Montana Hearts (25 page)

Authors: Darlene Panzera

An Excerpt from

An Accidental Heirs Novel

by Christy Carlyle

Becoming engaged? Simple. Resisting temptation? Impossible.

Sebastian Fennick, the newest Duke of Wrexford, prefers the straightforwardness of mathematics to romantic nonsense. When he meets LadyÂ Katherine Adderly at the first ball of the season, he finds her as alluring as she is disagreeable. His title may now require him to marry, but Sebastian can't think of anyone less fit to be his wife, even if he can't get her out of his mind.

“I
take it you have something you wish to say to me, Your Grace.”

He still hadn't released her. She was warm and smelled heavenly, and the grip of her hand grounded him. Here and now. That's what mattered. Not the past. The past was a broken place of mistakes and regret.

The April evening had turned chilly and Seb finally let her go to remove his evening jacket and settle it over her bare shoulders.

She pulled the lapels together across her chest.

“Is it to be a long discussion, then?”

Seb reached up to lift the coat's collar to cover more of her exposed skin, but he found himself touching her instead, stroking the soft warm column of her neck and then resting his hand at the base of her throat, savoring the feel of her speeding pulse against his palm. His heartbeat echoed in his ears, as wild and rapid as Kat's, and the longer he touched her, the more the sounds merged, until he could almost believe their hearts had begun to beat as one.

He shook his head. That sort of romantic drivel led only to misery.

But he couldn't bring himself to stop touching her. And he couldn't deny he wanted more. Leaning down, desperate to know if her flavor was as sweet as her scent, he pressed his mouth to her forehead.

“Your Grace?” she whispered, the heat of her breath searing the skin above his necktie.

He pulled back and lifted his hands from her, remembering who he was, who she was. He was a master at guarding his heart and avoiding intimate moments. She was the woman who'd thrown over multiple suitors during each of her seasons.

“We must speak to your father.”

Even in the semidarkness, he could see her green eyes grow large. “You've changed your mind?”

Excitement hitched up her voice two octaves, and Seb wished he'd changed his mind, that he wouldn't have to disappoint her, or her sister and Ollie. If he hadn't wasted all his reckless choices in youth, he might allow himself a bit of freedom now. But controlling his emotions, regimenting his behavior, clinging to logic and orderâÂthat had seen him through the darkest days of his life. Control had been his salvation, and he was loathe to let it go.

“No. But Ollie tells me that he and Lady HarrietâÂ”

“Plan to elope.”

“You knew?”

“She just told me when you walked off with Mr. Treadwell, and I fear they're quite determined.”

He jumped when she touched his arm, her exploring fingers jolting his senses, until each press, each stroke along his collar and then up to the edge of his jaw, made him ache for more. She caressed his cheek as he'd touched hers in the conservatory before sliding her hand down to his shoulder, gripping him as if to brace herself.

“Won't you reconsider my suggestion, Your Grace?”

When she lifted onto her toes and swayed toward him, a flash of reason told him to push her away, to guard against her feminine assault. But the thought had all the power of a wisp of smoke and dissolved just as quickly when he reached to steady her and found how well she fit in the crook of his arms.

He'd been a fool to drag her onto the balcony and touch her like a man without an ounce of self-Âcontrol.

“If you're going to let me hold you this close, you should call me Sebastian.”

“If we're to be engaged, you should call me Kitty.”

He hadn't agreed to the engagement and still loathed the notion of a scheme. And yet .Â .Â . he couldn't deny the practicality of it. It would forestall Ollie's ridiculous plan to elope, satisfy the Claybornes and allow the young Âcouple to marry, and, best of all, it would keep all the spirited misses eager to make his acquaintanceâÂas his aunt had so disturbingly put itâÂat bay.

“I'm afraid you'll always be Kat to me. Never Kitty.”

“Very well. Is that your only condition?”

His skin burned feverish. He loathed lies. Hated pretense. And yet he loathed nothing about holding Kat in his arms. With her velvet-Âclad curves pressed against him and her thighs brushing his own, he found himself tempted to agree to her subterfuge. Almost.

“I have two more.”

“Go on.”

“We end it as soon as we're able.” If holding her melted his resolve this thoroughly, what sort of wreck would he be after weeks in her company? “You can jilt me if you like. However you wish to do it. And we tell my sister the truth of what we're doing and why. Pippa's far too clever not to see through a falsehood.”

“Agreed, Your Grace.”

He caught the flash of white as she smiled and moonlight glinted off the curve of her cheeks. Pleasing her stirred an echo of pleasure in him, and it disturbed him how much he wanted to see her smile again, wanted to bring her pleasure, and not just for a moment.

Lifting a hand to caress her cheek, Seb drew Kat in close, dipped his head, and took her mouth in a quick mingling of chilled flesh and warm breath.

An Excerpt from

NO GROOM AT THE INN

A Dukes Behaving Badly Novella

by Megan Frampton

In Megan Frampton's delightful DukesÂ Behaving Badly holiday novella, a young lady entertains a sudden proposal of marriageâÂto a man she's only just met!

1844

A coaching inn

One lady, no chickens

“P
oultry.”

Sophronia gazed down into her glass of ale and repeated the word, even though she was only talking to herself. “Poultry.”

It didn't sound any better the second time she said it, either.

The letter from her cousin had detailed all of the delights waiting for her when she arrivedâÂtaking care of her cousin's six children (his wife had died, perhaps of exhaustion), overseeing the various village celebrations including, her cousin informed her with no little enthusiasm, the annual Tribute to the Hay, which was apparently the highlight of the year, and taking care of the chickens.

All twenty-Âseven of them.

Not to mention she would be arriving just before Christmas, which meant gifts and merriment and conviviality. Those weren't bad things, of course, it was just that celebrating the season was likely the last thing she wanted to do.

Well, perhaps after taking care of the chickens.

The holidays used to be one of her favorite times of yearâÂshe and her father both loved playing holiday games, especially ones like Charades or Dictionary.

Even though he was the word expert in the family, eventually she had been able to fool him with her Dictionary definitions, and there was nothing so wonderful as seeing his dumbstruck expression when she revealed that, no, he had not guessed the correct definition.

He was always so proud of her for that, for being able to keep up with him and his linguistic interests.

And now nobody would care that she was inordinately clever at making up definitions for words she'd never heard of.

She gave herself a mental shake, since she'd promised not to become maudlin. Especially at this time of the year.

She glanced around the barroom she was sitting in, taking note of the other occupants. Like the inn itself, they were plain but tidy. As she was, as well, even if her clothing had started out, many years ago, as grander than theirs.

She unfolded the often-Âread letter, suppressing a sigh at her cousin's crabbed handwriting. Not that handwriting was indicative of a person's characterâÂthat would be their wordsâÂbut the combination of her cousin's script and the way he assumed she would be delighted to perform all the tasks he was graciously setting before herâÂthat was enough to make her dread the next phase of her life. Which would last untilâÂwell, that she didn't know.

Sophronia was grateful, she was, for being offered a place to live, and she didn't want to seem churlish. It was just that she had never imagined that the care and feeding of poultryâÂnot to mention six childrenâÂwould be her fate.

Which was why she had spent a few precious pennies on a last glass of ale at the coaching inn where she was waiting for the mail coach to arrive and take her to the far reaches of beyond. A last moment of being by herself, being Lady Sophronia, not Sophy the Chicken Lady.

The one without a feather to fly with.

Chuckling at her own wit, she picked her glass up and gave a toast to the as yet imaginary chickens, thinking about how she'd always imagined her life would turn out.

There were no members of the avian community at all in her rosy vision of the future.

Not that she was certain what her rosy vision of the future would include, but she was fairly certain it did not have fowl of any kind.

“All aboard to Chester,” a voice boomed through the room. Immediately there were the bustling sounds of Âpeople getting up, gathering their things, saying their last goodbyes.

“Excuse me, miss,” a gentleman said in her ear. She jumped, so lost in her own foolish (fowlish?) thoughts that she hadn't even noticed him approaching her.

She turned and looked at him, blinking at his splendor. He was tall, taller than her, even, which was a rarity among gentlemen. He was handsome in a dashing rosy-Âvisioned way that made her question just what her imagination was thinking if it had never inserted himâÂor someone who looked like himâÂinto her dreams.

He had unruly dark brown hair, longer than most gentlemen wore. The ends curled up as though even his hair was irrepressible. His eyes were blue, and even in the dark gloom, she could see they practically twinkled.

As though he and she shared a secret, a lovely, wonderful, delightful secret.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Excerpt from
Montana Hearts: Her Weekend Wrangler
copyright Â© 2015 by Darlene Panzera.

Excerpt from
Guarding Sophie
copyright Â© 2015 by Julie Revell Benjamin.

Excerpt from
The Idea of You
copyright Â© 2015 by Darcy Burke.

Excerpt from
One Tempting Proposal
copyright Â© 2015 by Christy Carlyle.

Excerpt from
No Groom at the Inn
copyright Â© 2015 by Megan Frampton.

MONTANA HEARTS: SWEET TALKIN' COWBOY.
Copyright Â© 2015 by Darlene Panzera. All rights reserved under International and Pan-ÂAmerican Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-Âbook on-Âscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-Âengineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperÂCollins e-Âbooks.

EPub Edition DECEMBER 2015 ISBN: 9780062394705

Print Edition ISBN: 9780062394712

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