Cerise offers yummy excerpt of INTERLUDE WITH A BARON, 99cent #Regency!

This limited edition box set includes 6 scorching romances that commemorate the 200th anniversary of the June 18, 1815 Battle of Waterloo.

From the Duchess of Richmond’s ball in Brussels to the Battle of Waterloo and beyond, join these six unforgettable heroes as they journey back from the physical and emotional trials of war and discover the passion that thrills the body can also heal the heart. 

June 18th from bestselling and award winning historical romance authors Cerise DeLand, Sabrina York, Suzi Love, Lynne Connolly, Suzanna Mederios and Dominique Eastwick.

Order now: Amazon    ARe    KOBO

Interlude with a Baron by Cerise DeLand

Emma wants only an interlude with the man she’s adored for years. But Drayton Worth has spent five years riddled with guilt for hurting her—and he’s determined to have more than a few nights in her bed.

An excerpt from Cerise DeLand’s INTERLUDE WITH A BARON:

  “Excuse me, will you?” Dray dismissed himself from the group. He had four days to talk with all these people at this house party. What lured Dray was his favorite puzzle. The famous Marlthorpe maze.

  He escaped through the French doors opening to the veranda and the complex design of the evergreens. He loved this labyrinth, its path copied from an ancient Greek oracle. For many years, he’d come here to Marlthorpe’s springtime party and sought out the serenity of the garden and the mental exercise it afforded. Puzzles were his favorite pastime when he was not making money.

Starting down the entrance, he paused a moment to consider the right turn or the left. He’d tried the left last year and found it led to a circular route back to the entry. Right then, it would be. The yews had grown two inches or more since last spring and the enclosure was quiet, comforting. That is, it was until he heard giggles from another quarter of the shrubbery.

  The sounds were those of a young child and a woman.

  “Come now, Christine,” the female voice was low, breathless. It had a distinctive rasp.

  Dray halted.

  “You must put on your mask, dearest. You have the advantage if you can see!” The woman laughed though she tried to sound stern.

  And Dray swallowed, drowning his instincts about the identity of the lady who chased her daughter in the garden.

   The child shrieked in delight, then pattered away.

  Rustlings in the bushes gave evidence of the two running.

  “I found you!” the woman said.

  “Not fair. Not fair, Miss Bedlow.” The girl objected but laughed nonetheless.

   Miss Bedlow? How could it be?  

   Dray stared at the wall of greenery.

   The two chuckled and chased each other.

   The woman stopped. “Wait, Christine!”

   He spun around, following the sounds, his head whirling with the shock and the possibility that Emma Bedlow was a guest at this party. That she played with a child.

   And that she was in this garden and he was, too. After years of taking care to never cross her path, how ironic that he could come to a house party on a spring afternoon in Berkshire and be so near.

   He stood, confounded by his choices. Call to her. See her. In truth, over the next three days, he would eventually be near her. To converse. To dine. To dance. Better to face her alone now than later in a room filled with curious spectators.

  So be it. Following their voices, he tracked her and her charge down one path and left across another. Luck was with him and he recalled one lane with the grey stone bench…and another one with the potted white roses along the east barrier.

  The noises stopped.

  The girl asked a question and Emma answered, walking toward him and laughing.

  Anxious, fretful, he turned a corner.

   Halted.

   Let his eyes revel in the sight of her.

   She was holding hands with a girl and beginning a children’s roundelay.

  The girl broke away from her, racing around like a little animal and not watching where she was going, she ran right into Dray.

   With a grunt, she froze and peered up at him.

   Dray caught the child with hands to her shoulders. She squirmed and pleaded with him to let her go.

   But Dray had no presence of mind to do it. He gazed at Em, his soul drinking in her pale green gown, her fuller figure, her wealth of midnight hair. He had died of thirst for years to see her—and he rejoiced that she appeared hale and hearty, even happy, if also at the moment, shocked to stillness.

  What to say to her? What to call her? He wouldn’t address her by her title. That was one she’d hated, never wanted. And since the autumn, she told it about that she wished to discard her married name for her maiden.

  “My lady, how wonderful to see you again.”

  She gaped at him as she blinked and stepped backward. “My lord.”

  “I had no idea you were here.”

   “I—I was amusing her, tiring her before…”

   He tore his gaze from hers and looked at the girl with a critical eye. The child was too old to be hers and Montroy’s. Was she ten? Eleven? Twelve years old, at the very most. When he’d last seen Em after Waterloo, she’d been married only a year and the anniversary of that great battle would be five years in June. This child was not hers.

  He peered at her. “You are invited to the house party?”

   Emma shook her head so forcefully that her shining hair, so thick, fell from her pins, draping her shoulders with fat curls. “ Yes. But I will not attend.”

   He took a step nearer. She was as lovely—no, even more beautiful than she’d been as an eighteen-year-old dancing in his arms at the Dunstables’ ball. Now she was what? Twenty-four? Twenty-five?   Her cheeks were plumper. Her exotic aqua eyes round with shock. Her form was fuller. A woman, no longer a girl. A woman who had seen too much agony and deserved all the laughter and light she could garner in her lifetime.

   “I don’t understand. Are you not a guest?”

  “I am acting governess to the earl of Tunbridge’s daughter. Forgive me. This is Lady Christine, my lord. My dear, I present Baron Lansdowne.”

   While the girl murmured how she was pleased to meet him, he took a second to realize Em used the formal title of Naill Wainwright. Astonishing, too, was that this child was Naill’s, the one no one ever saw and often remarked might not exist.

   “You are employed?”

   “I am.”

   That confused him. She had money. He’d made certain of it. His sum complemented that from her mother’s dowry, which her father had not been able to throw after bad schemes, grasping mistresses and cards. “Will you come inside and—?”

   “No, my lord.” She stiffened and never took her eyes from him. “I cannot.”

  “I am so delighted to see you, Em.”

   She looked as if she were about to cry. But she took hold of her charge’s hand. “I must go.”

   “Wait, Em. I must talk to you.” Make amends.

   “I do not wish to speak with you. Go about your party, my lord. Say nothing, I beg you, of this or me to anyone.”

   The Elgin family had invited her. They had evidently accepted that she needed careful assistance to enter society again. He didn’t understand why she hung back.

   Unless she was angry at him.

  And he couldn’t blame her. “Em, I mean you no harm.”

   She put up a hand. “Please, Dray. I must do this my way. Let me go in peace.”

   And since she had had so little of it in her life, he did as she asked and watched her leave him. As she always did.

********

INTERLUDE WITH A BARON is part of

Regency Romp series

which begins with

LADY VARNEY'S RISQUE BUSINESS

followed by

RENDEZVOUS WITH A DUKE

and within a few weeks, the third in series~

MASQUERADE WITH A MARQUESS.

Not read the others?

Start now!

                   Then watch for MASQUERADE in a few weeks!

Would you meet a duke on a cold afternoon for a ride in his carriage? Excerpt of RENDEZVOUS WITH A DUKE by Cerise DeLand!

http://amzn.to/1tGU26K

What would you do for a bit of pleasure amid a poor, lonely, loveless existence?

  Anna Fournier never intended to fall in love. Not with any man. Especially not a duke. But Hugh Lattimer persists in courting her despite the scandal that surrounds her—and the innuendo that could ruin him.

     Can she escape her past and embrace a future as Hugh's duchess? Or will the man who murdered her father ruin her future once and for all?

Need a nibble?

Of course you do!

Copyright 2014, Cerise DeLand/WJ Power All Rights Reserved.

“Your Grace?”

Hugh whirled to face his coachman, the wind biting into his hope that Anna would venture out to meet him on such a bitter day.

“Yes, Warren. What is it?”

The man huddled in his woolen livery, frozen, rubbing his hands together. “We hired the man’s hack for two hours. But the horses are very cold standing as they are, Your Grace. Can I not make a circle of the garden to stir their blood a bit?”

“Yes, do.” He could not keep his good servant out in such hideous weather. That was unkind. Unnecessary.

He stared down the lane again, narrowing his eyes.

She was…

There! Coming toward him. It was she in that horrible brown hat and coat.

He strode toward her. Then broke into a jog.  His hat bobbed and he whipped it off, tucked it under his arm. “Anna!”

She broke into a smile, beaming at him, her pace quickening, her lips tremulous with what? Cold? Fear? Delight?

He caught her to him. The thrilling feel of her, her curves to his form, her warmth to his welcome. His lips went to the corner of her eye, the point of her nose and hovered over her lips.

“You waited,” she breathed, her words laced with panic, her golden gaze flowing over him with triumph.

“I did. I had to hope.”

She cupped his jaw. “I apologize for being late. I could not get away.”

“But you came. How?”

“A hack. And then, I left him at the bridge and walked.”

Hugh enveloped her in his arms. “There is no one here to see you or me. It’s too damn cold.”

She chuckled, her arms wrapping around his waist as easily as if she belonged to him and he to her. She trained her eyes on his breastplate and ribbons. “But you wore a uniform.”

“I did. As you commanded.” He turned to one side and wove her arm through his. “Come, let me get you into a carriage.”

“Oh, no.” She hung back. “I cannot. Really, Kendal.”

“You’re frozen. So am I. And there beyond,” he said nodding toward Warren who stood with the hack door open, “is my coachman. I hired a vehicle. Did not bring my own.”

“You have crests on yours, I suppose,” she said, sounding tentative but walking briskly with him anyway.

“Yes, they all do. I would not chance discovery.”

“I do appreciate that.”

They stopped in front of the hack’s open door.

Hugh took both her gloved hands, her fingers cold as icicles. “Few seem to be in the Gardens. I’ll take you if wish. Or you can step into my conveyance, hired especially for this afternoon, and warm yourself with the bricks and the brandy I have tucked inside.”

Her eyes, alive with yearning, examined his. Still she hesitated. “I don’t want to walk.”

He understood her tentative tone, an objection to the privacy of his coach. “I would never hurt you. If you will do me the honor to climb up in there, we might have an hour or more of good conversation.”

“And brandy,” she added with a twinkle in her brilliant eyes.

“And bricks.”

“I want to.”

“Do.”

She swallowed, then smiled at Warren with a hint of apology.

Hugh told her, “You can sit in one corner and I in the opposite seat.”

Acceptance defined her exquisite features. “And here I had imagined us sitting side by side as we did at dinner last night.”

If he had envisioned himself as a cave man seizing her, enjoying her, it was nothing to the urge now to grasp her in his arms and take her lips, her heart, her mind and make them his. Reason, somehow, arrested him instead. “Sit wherever you like, my darling. I live to make you smile.”

She flowed up to him. Her gloved hands cupping his jaw, she rose on her toes and brushed her lips on his.

My god.

She undid him. All his noble intentions gone. His earnest statements that he would protect her from his baser urges now hollow.  Still, he could not move, paralyzed with wanting more of her.

“You must climb in first,” she told him, an impish glimmer in her eyes. “The better to give me a choice.”

He grunted, incapable of words. Then he did as she bade him. Falling back against the far corner of the wooden bench, he shoved his shako to the floor. He watched her as she put one foot upon the block and let Warren take her hand to lead her up inside. And there before him, she met his gaze and waited as Warren shut the coach door. She seemed cast in bronze, unmoving, studying him. Then putting one knee to his bench, she leaned over him, descending to a breath away. “Kiss me, won’t you, Kendal? I’ve dreamed of no one but you for months.”

 Rendezvous with a Duke

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iTunes Coming Soon!

My new #Regency full-length #Regency Romp #2, RENDEZVOUS WITH A DUKE, out now! Come to FB party Thursday!

Regency Romp #2

I debut RENDEZVOUS WITH A DUKE today at most sites!  This full length Regency stars a Cinderella and a prince of a guy, Hugh Lattimer, Duke of Kendal.

Ready for the blurb?

 Anna Fournier never intended to fall in love. Not with any man. Especially not a duke. But Hugh Lattimer persists in courting her despite the scandal that surrounds her—and the innuendo that could ruin him.

     Can she escape her past and embrace a future as Hugh's duchess? Or will the man who murdered her father ruin her future once and for all?

Ready for that nibble of Cerise’s new cherry?

Of course!

Here is Hugh Lattimer, Duke of Kendal as he meets Anna for the first time.

Copyright 2014, Cerise DeLand. All rights reserved.

Hugh Lattimer closed the door of the piano shop, sighing in relief at the warmth. He’d spent the last five years freezing his bits to nubbins in every damn parlor and palace from Vienna to Paris to London and he was sick of the deprivation. Nearly three decades of war on the Continent had leveled more than the forests. It had destroyed men’s daily lives and reduced them to rats huddled together in the rubble of their existences. He had seen it firsthand on the torn battlefields, in the shambles of the towns—and in the hearts of men, women and children high-born and low.

He unbuttoned his greatcoat and looked around for the proprietor.

In the far room, he heard murmurs of a conversation and then spied the owner of the establishment. “Ah, there you are. Guten morgen. Good morning, Herr Breyer. How are you this cold day?”

“Your Grace.” The pudgy shopkeeper beamed at him and inclined his head in greeting. “I am well. And you, sir?”

“Quite well.” In the far room, someone at the keys filled the air with a melody new and refreshing.

“I am happy to see you again. May I take your coat? Have my frau make you tea?”

“Nein, Herr Breyer. Danke shon. I will not stay long. But came to make my decision.” Here twice last week to examine the pianofortes, he had been torn between one of Viennese manufacture and another completed in Munich. The Viennese had been hand tooled by a man whom Hugh had come to know socially when he had been posted to the Austrian capital after Napoleon’s surrender. The Munich piano though interested him for its larger keyboard. The tune emanating from the far room had him pausing to listen. “Who is that at the keys?”

“A young lady has come to buy sheet music for her cousin. The song she plays is—“

“Pleyel?” Hugh named the popular composer and went quite still, struck by the facile ability of the pianist in the far room. The song she played was airy, ethereal, yet of quick tempo and complex.

“Ja, Your Grace.”

The piece demanded someone who could be bold and attack the keys with alacrity, yet caress them when the mood changed. Hugh had not heard anyone play so well since he was stationed in Stuttgart and the Austrian composer Hummel had graced a consulate meeting with his newest composition. “Astonishing. She is quite accomplished.”

“She sight reads very well.” Breyer nodded, pleasure on his face. “The piece is new to her just now. And I must tell you that she plays the Stein pianoforte from Vienna, Your Grace.”

Hugh lifted his chin, listening to her with concentration. “Does she? How wonderful.”

The German rocked on the balls of his feet, clasping his hands before him, closing his eyes in contentment.

Hugh drifted toward the inner room. He moved quietly, drawn as he was by the melody that spoke of eloquent delight, a pastoral scene, perhaps, or a meeting of lovers. The woman at the piano was absorbed in her effort. Eyes upon the sheets, leaning forward now and then to ensure she read the notes correctly, she swayed in a tempo that spoke of her devotion to conquer the song.

Absorbed in her challenge, she did not notice him. Her bonnet, a brown leghorn of straw, capped her dark red curls, and the brim cut her side view. Unseen, Hugh could admire her at leisure. He reveled in her rapture as she opened her mouth on execution of one passage or wrinkled her brow at another. She ran her hands along the keys, strident or delicate, as the notes required. She cast up the lieder as it’s composer would have admired—with flair and panache. And at the end, she widened her eyes, and sat back on the stool, hands to her lap, sighing in satisfaction at her own accomplishment.

And Hugh applauded.

She startled, turned and snared him in her amber gaze.

That striking color, he had not expected. Hazel would have been his first assumption because it would complement the river of rich auburn that was her hair. Grey, even, to match the faint tones of pink on her cheeks or the blush on her lips. But the tawny was riveting.

“Sir?” She cast glances from him to Breyer.

The proprietor scurried forward, clapping himself. “Wunderbar, wunderbar. Permit me to introduce you.”

Hugh strode forward himself, ignoring the demands of etiquette. “Allow me to say how marvelous that was.” How gorgeous you are. How accomplished.

“Oh, I—I thank you, sir.” She managed to get to her feet, pushing back the stool and clasping her hands together. “I dabble—“

“On the contrary, you are a musician of talent.”

“She composes,” Herr Breyer said with as much pride as if she were his prodigy.

“Do you? How enchanting.” He stood over her now. She was taller than most women, the top of that terrifying hat reaching his chin. She was lovelier than most, too, her complexion flawless ivory and brightened by the warmth of the shop’s fire. Or was she flustered by his surreptitious observation of her?

Whatever the cause, he wanted her at ease.

“Forgive me for startling you.” He took her hand and stunned as she was, she let him. “I do not usually shock women.”

Those compelling eyes of hers melted to mellow tones, even as she sought to retrieve her hand from his. “That is good to know, sir.”

Hugh kept her hand in his. “I had told Herr Breyer long ago I wished to hear someone play this instrument who had the ability to draw out its full potential. I did not expect my wish to be fulfilled by accident nor to see such a lovely woman do me the honor.”

“Oh, sir, thank you. You are too kind.” She blushed, her cheeks turning a delicate rose.

The porcelain perfection of her skin suffused with a fair tint that inspired him to imagine her breasts budding, her body bare to him. He smiled at her, hopefully covering his magnetic attraction to her with some politesse. Certainly, her talent and her beauty belied her diminished means. She was a study in dramatic contrasts. And soldier, spy, peer of the realm that he was, he was rarely fascinated by a person. Hardly ever by a woman.

“I have heard many play,” he told her, “but few with such verve.” Or beauty. “And Herr Breyer tells me you have not seen the composition before you sat down here to play.”

“That’s true,” she admitted with a modesty that pleased him. Humility was not a quality many young women cultivated, though God knew, most should. She attempted again to pull back her hand.

Reluctantly, he let her go. “You must have had a good teacher.”

“I did, sir.” She clasped her hands together, her expression only briefly showing relief at her escape. “My mother was accomplished.”

“She must be very proud of you.” To play so well is such a rare quality among those in society. And most young women use it as a lure to secure a fine match. “I would be, were you my daughter.”

She looked him over so intricately that he was certain she meant to buy him and serve him on a platter for supper. “Sir, you are not old enough to have a daughter.”

“Old enough,” he corrected her with a grin. “But not capable.”

She blinked, shocked at his risqué inference.

He shook his head, grimacing but apologetic. “I am not married, you see.”

“Ah.” She inhaled, joining in on the joke. “I am certain that is a challenge to every young lady in London.”

He sent her a look of pain.

She laughed shortly, her mirth a vibrant match to the contralto of her speaking voice. Then she turned her attention on Breyer. “I must go, sir. I will buy this lieder and any two others you suggest.”

The shopkeeper took a step toward her, while Hugh warned himself not to stare at her. Not to scare her off. “Will you play them before you buy them?”

“Oh, no, thank you.” Her gaze flittered from Breyer to him.

He had flustered her.

Good. The feeling is mutual.

Breyer advanced toward her. “But your cousin needs a simple song.”

“She does.” She feigned a smile at the little German, but she returned to focus on Hugh—and her golden gaze lingered there in his. “But I trust your judgment, Herr Breyer.”

“Please,” Hugh pleaded, “do stay. It’s rarely that one can hear another play and enjoy it.”

Her face lit with a sudden glee that transformed her into a glittering beauty. “I not only agree with you, sir, I have suffered myself.”

“Have you?” He took her hand once more and she allowed him the pleasure of holding her in his care. Why have I never suffered with you? Why have I never seen you in the same salon? “Pity.”

“Yes,” she said on a breathless whisper that fell over his skin and seeped inside him like good Scots whisky. Her gaze locked on his until she roused herself and yanked away. But she put a hand to the piano, as if to steady herself. “I must go.”

No.

 She firmed her mouth. “Herr Breyer, if you please, I will buy my sheet music and leave.”

“But—but your aunt and cousin await you, do they?” Breyer asked hope in his tone.

Was the German stalling her? Hugh examined the man. Of course, he was. Perceptive of him to detect my interest.

Hugh had to learn her name. Where she—

“No. I am out today on my own. But they will expect me shortly,” she told him as he disappeared into the back storage room. “You know how they are.”

“Ja, Ich weiss.”

But I don’t. “May I escort you to the tea shop across the street? It is very cold outside and—“

“Thank you, sir, but no.” She strode toward the entrance to Breyer’s back room and called to him. “How much will the music cost, sir?”

Regency Romp #1

Hugh put his hand on her wrist. She was the most extraordinary creature he had met in a long time. The endless parade of women who strolled past him, whether by chance or by his mother’s plan, bored him to a raving madness. They had neither wit nor voice other than what their mamas had inculcated. The alternative, a paid companion, was not to his taste either. He’d sampled a few of those abroad and the affection endured for a fortnight or so, then turned shallow. And while he was interested in a quick relief to his manly urges now and then, the prospect of lying down in a bed with a woman he didn’t care for while standing up, did not appeal.

“Permit me to offer my carriage and to escort you home.”

Her attention drifted from his hand to his eyes. Her own gaze swam in his, and he longed to place his lips there upon her lovely lids, to allow her long red lashes to tickle his lips, to allow her perfect skin to rest beneath his mouth.

“Thank you,” she murmured, that deep voice of hers brushing his senses. “I mustn’t.”

“Why not?” He heard himself. His voice was a plea, a prayer.

Beneath his fingertips, she suffered a frisson. Worse, she looked desperate. “I should not take up with a gentleman.”

He had never frightened a woman before. Chastened, he tried to soothe her with a lopsided grin. “I doubt you take up with men who are less than that.”

She stiffened. “I take up with none at all.”

RENDEZVOUS WITH A DUKE, Regency Romp #2

Amazon: http://amzn.to/1tGU26K

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KOBO  Coming within days!

iTunes   Coming soon!

LADY VARNEY’S RISQUE BUSINESS, Regency Romp #1

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Find Cerise:

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Vitamin P! Got any?

www.cerisedeland.com

Vitamin P.
Ever heard of it?
Me, neither. Until the other day in a magazine, the writer espoused a regular dosage of Pleasure.  Got any for yourself?
Connected to digital devices of every kind, we are definitely hyperactive.
Example? The other night on a newscast covering Irene, all four people on a boardwalk in New Jersey were walking into the camera view with cell phones to their ears.
Sure, their moment of greatness, right? They were calling home to tell their families, "I'm on TV. Turn in!"
But really! My question is, why the heck were these people out on the BOARDWALK, rain pouring down, ONE WITH A BABY STROLLER, calling home when they should have been in their cars and, as their Governor so improperly told them, "to get the hell off the beach"?  I want to know why they were on their phones (and why the one with the baby stroller wasn't well outta there yesterday)?
More than that, I wonder why the heck they were connected via cell phone when their brains are not connected to their common sense?
Habit?
Addiction?
I vote for both.
I have Rules about how I use my electronic devices.
I don't do email when I travel.
I turn my cell phone off when I'm not using it or not expecting any calls.
I don't text. Ever.
If you want me, you have to email me or call me during normal human being type hours. I do the same for my friends.
I turn off my computer every night at 5, 6 at the latest.
I cook dinner. A really fine one.
I may read at night or I may watch movies.
The news I get comes from the NYT on line and anything else on line until I fold clothes after dinner and watch CNN and MSNBC or maybe (my newest fave) HGTV. (Wanna buy a house in Paris? London? Belize?)
My Blood Pressure is fine.
I work out 2-3x a week.
And my newest addiction is Dance Jam class on Saturdays.
WHAT's your addiction? What are your Rules for electronic devices?
What can you change to give yourself a dose of Vitamin P???

A taste of my new Regency cherry?

Just back from a vacation to a Shakespeare Festival and Las Vegas (yeah, hi brow, lo brow), I thought I'd give you a nibble of my newest cherry.
This one, LADY STARLING'S STOCKINGS, is on Amazon Kindle right now. Soon to be up on B&N Nook, and AllRomanceEbooks.com, the book is priced at 99 cents and is my strategic move to see if 99 cents really does make all boats rise!
Here is the summary and the nibble for you:
Copyright 2011, Cerise DeLand. All rights reserved.

BUY LINK:

http://tinyurl.com/3orc36e

Lady Solange Starling has a special skill. But catching spies within her cousin’s embassy has never presented a challenge…until now.

One moonlit evening in a garden, Solange views a daring man she has not seen in years. A man she never forgot. A man, who even in his youth, carved his place in her life and her reverie.

Monsieur Noir, he calls himself. And so he is, a man living in shadows, dark and dangerous to her heart. As the two of them join together to weed out the nemesis who attempts to destroy their fight against Napoleon, Solange and Noir learn how rich grand passion can be.

Once more, they fight against cruel fate to give them what they most desire. Each other. Free of torment and loss. Free at last to love.

Naples, Italy

September 30, 1815

Lady Solange Starling adjusted her mask and gazed out over the assemblage at the British Embassy, searching the ballroom wearing a blasé smile–and with a determination fraught with frustration.

Where, oh, where are you, Monsieur? Dinner is done, the dancing is about to begin and I am bursting with news and questions!

Among the pale flocks of British ladies and somber olive-skinned Italian matrons, Solange wove her way through the throng to find her contact. Out of courtesy, she had to stop here and there often to permit the gentlemen who approached to kiss her hand, murmur greetings and attempt to charm her.  Despite her ostrich-feathered mask, these diplomats and naval officers, both English and Italian, knew her curvaceous figure, her love of fashion–and her noble English name.  They knew she was wealthy and half French.  And all that they knew came from two sources–her reign over the haute ton in London as Lord George Starling’s young bride and his widow, plus her previous visit here at the embassy to her cousin and his wife. On Solange’s first sojourn to Naples three months ago, she had accomplished her mission to find the traitor who turned out to be her cousin’s naval adjutant. And she had done it within days of sailing into port.

Now, given the threatened return of Napoleon’s brother-in-law Murat here to reclaim his throne of Naples, her newest task was greater and more urgent. And my contact? Monsieur de la Guerre? Where is he?

“My lady, Solanj-a,” the Neapolitan prince of D’oro crooned in his heavily accented English. “I am so happy to see you have returned to us here in Napoli.”

“Va bene, Your Highness, how could I stay away?” She flirted with the eagle-eyed naval officer, using a gay tilt to her head and a flash of her eyes. A man notorious for his spendthrift ways and frequent bouts with the pox, Prince Giorgio peered at her with a salacious intensity before letting his gaze scan down her figure.

“Have you had the opportunity to shop yet in the main piazza, cara mia?”

“You remember well my little amusement to keep my modiste rapidly sewing, dear Prince.” She pursed her lips and allowed him to savor the sight.

“I wish to learn more about you than your preference for the richest fabrics, my lovely bird,” he said, his tongue sliding across his lower lip.

“Now, now,” she teased him, tapping her fan on his arm and walking toward terrace. With a sideways look, she led this man on as she did all men.  She had no one in her bed.  Had invited no one since her elderly husband passed on to his grave reward five years ago. And though she longed for a spectacular lover to fill her body and obsess her mind, she had spotted no candidates who matched her exacting ideals. Until such a specimen of manhood appeared and could match one unforgettable champion she’d met half a lifetime ago, she would remain alone in her bed by night and at her espionage by day.  “Though I confess, I would love to shop for a few yards of Venetian lace.”

“For a camisole?” he asked, his gaze afire with hunger. “Do you need one? As creamy as your skin? I will order one made!”

“You are too kind. I would not trouble you. But alas, I am so occupied, Your Highness. You must have heard that I did come this time to help my cousin’s wife after her recent lying-in.”

“You should have a child of your own.” He grabbed her hand.

His own was clammy, and Solange bore with the cool sweat like a seasoned soldier of the Cold Stream Guard.

“You are so lovely, so well formed…what is the English word? Endowed? I am certain God has blessed you with the ability to bear many children, bella mia.” His thin black brows wiggled high while his arm circled her waist and he pressed his fingers to the side of her breast.

She smiled serenely, the lascivious cuss.  Then she picked up her pace. She would tempt him, but she would not bed him. Her stock in trade was her own sensual allure. Without her golden looks and her acute perception, without her sloe-eyed sensuality that she never tamped, she would not have become one of Home Department’s most accomplished spies. She enjoyed the chase and she would not stop intriguing men. Not now. Not when victory over the last of that tyrant Bonaparte’s men was soon to come. Not when that victory depended on her rooting out the French operative who had burrowed himself so deeply into her cousin’s diplomatic staff that he threatened the peace of Europe with his nefarious presence. “You are too complimentary, Your Highness.”

“Never! Beauty such as yours blossoms, I am certain, when a seasoned lover teaches you the delights you so richly deserve.”

Forward fart. She forced her muscles to relax.

“I would show you my newest mill. On the road to Roma.”

They descended the terrace steps, and Solange purposely stopped at the entrance to the maze. She would not offer him any solitude in which to accost her.

“I purchased it two weeks ago.”

“So recently?” She marveled that these Neapolitans changed sides so easily. “Are you not concerned that Murat’s spies lurk on the road to Rome?”

“Murat has lost all friends among us. He is a nasty cat, one day with his brother-in-law, one day with the Austrians and you British. Forget politics, lovely Solanj-a.” He caressed the side of her breast and she fought the urge to box his ears. “Come with me in my carriage to view my fabrics.”

“Ah, Your Highness, tempting surely.” To go out with this lecher alone in his carriage would cause all kinds of a scandal. Yet Solange needed to discover if Giorgio was simply dedicated to her seduction or if he wished to glean information about her cousin and the British naval blockade of the city. After all, Giorgio had been a close friend of the naval attaché whom she had put to ground three months ago. Plus she had seen Giorgio only an hour ago in hot discussion in one corner with a French émigré whom she suspected of collusion with the Bonapartists. “But you know I must not disappear with you alone. My family, my friends. Why, you must imagine how they would view an afternoon with you.” She widened her eyes and consoled him with a tiny moue.

“Bring your maid, if you must,” he told her, leaning forward.

He came so close she smelled the garlic and onions of his lunch on his breath. Oh, merde. “A charming solution!” Her stomach lurched. She tried not to wince–or inhale the fumes.

“I will show you silk such as you have never seen.”

Silk? The blood in her veins raced. Her favorite. Her fetish.

“From Lucca’s finest worms.”

“Luccan silk.” She repeated like a half-wit. Luccan silk. Reputed to be made from Chinese worms given by Kublai Khan to Marco Polo. “I have never felt it.”

“I will allow you to feel everything.” He grasped her hands and, in his rabid desire, squeezed the blood out of them.  “Everything!”

His innuendo was not lost on her. She grimaced, surrendering to her need to investigate his life further.

“Well, Your Highness, I–“

“I will give you all you need, Solanj-a. My silks. More. Come with me for the day, the night–“

A man coughed. Once. Twice. From behind the tall cypresses.

Giorgio’s heavy brows darted together. At once, he hauled her against his wiry body and his very rigid cock. “Ignore him, bella. Tell me you will come–“

Solange stepped backward, brushing the front of her dress. How to deter him politely from handling her like a whore, hmmm?

He took no heed, but flowed toward her, pressing his mouth to her ear–and his lips were as wet as his hands. “I am mad for you, my lovely English lady.”

From behind the tall evergreen next to them, a gentleman cleared his throat.

Their interloper’s intrusions made her suppress a chuckle.

“Your Highness, your offer of the afternoon–“

“Your offer, Your Highness, I might say, is­ what?”

A booming bass voice surrounded Solange like a villain in a Venetian opera as a man strolled from the bushes.  She gasped.

“Wonderful? The lady will consider it and write you tomorrow with her answer.”

Solange stared up at the towering figure before her. Taller than any man she’d ever met. More fit, as well. Dressed entirely in black, save for a flowing white stock, he looked like a devil’s disciple. Even to his rich ebony hair that fell over his brow and the large black velvet mask that covered his eyes and cheeks but not his strong square jaw.

“And who are you to speak for the lady, sir?” Giorgio asked, his lips curled in outrage at this interference.

“I am an old friend of hers from her childhood,” the apparition in midnight hues responded with derision. “I am certain she remembers me.  Don’t you, ma cherie?”

* * *

Solange swayed on her feet, her forehead cool, her eyes burning with the sight of the man she had wished to return to her, lo, these fifteen years. Even now moments since Giorgio had stormed off, she was blinded by brilliant memories from her wretched past.

Her man in black swept her into his arms and carried her to a nook in the maze where he sat upon a small stone settee and plopped her on his lap. “I have shocked you,” he said, the back of his hand soothing strokes to her forehead and cheeks. “I meant to be more gallant and introduce myself in a civil manner in the ballroom. But that man intruded. He irritates me to no end.”

She caught her breath, her gaze all over this man whose face she saw within her shattered memories of her parents, Paris and the tumbrils. “Me, too,” she admitted because she knew she could speak to this man plainly as she could no other. “How did you find me? Why…here? Why now?”

His eyes sparked with humor. They were black, brilliant and bold. “I am here to help you, my dear Solange.”

Help? She stilled. Do what? Why would the man who as a youth had once pulled her from the dastardly cart headed for the guillotine appear now? After years in which she thought him dead, how could he help her? He would probably faint if he knew what she did for her adopted country. And for that, she did not require his help but her dear Monsieur de la Guerre’s.

This led her to the more pertinent question. “Where the hell have you been all these years?”