“Are you peeking under that man’s fig leaf?”
Elinor Colton jumped back from the resplendent statue of Apollo Belvedere standing in the vestibule of the Knutsford Assembly rooms. An elm leaf had been tied around Apollo’s torso to cover his private parts, and she had reached out to straighten it. Turning in the direction of the voice, she saw a tall stranger with a devilish smile. Her mouth opened in reply, but she only managed, “Oh.”

In the summer night’s deepening shadows, Martha Tabram rubbed her aching temples. The pain wasn’t from cheap gin. Too many years patronizing London’s Ten Bells Tavern had increased her tolerance. Besides, she needed drink to file off the sharp edges of her hopeless memories. Including what happened back in April to her friend Emma Smith.

Scandal’s Mistress – 88,000 words
Historical – Regency

No sooner had Justin Trentham closed his eyes than the image of the lusty brunette’s bottom slapping against his pelvis appeared in his mind. The remembered weight of her breasts, heavy in his hands as he thrust into her over and over made his mouth water.
Almost as if he held warm skin in his hands, he heard her whispered urgings, felt muscles contract, release close to hand. But then, a distraction.

“Where do you think we are, Blackthorn?”
“Somewhere between Fort Ticonderoga and the mouth of hell,” Stephen said. He slanted his eyes to the right, just far enough to make out Granger’s profile, and one of Granger’s dark eyes staring back at him.
“We passed the mouth of hell a few miles back.”
Stephen nearly broke discipline and laughed. An apt enough comparison from the scenes they’d passed on the road to this god-forsaken wilderness.

The morning sun glared down on Grace Hendricks like an evil omen. She towered over the plot that was supposed to be her father’s grave, but the headstone said someone else was buried there. Grace felt like she’d walked onto the set of some weird Sci-Fi flick.

She surveyed the cemetery, half-blinded by the sunlight dousing the tombstones rowing the landscape. Granted, she hadn’t been here since the funeral, eleven years ago, but who forgot a thing like where their father was buried?

The tense silence stretched as the two gentlemen awaited the Laird’s reaction.

Alas, they noted only an outward display of boredom as he continued to install a Sapphire broach into the froth of lace at his throat.

‘What cause could the duke possibly have for wanting you dead, my Laird?”

“I suspect he merely intends to frighten me to the altar over a small lesson I was obliged to give one of his wards.”

“Ah, a lesson about why debutants should not chase after rakes, I take it?”

by vicki Vuat March 12th, 2010 at 6:25 pm

Lucy shoved the door to the laundry room open with her fanny, struggling to keep hold of the basket, detergent, fabric softener, and mounds of dirty laundry.

“Hello there, need some help?”
A bearded stranger jumped to his feet and hurried to the door, scooping up a pair of socks and some black lacy thongs that fell out of her basket.

“Wow, not awkward at all. Thank you, kind sir.”
Correction, a cute, bearded stranger.