I’m celebrating my birthday today—my first in my new home! I love birthdays because, to me, they’ve always been about three things:
- Family, friends and loved ones
- New beginnings
- Doing something completely indulgent just for you
Perhaps it’s fitting then that to celebrate my birthday I’ve decided I want to give my readers—my literary loved ones—a present. It’s a celebration of a new beginning—a brand-new book—and is something completely indulgent, just for you.
I’m sharing one of my favorite excerpts from my upcoming book, The Taste of Temptation. It’s a Scotland-set historical enemies-to-lovers romance and it’s about...well, here’s what you need to know:
- Caroline Burkett sued her ex-fiancé for jilting her to marry an American heiress. The newspapers covered every aspect of the lawsuit, making Caroline one of the most notorious women in England. Now's she's fled London for Edinburgh to find a husband. Robert Trevlan, the only son of a prominent banking family, seems her most likely option.
- Jonathan Moray is the owner of a respectable broadsheet and a less-than-respectable gossip rag. He stirred up a world of trouble for Caroline by reporting on her arrival in Edinburgh.
- Caroline hates Moray with the fire of a thousand suns. Or at least that's what she tells herself...
You can preorder The Taste of Temptation now to make sure you get it sent to your eReader as soon as it's available on February 5th! Just click on your favorite retailer link.
Amazon | iBooks | Kobo | Nook | Google Play
And without further ado, enjoy!
MORAY MADE IT over the wall of 63 Cumberland Street’s backyard with little trouble, but as he stood in the damp grass gazing up at the black drainpipe that snaked up the wall of the Burkett house a greater challenge presented itself. It was insane to even think about climbing it, but as Caroline had so sternly pointed out earlier that evening, she was never alone. Except when she was sleeping. This was the only way to ensure that they would neither be caught nor interrupted.
It was also the one most likely to land him—and her—in a heap of trouble.
As he pondered the situation, he realized one of four things could happen.
One: He could successfully make it into Caroline’s bedroom without waking the household, give her his message, and leave, all without kissing her or being detected, thus preserving her virginity, which he was trying his best not to think about at the moment.
Two: He’d be detected by one of the other residents or a well-intentioned neighbor, at best landing him in jail, at worst spelling the beginning of his life as a married man, because surely her brother would force the marriage to cover up the scandal.
Three: He could fall and seriously injure himself.
Four: He could fall and kill himself.
He didn’t like options two, three, or four, but despite his misgivings he had to make the climb. What Eva had dug up about Trevlan was too important for Caroline not to hear, and he hadn’t been lying when he’d told her that it was a matter of some delicacy. It wouldn’t do for anyone else to overhear their conversation.
“You’re a numpty, eedjit bampot with less brains than a house fly,” he muttered as he gave the metal one last tug to make sure it would hold his weight, sent up a prayer to whatever god looked after idiotic newspapermen, and began to climb.
Even when he’d been young and nimble he hadn’t pulled stunts like this, spending all of his time learning his craft and squirreling away every penny he could as he clawed his way up the ladder from apprentice to printer and then owner and editor. And here he was, thirty-five and getting ready to scale a wall to steal a few uninterrupted, unchaperoned moments with a woman. And he wasn’t even going to let himself enjoy them.
The fourth finger of his right glove caught on a craggy corner of one of the stone blocks making up the wall as he began his climb and ripped. Damn. He’d incur Jesper’s wrath when the valet went through his clothes in the morning and found the thin, supple leather destroyed. Never mind that the wall was doing a fair job of ripping up his now-exposed skin.
Somewhere between the second and third floors, Moray realized he didn’t exactly have a plan for figuring out where Caroline’s bedroom might be in the house. He might’ve deployed his network of informants to coax the information from one of the Burketts’ members of staff but that would have taken too long. By the time they’d reported back it could have already been too late. According to the Tattler’s informants, it was only a matter of time before Trevlan proposed to her.
He looked up the dark building to the one window on the third floor that glowed with the soft light of a lamp. That was the room to avoid. While it might be Caroline’s, it could also be where the master or mistress of the house slept, and he knew for a fact he wouldn’t be welcome in either of their boudoirs.
With his attention fixed on the windows above him, he stepped without looking for his foothold and his shoe slipped.
Fuck!
He swallowed down a shout as his feet scrambled wildly against the side of the building. His hands clamped harder around the iron pipe that was the only thing holding him up.
He was not going the way of option four. Not today.
Adrenaline roared through his veins as the window a few feet above him shot open. His head snapped up just as Caroline stuck hers out into the dark night. Bloody hell, he hadn’t been ready for the sight of her, hair loose around her shoulders and catching the light of the waxing moon.
“Are you mad?” she whispered louder than he would’ve dared. “What are you doing?”
“I just thought I’d get a little exercise.”
She stared at him as though he’d grown another head.
“I’m climbing up to see you,” he said, becoming acutely aware that a couple of his fingers were stinging rather badly from his scaling. “May I come in?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course not.” She reached for the latch to pull the window closed again.
“Wait, wait, wait!”
She paused.
“I don’t think I can get down without breaking something,” he admitted.
“You should’ve thought of that before you went climbing up a house like Scotland’s answer to Casanova.”
Despite the circumstances, he couldn’t help his grin. “Your faith that my exploits are Casanovaian is encouraging, Miss Burkett.”
In the moonlight he could see her roll her eyes, but he could also tell from the tug at her lips that she was fighting hard not to smile.
“May I please come in? This drainpipe and I are becoming altogether too acquainted,” he said. “You’ll be saving me from almost certain death.”
“You’re not that high up.”
“I could still die.”
She sighed and pushed the window open wider. “I cannot believe I’m agreeing to this.”
Neither could he.
You can preorder The Taste of Temptation now to make sure you get it sent to your eReader as soon as it's available on February 5th! Just click on your favorite retailer link.
Amazon | iBooks | Kobo | Nook | Google Play
A quick note for those readers in the Boston area: I'm coming to you guys! I'm going to be teaching a couple workshops at the Let Your Imagination Take Flight Conference from NECRWA. My workshops will be:
Welcome to a huge celebration of Christmas-themed books! Every November I impulse buy a ton of Christmas-themed books (mostly romances) and dump them onto my Kindle. I then spend the next two months wallowing in wonderful, heart-warming, sometimes sexy reads. This year I'm sharing twelve of my favorites, and on the last day we're celebrating a rom com set back stage at one of London's theaters!
The Christmas Secret, by Karen Swan
