, deeply entrenched in some of the
country’s
best customs. I have no doubt that the fictional blended family that peppers the pages of The Guardian Angelinos series would
embrace this time-honored tradition as we do.
No one really knows the origin of the required “seven” fishes that are served on Christmas Eve in Italian families. Some say
the number reflects the seven sacraments and others believe the “fishes” represent the seven hills of Rome. It doesn’t matter,
because most of us go way past seven that night. From the scungilli salad to the baccala amalfi and all of the salmon, swordfish,
clams, scallops, shrimp, lobster, and calamari in between… it’s a night to celebrate the gifts of the sea and the season.
I rarely make it through the evening without looking around at my loved ones, blinking back a tear of gratitude, and going
back for seconds on the lobster.
During an earlier scene in SHIVER OF FEAR, I used Marc’s description of the evening to highlight Devyn’s aching for a family
and intensify her belief that she isn’t destined to have that kind of love in her life. While he takes the tradition for granted,
she is left to imagine the magic of that night and the warmth that comes from celebrating with food and family. Most of the
story is set in Northern Ireland, where Devyn and Marc are on a hunt to find her birth mother and discover a hornet’s nest
of terrorist activity along with an unexpected attraction that soon blooms into love. But when it came time to give the reader
the ultimate
dolce
moment—the sweet dessert of a lifetime together—it seemed natural to set
that scene on a snowy Christmas Eve with the loud, laughing, loving Angelino and Rossi families gathered to celebrate.
So, I wiped a few tears when I typed “the end” of SHIVER OF FEAR and hoped that whatever traditions my readers honor and celebrate,
they can relate to the atmosphere of joy that fills a home during The Feast of the Seven Fishes. If nothing else, I’ll send
them all out in search of good seafood!
Dear Reader,
Marriage of Convenience. Those three words alone will convince me to buy a book. I can’t think of anything I enjoy more than
a romance where two people who would never have chosen each other find themselves having to negotiate a marriage neither one
wanted. So when I had the chance to write historical romance, I knew that it wouldn’t be long before I wrote a Marriage of
Convenience book.
NEVER A GENTLEMAN is that book. Diccan Hilliard is known among Society as
The Perfection
. Suave, smooth, sophisticated, with a taste for only the most beautiful women, he has a keen wit and rapier tongue. The fact
that he is also a member of Drake’s Rakes, a group of aristocrats caught up in espionage, is a well-guarded secret. That secret,
though, leads to marriage vows, when he wakes to find that his enemies have left him naked in bed with Grace Fairchild, the
woman known to his friends as
The Most Notorious Virgin
in Britain.
Poor Grace. As tall as a man, painfully plain with an ungainly limp, Grace has spent her life following her father around
the world with the army. She has no female accomplishments, no wish to mingle in a society
that has long since shunned her, and even less desire to be shackled to a man who did not choose her, especially since she
has long been fascinated by him. But Grace has secrets too. The question is, will those secrets help her gain Diccan’s love,
or condemn her to loneliness? And will Diccan’s secrets cost them not just the chance at a lasting love, but their very lives?
Do you like Marriage of Convenience books as much as I do? What draws you to them? Let me know at my website,
www.eileendreyer.com
.
Enjoy!
Dear Reader,
Writing a romance called THE SWEETEST THING, which centers around a decidedly
not
sweet heroine, amused me. Tara Daniels is wound a little tightly and likes things her way. She’s also a former southern belle
who appreciates the fact that she’s right. A lot.
The Sweetest Thing? Not exactly.
But her heart’s in the right place, always. And, as it turns out, there’s a man who melts her like butter on a hot roll. Not
only that, but he can soften her in a way that she isn’t sure she likes. See, Tara thinks she has it all together, but it
turns out she doesn’t. She doesn’t know a lot about herself. About all she has is the fact that she can cook like nobody’s
business. Oh, how she loves to cook.
Tara was a challenge for me because—here’s where I must admit it—I got a lot of her recipes from my husband. True story. I’m
married to a big guy who works with his hands and is the ultimate Alpha Man—and yet he can cook. Don’t try to figure him out;
it’ll hurt your brain, trust me.
Good Morning Sunshine Casserole is all his. Just don’t tell him I “borrowed” it and am telling the world that it’s my heroine’s.
It would just go to his head.
