Buried Under Romance is pleased to welcome Miranda Neville here for an exclusive...
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.
Lady Cynthia never aspired to be the subject of scandal.
Lady 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
Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18651968-lady-windermere-s-lover?from_search=true
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.
Author Bio’s
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.
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 daughter, Becca, a college student and confirmed drama queen, and two cats who are never on the right side of any door.
Author Links
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Love Love Love!!! :D
ReplyDeleteThis story sounds so good & the cover is gorgeous!
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