The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie (Mackenzies & McBrides, #1)

by Jennifer Ashley

certainly no diamond in the rough. More like a pebble that’s been polished a little.”

best pieces survived until they reached the hands of a collector who would care for them.

father having taught her to speak and read French fluently, but she liked to keep up with what was going on at home. What vexed Beth today was a story about how lords Ian and Cameron Mackenzie had nearly come to blows in a restaurant, fighting about a woman. The woman in question was a famous soprano, the very one who’d enchanted Beth at Covent Garden the week before. Many people had witnessed the event and related it to the newspapers with glee. Beth shook the reins impatiently, and the horse tossed his head.

It was the portrait of a beloved, painted by a man who regarded his wife as his lover.

I was able to reveal that part of a man’s anatomy that is the cause of so much wickedness.

Now Beth had landed in the swift stream of his life, and she’d stuck there like a rock. Everything else swirled past him, but like an anchor, Beth stayed.

He was too big. It had been nine years since a man had entered her, and she was too tight. She couldn’t take it.

Don’t hunger for what you can’t have, she admonished herself. Take pleasure in what you can.