Shehanne Moore's Blog, page 8

September 2, 2019

Secondary characters? How many do you need?

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SHEY : Dearest Silv, may I say how very kind of you it is to ask me here today  to my blog. I just can’t get over it. The great honour it is. To answer your question about Lizzie I wrote her out because she had no further use …[image error]


SHEY. Yes, Lizzie-alas–was adding nothing to the plot.


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Nor did I need her after chapter one for the main reason I use a secondary character, that is to hold a mirror to a lead in some way, their personality, their actions, perhaps show them as I did with Dainty and Mitchell Killgower in The Writer and The Rake, in a better light and also I suppose not to make the whole thing too claustrophobic –as I also partly used Susan for in The Unraveling of Lady Fury, and give Fury a sort of confidant.  Lizzie was not going to fulfil any of these things and letting her stay was going to change how I saw this book. So why have her?  There’s also a one scene appearance by a few children, but while they are contributing to the story there, they’re what you might term decorative extras. Spear-carriers in theatrical terms.


Overall I don’t work with a huge cast of speaking characters but I do generally work with more throughout.


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Shey. Indeed I think we got that. The world of Doom Bar Hall itself, despite being smack bang in smuggling and wrecking country, is a tight world. Destiny is a loner, probably a high functioning depressive who bashes through her daily routine and set of tasks with tunnel vision. She’s not one for friends—she’d never been what you might call popular, except with the men she drove to distraction years previously–and she confides in nobody, the family were larger than life that way locally. She’s a product of that family.  So to have put in a single scene where she does would have been wrong for her as a character and unbalanced the book.  Divers may swagger  into that world full of confidence and control,  underneath he’s a man on the edge, holding it together and no more. I won’t give away too much of the plot by saying why he’s at this stage when the book opens. He has a sidekick, Gil,  to show there’s another side to him and to mirror some of this ‘disintegration’ but that’s it re Gil being there.


  And because he could be trusted. A hard thing to come by, not just in this world but the world he inhabited. That dancing, dark and shady place of gnarled shadows and twisted paths, haunted by the need to keep one step ahead where nothing could ever be as it seemed. Not even himself.”


  


There’s reasons for Orwell–Destiny’s brother


 face as long as a six fiddle cases, and twenty four rainy days,


and as for Lyon?


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Shey. He has  quite an appetite.


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You knew everything but nothing of what he was really thinking. Hand him a farthing out the goodness of your heart and he’d still need to know where both came from. The farthing and the goodness. Probably your heart too.


Shey I think it’ s important when you are creating a world for a book and I try with each book to create a world, to think of the things that help show it.  And for me in this book it wasn’t the wider smuggling picture which is actually central to the story, but the putting of this hero and heroine and what unfolds in this world between them, centre stage. I felt that could only happen with a small playing ensemble, so even the servants had to go.  I think it’s sometimes something to consider in terms of cementing  a setting, depending on what that setting is. This one was not the world of ball gowns and dance cards and it’s not a pretty one of smuggling either.  And now before you open the voddie and do the Cossack dance… a book trailer.


 



Once he’d have died to possess her, now he just might…


Beautiful, headstrong young widow Destiny Rhodes was every Cornish man’s dream. Until Divers O’Roarke cursed her with ruin and walked out of Cornwall without a backwards glance. Now he’s not only back, he’s just won the only thing that hasn’t fallen down about her head—her ancestral home. The home, pride demands she throw herself in with, safe in the knowledge of one thing. Everything she touches withers to dust.


He’d cursed her with ruin.


Now she’d have him live with the spoils of her misfortune.


Though well versed in his dealings with smugglers and dead men, handsome rogue Divers O’Roarke is far from sure of his standing with Destiny Rhodes. He had no desire to win her, doesn’t want her in his house, but while he’s bent on the future, is there one when a passionate and deadly game of bluff ensues with the woman he once cursed? A game where no-one and nothing are what they seem. Him most of all.


And when everything she touches turns to dust, what will be his fate as passion erupts? Will laying past ghosts come at the highest price of all?


September 13th 2019 Black Wolf Books.

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Published on September 02, 2019 09:50

August 23, 2019

‘I know I have not won Doom Bar Hall from you.’ O’Roarke’s Destiny Chapter 1

 


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I know I have not won Doom Bar Hall from you………


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      CHAPTER ONE


 


   Cornwall 1801–For every smuggler, there is an exciseman who will hunt him down …


Destiny Rhodes was used to losing everything in one stroke. She’d just never thought it would be this stroke.


“A Gull Wrysen, here, you say?”[image error]


“I does, ma-am.” Lizzie’s voice tolled as befitted someone who was in the running to win the grand prize in the looking most like your surname competition at Penvellyn Fair.  So, Here Lies Lizzie Tooms, Loyal Servant of the Rhodes, Now Gone as Them, Probably unto Hell, could have been etched into her forehead.


Ignoring the rattle of the chimney pots crashing onto the lawn outside, Destiny stared harder at her reflection in the mirror above the fireplace.


“And?”


“And quoth  I, seein’ as you be a’ askin’ and me havin’ spoken to him, far worse bells could be a’tollin’ for them what are cursed.”


“Do you know, I’m very glad you think so, Lizzie? After all, here was me thinking it could well be the man who did the cursing. So why don’t we all just look on the bright side and say a prayer of joy and thankfulness? I mean, it’s not like be haven’t got anything better to do. Where’s the captain by the way?”


“Busy.”


“Lying drunk on the stable floor, you mean? Having managed to get here on his sodding horse but not off it properly? Oh, that’s busy, I suppose, if you can call such things busy.” She clasped the mantelshelf tighter in her mittened fingers, the image of Orwell meandering home beneath frozen stars, flickering through the flames. If only she was such a frozen star, instead of standing here, staring as the straw end of this place disappeared down a dark rabbit hole. Doom Bar Hall. [image error]The only thing in her life still standing. The bricks and mortar she’d poured herself into. Every flower, painting, tuck on every cushion, even her pine cone garlands that made this room a work of art at Christmas. Gone. On the turn of a card.  “Yes, a fine thing to be as busy as that.”


“I can only reports what t’es my sacred duty to report, ma-am.”


“Well, it’s something of a pity you felt it was your sacred duty to come in here and report this.”


Maybe she should just fall down now on the fender and be done with it? Then at least she might be buried along with her garlands.


“Anyways, I be sure your brother’s done his sacred best.”


“You know, for once you and I couldn’t agree more. His level best, or should that be epic, to get drunk? His very best to lose this place. As for everything in it–?”


Yet, despite what she’d thought a moment ago, was this really so unexpected when Orwell inhabited the drinks cabinet the way fish did the ocean and would be sure to win the empty cider barrel in the drinking it dry competition at Penvellyn Fair.  In fact, there was no might about it. The miracle was it had taken him this long. As for what she could do about it? Apart from winning first prize in the breaking her hand by punching a wall competition?


“Ma-am, I be sure that despite everythin’, he has this in hand.”


“Really? Well? That’s a first. A second first, I must say. You thinking and him having this in hand.”


“If he does not have it in hand, the Lord shall. You watch this. He will be our salvation, ma-am.”


“Oh, please do spare me. Truly. Unless you think a sermon to match the one on the Mount, is something I can stand tonight? Wait around for the Lord being me salvation, and first prize in the look at all them moldering bones competition is what I’ll win.”


“Then what do you require, ma-am?”


“Right now? Apart from a sodding great dose of arsenic, you mean?”


The strength to deal with this but that didn’t look like it was coming unless that sodding, great albatross that had just careered inside her velvet gown–a triple-weighted blind one at that—found some other gown to career into. Finally, ashes existed she couldn’t rise from, despite everyone always saying she should have been named Phoenix. Imagine that, when Lizzie was sure to have it broadcast all over Penvellyn by this time tomorrow, if not before, how Destiny had collapsed in the library fireplace and lain there, cursed, like all who’d passed down the long, dusty road to the charnel house before her, too?[image error]


“Ma-am, I know we have had our differences—“


“You can say that again.”


Mostly on the subject of accents. Destiny sounded like her mother who had come from up north. Yorkshire somewhere.  And Lizzie only took instructions from those who didn’t, which made it even more ridiculous she took them from Orwell who was more refined than a glass of malt whiskey. Orwell who probably reeked worse than one right now and was in no fit state to open his mouth, let alone let an order fall out of it.


As for Lizzie’s pity? Another lecture on the Lord? Lizzie producing a bible from her apron pocket in another minute or so, in all probability, and asking Destiny to read from it? Well, Destiny wouldn’t want first prize for making the heavens fall down. Now, would she? Especially not when she’d already won the one for having her head panned in with the meat mallet. After all, it was vital she at least try to raise her chin, though what she was lifting it for she’d no idea.


“No. Don’t.” Lizzie parted her lips and Destiny hurried on. “Once is quite enough. Look, just send in this … this man. Me brother may be lying on the stable floor too drunk to deal with him. I’m not. Go on.”


Yes. Let those who thrived on the pantomime of her life, say her black heart dripped something so common as blood? Over her burned and beaten body. That would be death, not this, even if all of it was death now. How could Orwell do this?


“If it is yore wish and yore command, ma’am?”


“I’d hardly put it that strongly. But what else can I do?  Still, fear not Lizzie,”  she lowered her gaze from the mirror as Lizzie [image error]nodded. “Whatever happens, I’m sure the servants’ places will be guaranteed. After all, in my humble experience, everyone needs servants. Even a death knell one like you.”


Well? Everybody did. How very lucky to be one. Suppose she said she was? Found a mob cap, claimed to be the housekeeper? Bit an arsenal of bullets, swallowed them too, suffered the laughter, the snide remarks, the fact she wasn’t the only one to drag the family through the gutter?  Endure the servants too? The ones who had so  recently been hers?


How far a falling from a heaven too high.


What? Have it round the county that she qualified for entering the best servants competition because she cleaned boots and changed beds for her new master, fetched him his pipe and slippers, dusted his ornamental vases?[image error]


No. She’d sooner starve. After all, she wasn’t exactly likely to win it.


My God, if only Chancery had lived. Actually, if everyone who had ever touched her sorry life had damn well lived, she’d not be in this mess. But Chancery’s death, over that sodding Rose O’Roarke had started an endless procession to the charnel house. All beneath the winding sheet of one certainty. The hollow toll of another death would shortly follow.


Until the moment Chancery took up with Rose O’Roarke, he’d been heir to Doom Bar Hall, not sodding Orwell and sodding Orwell’s brandy bottles. Captain Rhodes, if you pleased, seeing as he, and them, commanded the local militia. Then the curse uttered by Rose’s grey-eyed brother, Divers O’Roarke, across her marble-veined corpse had come true. They were all rotting in hell. Destiny most of all.


Her shoulders sagged. She glanced back in the gilt framed mirror, wreathed in ornamental cherubs on their way to heaven—lucky them–the mirror she’d found in the attic and spent weeks cleaning, mending and wiping dead flies off. Gull sodding Wrysen’s mirror now. Well?


Unless?


Unless she took it down, of course. Took it with her. It was heavy as an elephant. That much was obvious the second she reached forward to wrench it free. Not that she’d ever won any prizes for wrenching an elephant. No. There weren’t exactly many of them about in Cornwall. And any there were, were hardly likely to be nailed to the wall, the half of which she’d be trying to get out of the door next if any more plaster showered onto her fingers. And where would she put that?


No. This was over. Over. Over. The words ticked like the grandfather clock in the hall outside. All she could do was go with her head held high. Let the locals have their farthing’s worth. Well?


Unless?


She fingered her throat. It was an idea. Even if she wasn’t quite sure where it came from.


“Dstny … ”


The French doors banged open in the gale howling over the cliff face. Orwell, staggering in here with wet boots and slurred apologies for losing her pine cone garlands, was the last thing she needed. Certainly, if she was really considering that idea.  She slipped her gaze from her—actually, some might say, edifying as a dead viper’s–reflection.  And they would be right.  Some things had to be faced when it came to ideas.


“Goodness me. Orwell. Sit down, why don’t you? Preferably not in here, before  your wet feet take first prize for ruining the rug, when it’s no longer ours to ruin either. At least I hope that’s from your wet feet.”


The spindle chair nearly went over beneath his backside as he collapsed into it. She braced for the crash. It  would certainly be one thing less for Gull Wrysen to claim if it smashed.


Unless?


Orwell sank his head with its untidy chestnut quiff on his chest and tried pulling his coat-tails from beneath his backside. “I say, old gril, l mean girl … I’ll need … that is, I’ll nleed to … I’ll need ver’ much to …  to … ”


“What? Sober up? Stop drinking? Get Doom Bar Hall back? Likely as a chocolate doily surviving in hell that is, if you must know.”


“Mulst know? Well, I… I sullpose, I sullpose I do. I mean … Do you know, it’s the damndest thing … but I don’t knlow what I mean …”


“Oh, I think we can all see that, Orwell. Maybe we should hang a sign in Truro, saying, ‘This is Orwell Rhodes. He doesn’t know what he means but one thing’s for certain, he has lost Doom Bar Hall. Throw him a farthing someone, so he can maybe buy it back.'”


Unless?


Hearing footsteps marching along the hall, she raised her chin.


“Yes Lizzie, what is it?”


“Milord Wrysen, ma’am.” Lizzie’s bobbed curtsy was probably the lowest the man towering in the doorway had ever seen. It was certainly the lowest Destiny had ever seen it. Start as you mean to go on her father had always said. Lizzie was starting well. Destiny should take a leaf out of that book.


“Should I fetch tea, ma-am?”


A good question. But no amount of tea in the best china cups Destiny had found moldering in the stables would sort this.


Unless?


She flicked her gaze over the man opposite. About thirty? Black haired—not her preferred color–a dusting of stubble on his chin.  Eyes like gleaming black bullets. A plain, if not inelegant greatcoat, and leather boots, flecked with mud. No wedding ring. It didn’t mean he wasn’t married.


In that moment she decided.


“No. I am sure His Grace here would prefer something stronger, Lizzie.”


Like herself.


She pinched her cheeks, although this Gull Wrysen could take her as she was. So long as he did take her.


It could be worse. Orwell could have lost the wager to Divers O’Roarke. Then she’d really be in trouble. It was common knowledge he regularly gambled the fortune he’d amassed designing houses and gardens in London.


Hadn’t the sun’s rays shone on him since he’d sworn that oath? Shone to the extent his chestnut hair must be burnt black while she looked more of a corpse than his sister, Rose.


This was the hand she’d been dealt. This was the hand she’d play though.


Smiles were beyond her. Gull Wrysen would see what he was getting and what he was getting was someone young enough at twenty five, to be thought attractive, despite her cropped hair and–all right–the fact she’d give a dead viper a run for its money in the looks’ stakes. But really, some might say, that was all.


As for what she was getting? Well? Doom Bar Hall was what she was getting. Very nice it was too. When nothing else mattered, she wouldn’t be the first, or last, to  manage a few ecstatic moans where required.


Only think of the fuel for the fires of all these little effigies the locals liked to make of her. The fires that had been dying of malnutrition lately.


She settled her gaze on his face.


“Well, Your Grace? Do allow me.”


She meant a drink. Orwell was sitting there, after all. Besides Gull Wrysen was standing as if she was Medusa and he’d been turned to stone. But hopefully this was purely temporary.


“Thank you, Lizzie,” she added, seeing that only Lizzie’s jaw had moved and that was in the direction of the floor. “Yes. As you can see, I will deal with this. And please shut your mouth while you’re about it. It’s wholly bad enough you look like a tombstone. We don’t want you adding trout to the mix. Not when Mr. Wrysen and I have things to discuss, regarding the house.”


She waited for Lizzie to win every prize going in the collecting her jaw and sailing like a doom-ridden ship away competition, before setting out two glasses. Gold rimmed ones from the set that added perfection to her Christmas Eve when she  finally sat before the fire in the cavernous, leather armchair and treated herself to a measure of port. Glasses she’d be keeping now if this went her way. Why shouldn’t it? She was cursed, not incapable.


Yes. This man wasn’t so bad. Fair hair would have reminded her of Ennis, who some might say, was probably birling ten times in his coffin. Not the man to think of and face this one standing in the candlelit shadows in his mud-spattered boots and greatcoat, holding his hat beneath his arm as if he’d no idea what to do with it.[image error]


Well, she knew, she knew exactly. She slipped the top off the decanter, inhaled the rich ruby scent. If it came right down to it here, she could cook and dust, if need be. If he wanted to bring in a woman, if need be, she’d say nothing. After all, there would be nothing to say anything about on her part. No jealousy. Nothing. She wouldn’t insult Ennis’s memory with that kind of thing that betrayed low moral fiber.


“But perhaps I am being presumptuous with your drink and your servants, now Doom Bar Hall has fallen to you, Lord … Lord …?”


“Me?” He shifted uncertainly, the ghost of a smile hanging to his lips. Totally unnerved. No bad sign. “Oh, good God, no. Miss … Miss Rhodes, isn’t it?”


“Well, it’s not the devil incarnate, though there’s plenty round here certainly say so.”


“Good .. I mean … No, I mean I think there’s been some kind of mistake.”


She nearly clattered the decanter top onto the sideboard. Some kind of mistake?  My God.  Damn Orwell. And yet, Lord love him. A mistake. It was all a mistake.  Thank God she’d had enough moral fiber not to open her mouth.


“I mean … You mean you’re not Gull Wrysen? And you’re not here to take Doom Bar Hall from me? Well, I never.” Especially given how close she’d been to offering herself. ”You know, I just can’t believe how I—well, never mind, have the drink anyway.”


“Gull?” Gull Wrysen lips twitched as he reached for the glass. “I’m not Gull Wrysen. Not that I know of anyway, unless I’ve been re-christened. I’m not Wrysen either. My name, so far as I know my name anyway, is Gil. Gil Wryson. And I’m not a gentleman either. Well … again… Not that I know of.”[image error]


“I see.”


Damn Lizzie. As ever, she won first prize in the being spat on by the Fates competition. After they fell about the floor laughing at her first. Why hadn’t she known no man would be called Gull? And Wrysen was a Cornish pronounciation? Still, she could surely weather a blob or two of spittle seeing as this was all a mistake?


“Although that’s not the mistake,” he added.


Damn the Fates to hell. Still, one mercy in a drought dropping from the heavens? She hadn’t danced  about the floor waving her drawers in the air.  Whether he was a gentleman or not, was neither here, nor there, when it came to getting him to agree to this. And she would, so long as her own name was Destiny Rhodes, she would. Now. She’d have to. Just swallow what rose in her throat, forget about the fact that when everything she touched turned to dust, the pity was he didn’t drop at her feet, and do it.


“Then … let’s get straight to the point. I’ve always been a frank talking kind of girl.”


“The point, Miss Rhodes?”


“Doom Bar Hall is not just my home, as well as my brother, Orwell’s, it has been  my whole life since my husband, Ennis, died. You look surprised?”


“Only in that—”


“I seem young to be a widow? Well, I was and I am, I suppose. Of course I could have lived at Pangbury, the family home but we were guests there ourselves, him having a younger brother with family. So I put the money he left me into Doom Bar Hall, because it has been in the Rhodes family for generations. I returned to my maiden name too. I think you’ll find I’m quite a woman of the world, however.”


It was the most tactful way to put what she was about to propose, which was why she turned away. Not before she saw Gil Wryson’s gleaming black eyes were searching her face in bemusement. But perhaps he simply couldn’t believe his luck? She knew she couldn’t. Believe her luck that was. Certainly at having got this far.


“I suppose what I am trying to say to you, is that I am in this house,” she added. “Yes. It is in me even though you may have won it from my brother, Orwell.”


“I think you’re mistaken there, Miss Rhodes.”


“Really? Well I don’t. You did win it. I’m not going to argue about that, or how easy it probably was, knowing Orwell’s drinking habits, to diddle him of his left pinkie. His thumb too.”


“Perhaps. But it … ”


Must he keep interrupting her when she was doing her level best here to get up from the pit, soar to the sky and secure the roof above her head? And the desperation he might refuse, lay like a lather on her bones? She glided forward then turned to face him.


“Doom Bar Hall is too precious to me. As you will see when I show you around, I am in every scrap of this place. In fact you might even say I am this place. That is why you should also know something.”


“What?”


“I come with it.”


Start as you mean to go on. Finish too. The blank cut-out she was inside meant it was nothing for her to stand here and offer herself like this. Once. Perhaps. But now? Given the alternative? Although equally, some might say, she had risen to this with a surprising fervor.


“I’m sorry?”


“Oh, I am too, Mr. Wryson, but I honestly have no choice.”


He blinked, as if he hadn’t known what was coming, or didn’t want her, although he did have the good manners to smile. “Am I to understand?  Are you … are you suggesting … ”


Orwell’s boots scraped on the scuffed floorboards.


“Dstny. Dsny, old girl, thart’s what … you see … it’s like this … I relemmber now. …”


“Oh please, Orwell, do be quiet for once in your sorry life. Let’s just agree I’ll handle this, shall we? You can go to the devil for all I care. In fact, shall we say Truro marketplace if you don’t button up?”


Yes. Gil Wryson wasn’t the devil and he wasn’t Divers O’Roarke–not that the devil troubled her, if she’d to narrow that list down. Divers O’Roarke now? Exactly how likely was he to be here in Cornwall?


Ignoring the wind banging the shutters, the batter of incessant rain cutting a silver stream down the moonlit glass, she continued,[image error]


“Now then, Mr. Wryson, these are the terms I place honorably on the table before you. They are very simple. Doom Bar Hall is my life. I will not be separated from it. So if you take Doom Bar Hall, you take me, to do what you will with. I’ll be your queen, your housekeeper, I’ll be your whatever you desire, because no-one knows this place like me. If you can’t do that, if you have some other agenda, some other woman, for that matter, whatever you have, walk away now.  I know I have not won Doom Bar Hall from you, that in a million years I may not have done that, but then again I never lost it in a devil’s hand of cards, played against a man too drunk to know his own name, let alone the family one he’s thrown away. These are my terms. I’m not leaving here, unless it is in a box. Do you understand?”


“Miss … Lady … ?”


Ignoring him, she lifted the glass to her lips. Courage flowed into her veins, all the way to her pounding temples.  It always did when she made up her mind.


“In the circumstances, you may call me, Destiny.”


Orwell tried again to struggle to his feet. “Dstiny. Don’t. You … you don’t know … “


“Orwell, I asked you to stay out of this. What you do is up to you just as this is up to me. I am doing this. I am keeping our home.”


Her shell would anyway. What followed behind, a pallbearer at an unspeakable funeral might wince. She waited, a prisoner of the silence, the one existing in her soul, for Gil Wryson to speak. His lips cinched uncertainly, as if he didn’t know how to approach this. Gentlemanly of him, but not the point.


“Destiny?”


“Yes.”


“Well, I … I’m sure I can call you that, Miss … Miss Rhodes, if that’s acceptable … ”


“Why shouldn’t it be? We’re going to be things to each other, after all. Let’s drink a toast to it.”


“But what I was trying to explain, maybe not terribly well, that is true, and perhaps your brother—“


“Oh, him? He doesn’t count for anything where this is concerned.”


“– is too, is that I didn’t actually win the game. So really … ”


Her heart beat in such hope it almost felled her, although hope was something that had lived in the dark for the last two years. Doom Bar Hall wasn’t lost at all.


Relief washed like an ocean, ambushing her as she stood there encased in tortuous, threadbare velvet. Her cheeks pulsed. To think she’d abased herself for nothing. But what did that matter? She downed the drink in one, wiped a mittened hand across her mouth.


“Then … if you didn’t win …?”


“No. I suppose that’s what I meant when I said I wasn’t a gentleman.”


“I’m sorry, Mr. Wryson, you will think me thick as a sea mist—“


“Not at all.”


“–but the truth is I really don’t understand what you being, or not being a gentleman, has to do—“


“I’m acting on behalf of my employer.”


“Your employer?”


So it was true? She’d lost Doom Bar Hall. Still, she’d made that decision before this man walked in here.  How he looked, how old he was, who he was, had made no difference then. Why should it now?


“He thought there would be difficulties, you see.”


“Apart from me brother lying drunk I can’t imagine how.”


“Well he did. And that was why he asked me to spy out the lie of the land, if you will. After all, this is quite a house to lose–”


“Do you think I don’t know that? That is why my offer is the same because I don’t intend to lose it–”


Especially when there’s past associations.”


Past associations.” She resisted the urge to finger her throat, which prickled as if a moth’s wing was stuck in it somewhat of a sudden. “What do you mean?”


“I mean my employer once lived—not in the house itself—but on the estate, and is known to you.”


“Known?”


She swallowed the astonishment sitting cold as marble in her mouth. There was only one man she could think of who’d done that but of that one man, she didn’t want to think. Not when the blood drained from her face, the floor loomed so perilously close she struggled to stand in her black slippers and Orwell staggered to his feet.


“Dstny … I triled to tell you. But you … you … Anyway, you’re nlot seris … ”


“Unless the name Divers O’Roarke is unfamiliar to you, Miss Rhodes?” Gil Wryson’s voice was oiled velvet.


“Divers O’Roarke?”


How did she say the name as if it was nothing to her, the name of the man who had cursed them, cursed her loudest of all?


Because she must.


“No. I believe I have vague memories of him.”


“Good, because he is waiting outside. I will be sure to pass the details of your offer to him if you still desire it.”


Before she could think whether she did or not, whether some might say this was putting it rather strongly, or she should change her mind, a footfall sounded in the doorway behind her.


“Good evening, Destiny,” clanged the sounding bell of hell and a voice she sort of recognized from there. “I see you haven’t changed.”


Once he’d have died to possess her, now he just might…


Beautiful, headstrong young widow Destiny Rhodes was every Cornish man’s dream. Until Divers O’Roarke cursed her with ruin and walked out of Cornwall without a backwards glance. Now he’s not only back, he’s just won the only thing that hasn’t fallen down about her head—her ancestral home. The home, pride demands she throw herself in with, safe in the knowledge of one thing. Everything she touches withers to dust.


He’d cursed her with ruin.


Now she’d have him live with the spoils of her misfortune.


Though well versed in his dealings with smugglers and dead men, handsome rogue Divers O’Roarke is far from sure of his standing with Destiny Rhodes. He had no desire to win her, doesn’t want her in his house, but while he’s bent on the future, is there one when a passionate and deadly game of bluff ensues with the woman he once cursed? A game where no-one and nothing are what they seem. Him most of all.


And when everything she touches turns to dust, what will be his fate as passion erupts? Will laying past ghosts come at the highest price of all?


 


Releasing Friday September 2019 .. It is about a curse after all …Paperback and Ebook. E book can be pre-ordered here.



 

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Published on August 23, 2019 09:14

August 8, 2019

From Prague to Arisaig via Glencoe …

 


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MEESTER


 


 


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MONSTER


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ARISAIG. Shey on the rocks without a drink too… DAY ONE. The walk was to Rhu Point and back. Shey and the Mr were full of  day one walking anticipation, so they howfed the three and a bit miles there, then back again.


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ARISAIG Shey on a moth-eaten swing. Strangely this was without a drink although you might not think it. The Highland Games Dance was yet to come….


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ARISAIG A deserted set of swings without anything….


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And a phone box somewhere in Glen Roy that took Shey’s fancy largely cos you can’t get a mobile signal… BUT MAYBE there’s a ‘ beam me up Scotty,’ story here, OR It’s the TARDIS… As you can see …many writing prompts here.


 


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DAY TWO. Shey at the Silver Sands, Morar before she and the Mr clocked the incoming tide…. and had to walk miles back to the road… or water, lots of it would have been what they were drinking…


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MORAR


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DAY two the Silver Sands of Morar from a safer viewpoint.


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DAY TWO Unperturbed by the diversion at Morar and dancing half the night away, Shey and the Mr drove to Glencoe and tackled the Duror Trail feeling very brisk and loving the joys of walking. So much so they even walked along to Am Torr and back later before howfing it into the Boots Bar.


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Glencoe


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GLENCOE DAY 3. Despite the sun now beating down Shey and the Mr. set off to bag Meall Mor. From 1500 feet already up –on a forestry road to Ballachulish no less–  with the last bit, straight ahead there, through the bog, round the sheep fence, through the gate   and up the slope, just to go, what could be simpler.  In Glencoe, there is no such thing as simple…


 


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The view looking down from the top was quite something.


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As for the five and a half hours all told it took Shey and the Mr to do the entire bagging-yes you can spot him there, thinking how one slip would result in him taking the express route down to Loch Leven…, while Shey tried a more zigzagging approach well….that was something too…


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But returning…, or rather crawling back…to the Clachaig a surprise awaited. A bottle of lovely bubbly from the staff there for the wedding anniversary. So obvi this picture and all the ones taken after had a drink in them, in fact they had many,  and no wonder.


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Now this as blogger Ralpha will know is THAT sign again which Shey, no longer so full of the joys of walking, but rather full of fizz and cask aged cider tried to vary pose-wise.


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DAY 4. GLENCOE/BALLACHILISH. Despite outright rebellion in the ranks, the Mr fell into step and did the lonely, overgrown, Brecklet Trail where Ping Pong Monsters lurk….. Monsters that tasted delicious…….

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Published on August 08, 2019 08:16

July 28, 2019

On love and life. Interview with the poet.

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THINDER LING.


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Well, I admire you of course…I have read three books of yours in the span of two weeks and I do not mind telling that I admire a lot of people around me….but yes amongst us definitely you….

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Published on July 28, 2019 05:40

July 11, 2019

April 29, 2019

March 15, 2019

When in Prague…… Meet the Golem

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Prague City Break, after managing to work the hotel lifts and how to cross the roads the Czech way, went something like….

Hotels stayed in- 1—The Jurys Inn. Can well recommend.

Roads nearly killed on ? None.

Quarters visited- 3–Old Town, New Town, Jewish.

Museums visited-3– Franz Kafka, the Anthropoid Church Museum, Zidovske Museum…

Attractions visited- 9 – Old Town Square, Astronomical Clock, Wenceslas Square, Old Jewish Cemetery, the Anthropoid Church, Charles Bridge, Charles Square, St Nicholas Church, Spanish Synagogue,

Bars visited– Certainly more than one.

Drinks consumed– A shocking amount including Cocktails, Czech beers, wine, and Bailey’s Irish cream nightcaps.

River Cruises with live music – 1

Pairs of new shoes bought – 1

Miles walked -well over 13.

Trams taken – 1

Possibilities of returning? Count us in.


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Published on March 15, 2019 10:51

March 4, 2019

February 13, 2019

January 29, 2019

She’s back. …in every way.

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Shey – Cos frankly I had to kick your butts into gear.


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Shey- it is kind as you’re getting till you get back into line.


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‘Had her mind really whispered Lady Margaret this morning? James Flint Blackmoore. Pig. Pig. Complete. Absolute. Pig. Bastard. Now, that’s what she should have thought.’


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Her gorge rose even though she had something on him now. A shipload in fact. Rescind the rules? In her dreams. His too. The bastard could take what he got and welcome.


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Genoa 1820


Malmesbury would father the heir to the Beaumont dukedom. Count Vellagio wasn’t a contender. What she’d logged in her book about him this afternoon said it would be a huge mistake anyway. The same for the Duke of Southey—young, certainly, but a drunk with quiffed hair and filthy fingernails.


No, Malmesbury was the best. The only. Intelligent without being painful, fashionable yet not a dandy, and retaining enough of his looks at the age of fifty not to  be outright repulsive.


Of course, it would have helped if Thomas could have fathered the Beaumont heir himself. But as he lay dead in a box in the cellar, that wasn’t likely.[image error]


“Gentlemen, you know as well as I do, this is an unusual evening.” Shivers ran up and down Lady Fury Shelton’s spine as she stood in the center of her darkened antechamber.


With its festooned corners and gold-scrolled furniture, the carmine-walled room was the best place for such an assignation, although the tiled floor and the cool clang of evening bells snaking in through the parted shutters made it chillier than usual. The candlelight glinting on the pale oval of Messalina’s face on the hanging above the bed, too. Earlier, the air had been hotter than a boiled lobster. She’d had to change twice in the space of an hour because she was too.[image error]


“Hear, hear.” Southey raised his crystal glass.


Where else, but to his obviously parched lips. A toast to her? Already it was obviously beyond his capability to sit down facing her as the other men were, with their drinks untouched on the tiny tables beside them, the epitome of good manners.


“My interviews are complete. Shortly, I will make my choice. Then, having done so, I will invite the said gentleman to this bedroom, where he will perform his duty as often as necessary.”


“All in one night. I say, that’s a tall order for a man. Isn’t it, chaps?”


For Southey, yes, it would be. Given the state in which he’d arrived at her door this afternoon, and what he’d sunk of her amaretto and limoncello in the meantime, it was a miracle he could still stand there against the marble fireplace. Never mind anything else.


But she wasn’t about to debate the subject. Maybe she was fit to snap the spine of the tooled leather book she was clutching–a pity it wasn’t his throat—the Moon could not look serener.


“I say, Fury, how the blazes are you going to tell right away?” Southey hiccupped. “Don’t them things take weeks and weeks to find out?”


“The one chosen will be here for weeks. Those not chosen,”—him in other words–“will leave within the hour. I think we may be clear that at any time in the future, should any one of you breathe a word to anyone about this, I will find out. I have sufficient information in this book here to ruin each and every one of you. Make no mistake, I will use it.”[image error]


“By God, Fury, you don’t need to talk like that about any of us, I’m sure,” Malmesbury, who had so far watched the proceedings with an amused smile, muttered. “You want to get one over on Thomas; I, for one, don’t blame you. We all saw him sneaking about with that Porto Antican tart when you first arrived.”


“Yes.” Who hadn’t?


“And do you think we’re unaware what his illness has done to him? The rages? The drinking? The way he keeps you here like a pet poodle?”


That too. Thomas wasn’t who she was getting one over on, but she couldn’t very well say so here.


She held in her hands every dirty little secret concerning these men. All documented in the yellow, dog-eared pages of her book. The leaves also contained letters, bills, testimonies, transactions. She kept it all beneath lock and key. So they obeyed her.


In fact, she kept dirty secrets on every member of the aristocracy she came into contact with, so she was safe for another hour, another day. She was hardly about to lose that balance of control by admitting this wasn’t about Thomas.


No. She could have paid a Porto Antican organ grinder to father her child and walked away, no questions asked. The one at the end of the harbor was handsome enough. But Lady Margaret would smell an organ grinder’s bastard at a hundred paces. Hadn’t the woman scented Fury?


Malmesbury shifted in his chair. “Where is he, by the way?”


“Who? Thomas? Thomas is visiting his father.”


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“Even if he wasn’t, Thomas wants you to know me well. That is why he’s gone.” She hesitated. Thomas would spare her this next lie, although there was more than one grain of truth in it now. “Sadly, it is more than he can do himself these days. Now, I must ask you all to return to your chambers and wait. My mind is almost made up. Susan, here, will call in due course for the chosen one to return. And we’ll begin.”


“Dash it, that’s good to know.” Southey thumped his glass down on the marble mantelpiece.


In addition to his drinking, his casual mistreatment of the Murano goblet, while not worth an entry in her book, made him all the more unsuitable. What careless traits might a child inherit? Besides, his odor as he staggered past her made her stomach heave. It took every ounce of her self-control to remain where she was, inhaling the fragrance of the citrus-scented candle Susan had lit to disperse the gloom.


He paused and turned toward her. “All this cloak and dagger stuff is killing, you know.”


“Yes. Certainly for some.”


“What if you can’t … you know?”


“Oh, I’m sure I can.”


Malmesbury got to his feet. “I shall wait then, Fury.”


There was no doubt his palms itched to touch her, but she shrank from letting him. It didn’t bode well for later, but at least he didn’t smell. There wasn’t a single crease in his immaculate silver frock coat. And his shoe buckles not only shone, they sparkled. His valet must be remarkable, whoever he was.


Count Vellagio was silent as the crypt. Speaking limited English—and not much more Italian—he always was, unless it was absolutely necessary.


It was one mercy at least.


***


“Oh, I will fetch the chosen one, will I?” Susan folded her arms across her ample bosom, the instant the door closed.


Fury managed two steps and sank down at her dressing table. “Just cover the bruises, will you? I can’t have them on show. It might affect the conception-–or at least it might affect their ability to perform. They see that and God knows what they’ll think. I know I would.” She tossed the book into the open drawer. “So?”


“Madam—”


“If I have to take a stick to your back, I will.”


“A stick? That’s fine talk, when I think of all I’ve done for you.”


“I know you mean well,” Fury wheedled, dabbing a little perfume on her wrists. “But I believe it’s important for a woman to look her best, regardless of the situation. So don’t argue. I honestly can’t take arguing tonight. I don’t know if I can take anything more.”[image error]


“Look your best? For a bunch of drunken old faggots. Sadistic old faggots. Do you know what I heard about Vellagio today?”


Fury picked up her powder puff. When it came to looking her best, she might as well make a start, if Susan wasn’t going to help. “Whatever it was, you shouldn’t have been listening.”


“It was at the market. How could I help it?”


“By covering your ears. Anyway, I thought you didn’t speak Italian?”


“He uses boys. Young boys. Whether they want to or not. He whips them too.”


For a moment Fury stared at the marbled surface of the table. If she could draw strength from its veins to hers, that would be nice. If she could draw strength from anything, in fact. But she was past that now. All she could do was choose one of these old faggots.


“Really? Well, I heard it was young girls. But whichever it is, while I know you mean well, you’re not in my situation. In fact, it’s hard to think of anyone who is. But if anyone was, I’m sure they’d do what I’m doing.”


“You think.”


“We both know it’s this or nothing. I can’t … I won’t be cast off without a penny. Not again. It was bad enough the first time. And anyway, it’s no more than Lady Margaret deserves.” Wincing, she swept the dark fall of hair back from her neck. “Now, please, a little powder—”


“A little powder?” Susan folder her arms tighter. “It will take more than a little powder to cover that mess this time.”


“Just think like Lady Macbeth, will you? And stop arguing. You’ve done it before.” Fury raised her head as a gust of wind blew in through the open shutters. “Anyway, the men aren’t all old. Or faggots.”


“Fine. Have it your own way.” Fury almost ceased breathing as Susan secured the shutters, then bustled across the floor. “You know you always do. Though I’m not thinking of Lady Margaret. Or of what she deserves, either. I’m thinking of you.”


“Then don’t. You know I don’t require it.”


“I’m thinking you should just tell that old toad where to stuff her money. You could find a protector here in Genoa. A woman like you.”


“A woman like me?” Fury met her green-eyed reflection in the not-yet-paid-for glass. “And what would that be, exactly?” Long ago she’d stopped wondering, buffeted by fortune’s changing winds. Forced to snatch what she could to survive. Always knowing one false foot-fall would bring her down. “Anyway, why would I want a protector? Thomas was that, at the start. Now look at me, without a penny to my name again. No. I’ve had my fill of protectors. I want to guarantee my future. The future of … Well …” Her eyes dulled in the glass. “You know as well as I do the things that are dear.”[image error]


“But madam, if you didn’t have the money to pay certain bills, my sister wouldn’t—”


“That’s what you say, when we all know money is the most important thing on the planet.” She dabbed a little rouge on her cheeks. “You know the dire nature of my predicament, what I must guarantee and why. That damned old bag hated me from the first. Don’t tell me she doesn’t lie awake at nights just thinking of new ways to torture and humiliate me. But poisoning Thomas’s father against me? Cajoling him on his death bed into insisting Thomas must provide an heir before succeeding to the dukedom? What kind of new low was that? One I would never stoop to. In fact, now I think about it, I don’t know anyone else who would. Well, it’s one blessing at least that Lady Margaret lives in England and I’m here. Even if, in other ways, that’s a torture to me.”


Susan sprinkled a dusting of powder onto the dressing table as if she were measuring the ingredients for a cake, and then wiped her hands down her apron. “Indeed I do, madam, I just think, in fact I know—”


Despite herself, Fury touched what glittered around her neck. The single midnight-blue pendant Thomas had given her two Christmases ago. The copy of it, rather. Because that, like this, was also burning necessity. Her Hatton Garden jewel-maker had served her well, though. Thomas had never once suspected a thing of her need for that kind of money, and how it ran to far more than blackmail.


“Before you say another word on the subject, Susan–-as I know you’re going to and you should know I don’t want to hear–-even this jewel here wouldn’t pay for what I need to guarantee for Storm. It’s like me. Fake.”


“Undervalued is what I’d say. What about blackmail, then? That book—”


“Blackmail is messy, which is why I’m locking the book away again.”


“It’s not my business, but when I think of all the years you’ve bribed dressmakers and housemaids and coachmen to get what’s in it …”


“Out of necessity only. Knowing that at any time, this could all tumble down. No. This is the best way. Besides, think how good it will feel, finally outfoxing Lady Margaret. She insists on an heir. She gets one. Do you really think I’m going to care if the old bat coos over some child that’s not Thomas’s? When that’s going to be the very best feeling in the world? Well?”


“You might not say that in nine months time.”


“I can’t think of a reason why not.”


“So, who are you considering, madam? Southey? He’s certainly the youngest.”


“Well, now I can’t possibly lower myself to having Vellagio, I’m thinking Malmesbury, actually.”


“Malmesbury?” Susan’s fingers didn’t falter, but Fury sensed her start of surprise. Not in admiration of her sense of judgment either.


“Oh, I do admit that Southey would probably be less trouble and far more malleable. But Malmesbury’s hardly one-legged and toothless. I’m sure he knows how to treat a woman properly. Besides, so long as he’s—not like Thomas—what does it matter?”


Truth to tell, if anyone could understand her predicament, Thomas would have. For her sake, he’d tried ensuring an heir. But these last six months, as what pressed on his brain swelled, well … she certainly didn’t want any man treating her like Thomas had.


“That would be hard, madam, given the things His Grace did to you.”


“Well, we must remember, he wasn’t always like that. No. I think I’ve decided, Malmesbury, and I … Well, I think I should just go along there and get it over with. The sooner the better, don’t you think?” She smoothed a smoky curl into place on her forehead. “Besides, my reckoning is, he positively expects it.”


“What? Malmesbury? That old–”


“Oh, yes.” She reached toward the open trinket chest. “Now, what do you think? Sapphire earrings or plain gold?”[image error]


“I don’t see either matters, since they’re not going to be on very long.”


“Just the same.” She fastened on the sapphire drops. “You obviously didn’t see the way he stared there just now. I very much doubt he can contain himself.”


“The old goat.”


“Well. Who knows? If he’s a randy one, it might even be rather fun.” She marveled at herself for laughing when shadows ringed her eyes. But there, so long as she got through this, what did it matter?


Susan’s hand rested on her shoulder. “Then I’ll get him for you, madam, if this is truly your choice.”


“No.” Fun or not—and she thought not—the notion of admitting him here, to the bed she’d shared with Thomas, didn’t seem quite right somehow, even if she did manage to conceive the Beaumont heir. “I—I’ll do it. I need to calm my nerves. What bedroom is he in again? I confess I’ve forgotten.”


“The Blue Chamber.”


“Well then, think of England, as they say. Wish me luck. And remember to lock the drawer. However I choose to use it, that book is still the world to me. We must see it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.”


She rose, smoothed her dress—indigo silk, a perfect match for her hair and eyes– and took the candlestick.


If she did this, she forfeited forever her claim to be a respectable woman. Who was going to know though? Apart from herself, Susan and Malmesbury. That old coot would marry her in a second, if she gave the word. It was all the more reason to choose him. So why worry when the only thing that could possibly stand in her way was herself?


If she didn’t execute this task, then she faced being in the same position as she had been in seven years ago. It was fine at eighteen. But now, she needed to secure some things. Once she had, think of how free she’d be of men and all their machinations. For the first time ever. Women, too.


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The Blue Chamber stood at the far end of the landing near the stairs, and she padded there noiselessly in the arc of the flickering candle, past the disapproving busts of the villa-owner Signor Santa-Rosa’s ancestors and the draped apertures, which she sometimes imagined hid more secrets than she did.


Malmesbury would be surprised to see her. Irresistibly dressed, jeweled, perfumed in a floating cloud of jasmine, and, hopefully, willing—as much as she could make herself, anyway. Who would know that beneath the rustling indigo silk, the heady, intoxicating jasmine she had bathed in earlier, she was like a skittish colt, ready to bolt? Was this how Marie Antoinette felt going to her execution? The queen’s deeds were certainly questionable. But her courage now? That was to be admired.


Besides, surprise could sometimes be the best method of attack. A man was, after all, a man. And, as she’d said to Susan, it might even be rather fun. If it wasn’t, well, in addition to swiftly retiring to her own bedroom, bolting the door and lying with cool lavender scented cloths on her forehead, there was her book, wasn’t there?


If he put a hand on her that was less than seemly, what she’d say to him on the subject of his murkier dealings would certainly ensure it would be fun the next time, if not before. Oh, this was going to be just fine.


Drawing a breath to quell her hammering heart, she raised her hand to tap on the door.


“Hello, sweetheart.” A low, American Southern voice drawled. Not from the other side of the door where she expected to hear something, but almost in her ear.


“Imagine seeing you here.”


https://amzn.to/2DpCKGOhttps://amzn.to/2R3Fjld


 


Genoa 1820


Rule One: There will be no kissing. Rule two: You will be fully clothed at all times…


Widowed Lady Fury Shelton hasn’t lost everything—yet. As long as she produces the heir to the Beaumont dukedom, she just might be able to keep her position. And her secrets. But when the callously irresistible Captain James “Flint” Blackmoore sails back into her life, Lady Fury panics. She must find a way to protect herself—and her future—from the man she’d rather see rotting in hell than sleeping in her bed. If she must bed him to keep her secrets, so be it. But she doesn’t have to like it. A set of firm rules for the bedroom will ensure that nothing goes awry. Because above all else, she must stop herself from wanting the one thing that Flint can never give her. His heart.


Ex-privateer Flint Blackmoore has never been good at following the rules. Now, once again embroiled in a situation with the aptly named Lady Fury, he has no idea why he doesn’t simply do the wise thing and walk away. He knows he’s playing with fire, and that getting involved with her again is more dangerous than anything on the high seas. But he can’t understand why she’s so determined to hate him. He isn’t sure if the secret she keeps will make things harder—or easier—for him, but as the battle in the bedroom heats up, he knows at least one thing. Those silly rules of hers will have to go…


 









 


 


 


 


 


 

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Published on January 29, 2019 15:24