I'm honored to be hosting the talented Liz Carlyle today with her latest historical release, In Love With a Wicked Man. Keep reading to get a taste of this book along with my impressions of it. For US readers, make sure to leave a comment for your chance to win a print copy of this book!
What does it matter if Kate, Lady d'Allenay, has absolutely no marriage prospects?
She has a castle to tend, an estate to run, and a sister to watch over, which means she is never, ever reckless. Until an accident brings a handsome, virile stranger to Bellecombe Castle, and Kate finds herself tempted to surrender to her houseguest's wicked kisses.
Disowned by his aristocratic family, Lord Edward Quartermaine has turned his gifted mind to ruthless survival. Feared and vilified as proprietor of London's most notorious gaming salon, he now struggles to regain his memory, certain of only one thing: he wants all Kate is offering—and more.
But when Edward's memory returns, he and Kate realize how much they have wagered on a scandalous passion that could be her ruin, but perhaps his salvation.
Disowned by his aristocratic family, Lord Edward Quartermaine has turned his gifted mind to ruthless survival. Feared and vilified as proprietor of London's most notorious gaming salon, he now struggles to regain his memory, certain of only one thing: he wants all Kate is offering—and more.
But when Edward's memory returns, he and Kate realize how much they have wagered on a scandalous passion that could be her ruin, but perhaps his salvation.
EXCERPT:
Suddenly his front office door burst open in a great clamor, with his doorman Pinkie Ringgold shouting down a red-faced Lord Reggie as he shoved him into the room.
Reggie spat back, insulting Pinkie’s parentage. Pinkie reciprocated by twisting Reggie’s arm halfway up his back. The resulting howl could have raised the dead.
“Quiet!” commanded Quartermaine.
Silence fell like a shroud.
“Release him,” Quartermaine ordered, “now.”
“But the blighter tried ter slip past me!” The portly doormanswelled with indignation. “Reckon ’ee finks I’m dumb as I look.”
“Which would be his mistake,” said Quartermaine in a voice quiet as the grave. “This, however, was yours. Ah, Peters. There you are. Pinkie, you’re within an inch of incurring my wrath. Kindly get out.”
Pinkie snarled again at Reggie as he passed by Peters, thenthumped the door behind him as he exited.
“I want that upstart dismissed, Peters,” snapped Reggie.
“Thank you,” said Peters smoothly, “for your opinion.”
Without asking either to sit, Quartermaine circled around his desk to hitch one hip on its corner. Absent his coat and cravat, his shirtsleeves still rolled to the elbow, it was a pose of utter relaxation. A pose a man might assume late at night in the comfort of his own home—which this was.
“Good evening, Lord Reginald,” he said evenly. “Peters tells me you’ve come to settle your debts with the house.”
Reggie’s uneasy gaze flicked toward Peters. Then, with a sound of disdain, he gave his lapels a neatening tug. “I can’t think what sort of establishment you mean to run here, Quartermaine,” he muttered, “what with those Whitechapel thugs shadowing the doors.”
With a faint smile, Quartermaine made an expansive gesture.“My apologies, Lord Reginald,” he said, “but it may shock you to know there are occasionally gentlemen who do not mean to settle their house accounts. Ah, but my terminology is amiss, is it not? Such a fellow would not actually be a gentleman, would he?”
Reggie shrugged as if his coat were still uncomfortable. “Indeed not.”
“But there, enough about our paltry establishment,” saidQuartermaine silkily. “Let’s talk about you. Specifically, you propose some sort of bargain?”
Resignation was dawning in Reggie’s eyes, but he was far too clever to admit it. Instead, he reached inside his coat andextracted a fold of letter paper.
No, not letter paper, Quartermaine realized when Reggie handed it to him. It was a legal document. After reaching across the desk for his gold-rimmed spectacles Quarter
“And what, pray, am I to do with this?” he said, drawing the sheaf through his fingers.
“Why, not a thing,” said Reggie lightly. “As I told your man Peters here, I produce it merely to prove I’m solvent. Orperhaps, even, to borrow against it?”
“But I’m not a bank,” said Quartermaine, “and this, LordReginald, is a deed—along with an unsigned conveyance of said deed.”
Reggie’s gaze shifted uneasily. “Well, I’d meant to sell it,” he admitted. “I never use the old place; it’s just a little Somersetcountry house—a sort of shooting box, really, near the moors. But the deal fell through. Still, Quartermaine, the place is mine. I can sell it if I must.”
“Lord Reginald,” said Quartermaine quietly, “you owe me several thousand pounds. So I very much feel you do have to sell it.”
Reggie looked at him as if he were stupid. “As I just said, the arrangement fell through.”
“But your notes of hand were due—well, last month, two of them, if memory serves.” Quartermaine snapped out the paper and pointed. “Tell me, Lord Reginald, is this the amount your buyer offered?”
“Well, yes,” he said uneasily. “My solicitor drew it up.”
“And was it a fair price?”
Reggie was caught between a rock and an ungentlemanly admission. He chose the rock. “Quite fair,” he said, lifting his nose, “otherwise, I should never have agreed to it. As I said,Quartermaine, I’ve no use for the moldering old place.”
Quartermaine refolded the papers, and thought of the strand of pearls in his desk, and of his own failings. Perhaps he ought notlaugh at poor Reggie. Perhaps he was no better.
But he was laughing—and Reggie knew it. Still, it would take a bigger set of bollocks than Reggie possessed to play the haughty blueblood in the face of a man to whom one owed such a frightful amount of money.
Quartermaine laid his spectacles aside. “So let me understand,Lord Reginald,” he continued. “You were doing the honorable thing: attempting to sell your small, superfluous, and unentailed es
It wasn’t anything close to right, and all three of them knew it. Reggie’s intent had been to sell the house in a fevered pitch for perhaps two-thirds its value in order to obtain quick cash in hand, and then stake himself at the tables with the naive but eternal hope of every bad gambler: that all would come aright in the end, and he would pay Quartermaine with his winnings in due course.
In due course meaning when he damned well pleased.Quartermaine, however, was better pleased to be paid now.
He thwacked the side of his knee with the fold of paper. “I think you had a solid plan, Lord Reginald,” he said pensively. “It’s hardly your fault your buyer reneged.”
“Indeed not,” said Reggie haughtily. “We had a gentlemen’s agreement.”
“As do you and I,” said Quartermaine, “though admittedly I cannot quite account myself a gentleman, can I, Lord Reginald?”
Reggie must have felt a stab of magnanimity. “Well, you’re better bred than some fellows I know,” he acknowledged, “and it’s hardly your fault that your mother was a—well, never mind that.” He gave a stiff, awkward bow at the neck.
“May I get on about my evening, Quartermaine?”
“But first, back to the real estate,” said Quartermaine.
“What is the place called? What is its condition?”
The wariness in Reggie’s eyes deepened. “Heatherfields,” he said, “and I told you, it’s just a little manor on the edge of Exmoor. The condition, so far as I know, is passable. Some old family retainers tend it.”
“Tenant farms?”
“Three. All let, I think, along with the home acreage.” Reggie smiled thinly. “I don’t account myself much of a farmer.”
“I see.” Quartermaine smiled faintly. “Well, I’ll tell you what I shall do, Lord Reginald. I shall take the moldering old place off your hands for the price your buyer offered—less, of course, what you owe me. And I’ll do it now. In cash. Peters, unlock the cashbox and call down . . . what’s that solicitor’s name? Bradley?”
“Bradson, sir,” said Peters, already fumbling for the key that hung from his watch chain. He shot a smile at their guest. “He’s just upstairs, Lord Reginald, at the basset table. He owes us a favor or two. I’m sure he’ll see to the deed of conveyance.”
“We’ll need three witnesses,” said Quartermaine. “Bring Pinkie back, and fetch a footman who can read and write.” Here, he turned to settle his watchful gaze on Reggie. “Doesn’t that sound expedient, my lord? Soon you may go on about your evening—and with a tidy bit of cash in hand, unless either my memory or my arithmetic fails me.”
Neither did.
Half an hour later, with Reggie looking pale and beaten, the deal was inked. Quartermaine offered Armagnac all around. Bradson took him up on it.
Reggie took his money and left.
“Well, that’s that,” said Peters cheerfully, shutting the great chest’s doors when they were finished. “I thought it all went rather smoothly.”
“Well done, old chap.” Quartermaine chuckled, tossing the deed into his desk with Annie’s pearls. “I cannot believe Reggie was fool enough to flash that paper at you.”
“Desperate men, desperate means,” said Peters. “He thought it might get him through the door.”
“And so it did.” Quartermaine shoved the drawer shut, and the laughter fell away. “Peters,” he went on, “I need to go away for a time. A few weeks, perhaps.”
Peters turned quizzically, but Quartermaine did not answer the unasked question. Peters had grown accustomed, over the years, to his disappearing with little explanation.
“Will you be all right here on your own awhile?” he saidinstead.
“Oh, indeed, sir,” he said. “Off to gloat over your shooting box, perhaps?”
“Something like that,” said Quartermaine, staring at the closed drawer.
Peters hesitated a heartbeat. “What do you mean to do with the house, sir,” he said, “if you don’t mind my asking? I’ve never known you to hunt or shoot.”
At last Quartermaine lifted his gaze from the drawer. “It is a gift,” he said quietly, “for Annie.”
BUY LINKS: Harper Collins | Amazon
MY IMPRESSIONS OF THIS BOOK:
As a fan of the historical genre I've read a few books by Ms. Carlyle and was introduced to Edward (Ned Quartermaine) before and found him to be a disreputable, cold, and calculating man concerned only with himself. After being disowned at a very young age he had to rely on his strong will to stay alive which led him to the dark side of London life where he now runs a popular and prosperous gaming salon where he's forced to be brutal at times. He's got a rough reputation but an accident in the country leads to amnesia and a glimpse of a different man, one that's caring and charming and worthy of the love of a good woman. Amnesia humanized him and made me fall for him completely as a man who wanted to be better for the woman he came to love.
Kate has resigned herself to remaining unmarried. After her father and brother squandered away the family's money Kate made it her mission to make the Barony prosperous once again and through her smart and responsible ways has made men desire the wealth she's accumulated, if not her plain and sensible nature. She wants to be loved for herself so she commits herself to taking care of the manor and her impetuous sister and caring but hard to please mother. That's the plan until the day she literally runs into a mysterious man she's immediately drawn to and out of guilt sets out to take care of him until he recovers from the accident. Kate's an immensely appealing character who's loyal and caring and easily relatable to and who I was rooting for every step of the way to her hard won HEA.
Kate and Edward's relationship is full of sexual tension from day one and evolves into scorching interactions. Their relationship is given the time to evolve believably and it's an endearingly sweet journey they take together. That's why it's especially heartbreaking when his memory returns and the truth about his past and who he is taints the romantic bond they created. All along Edward felt as though there was something about him to make him unworthy of Kate and with his inappropriate standing coming to light it's obvious why there's no future for them. This new man though wants Kate desperately and proves without a doubt that he is in fact worthy of her in an immensely satisfying conclusion.
Though this story was a bit draggy and formulaic at times, I was still drawn to the wonderfully flawed Edward and the redeeming power of love. There was also an entertaining cast of secondary characters that added to the angst and drama. I enjoyed the familial interactions between Kate, her sister, and mother that showed completely different personalities but who supported each other wholeheartedly. The villain in this story, Kate's ex, is truly nasty with his despicable nature getting more pronounced as the story progressed in his plan to claim her for her money. I found him to be much more worthy of the title of villain than anything Edward did. From start to finish I found this another reliable read from Ms. Carlyle and loved seeing the compelling transformation of Edward to become a truly heroic and romantic man worthy of drooling over.
My rating for this is a B.
*I received this book from Edelweiss for review in exchange for my honest opinion.
A lifelong Anglophile, Liz Carlyle started reading Gothic novels under the bed covers by flashlight. She is the author of sixteen historical romances, including several New York Times bestsellers. Liz travels incessantly, ever in search of the perfect setting for her next book. Along with her genuine romance-hero husband and four very fine felines, she makes her home in North Carolina.
Website: http://www.
Facebook: https://www.
Twitter: @lizcarlyle
Facebook: https://www.
Twitter: @lizcarlyle
**********GIVEAWAY**********
Prize is a PRINT COPY of In Love With a Wicked Man by Liz Carlyle.
-To be entered, leave a comment telling us your favorite hero from a historical read, along with your email addy. (no email=no entry)
-Giveaway is OPEN TO US ONLY and ENDS AT 11:59PM CST ON 11/28.
Sebastian from the devil in winter
ReplyDeletebn100candg at hotmail dot com