In
Love with a Wicked Man
Liz
Carlyle
Genre:
Historical Romance
Publisher:
Avon Books
Date
of Publication: 10/29/2013
ISBN:
9780062100290
Book
Description:
New
York Times bestselling author Liz Carlyle has created a breathtaking
new romance about a man without scruples and the lady who brings him
to his knees.
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.
Ned Quartermaine was in a dark and
pensive mood. With his coat and cravat long ago cast aside, he
sprawled by a dying fire in his finely appointed suite, his knees
splayed wide and his shoulders thrown back against the buttery
leather of his armchair. Only the faint chink! of his brandy
glass striking the marble tabletop broke the quiet as Quartermaine
stared out into his garden; a garden that would have been awash in
moonlight had this not been London, and the night sky not choked with
damp and coal smoke.
But Quartermaine was a creature of the
darkness—and, truth be told, more comfortable in it. And on this
night, he was embracing that darkness with a bottle of
eighteen-year-old Armagnac and a strand of small but perfect pearls
adorned with one teardrop sapphire.
They lay heavy in the palm of his
hand—and heavy in his heart, too. But that organ so rarely troubled
him, the ache in it tonight might have been mistaken for dyspepsia.
Best to wash it back down again, he’d decided. Still, from time to
time, between sips of the burnt, ashy spirit, he gave the pearls a
pensive little toss, just to feel them settle back into his hand,
clicking against one another before stilling again; cooler, yet ever
heavier, it seemed.
Just then, as if to punctuate the
regret, the gilt clock on his mantelpiece struck the hour.
Three chimes. Three o’clock.
An hour at which there was good money
to be made from the vanity and desperation of others. Above
Quartermaine’s head, the night’s work continued on as little more
than a soothing rumble of voices; one that was occasionally broken by
the faint scrape of a chair leg across his marble floors.
He gave the brandy another sip.
The pearls another toss.
His heart another hard wrench. As if he
might, just this once, manage to wring from it the will to do the
right thing. But before he could steel himself to the duty, there
came a faint knock at the door.
Peters. No one else had permission to
disturb Quartermaine once he had stepped from his office into his
private domain.
“Come!” he ordered.
His club manager entered with a
perfunctory bow. “You might wish to come upstairs, sir.”
Quartermaine tipped the Armagnac bottle
over his glass. “Why?”
“It’s Lord Reginald Hoke,” said
Peters. “I turned him off as you’d ordered but it didn’t sit
well. Apparently the damned fool feels lucky tonight.”
After refilling his glass, Quartermaine
lifted his lazy gaze back to Peters’s, his eyebrows rising faintly.
“Lucky enough to settle his accounts?” he murmured. “For if he
does not, Lord Reggie shan’t put so much as one manicured toe
across the threshold of this establishment, lest I chop the thing off
and use it for a bloody paperweight.”
“A paperweight, sir?”
“To hold down that stack of worthless
notes he’s given us,” said Quartermaine without humor.
Suddenly, from behind Quartermaine, the
sound of hinges creaking intruded, followed by the rustle of fabric.
He twisted in his chair.
“Ned—?”
Her voice edged with irritation and her
wild curls tumbling down, Maggie Sloan stood bracketed against the
lamplight of his bedroom, Quartermaine’s silk robe gathered around
her in voluminous folds.
“I’ve business to attend,” he
said coolly. “Go back to bed, Maggie.”
He sensed rather than saw the disdain
flick over her face. “No, I think I’m off.” Lip sneering, she
slammed the door.
Emotionlessly, he turned back to
Peters. “Where’s Hoke now?”
“Pinkie stopped him in the entrance
hall, sir.”
“Alas, poor Reggie,” said
Quartermaine, setting his bottle down. “Shall I set loose the
hounds, old chap? Or is there a bit of blood yet to be wrung from the
Hoke turnip?”
Peters laughed. “Oh, there’s
blood,” he said. “That’s why you should come upstairs.”
That elevated Quartermaine’s brows
another notch. “Indeed?” he said. “You shock me, Peters. I
thought old Reggie entirely done in.”
“He implies he’s to meet some of
his cronies here in half an hour for something deep,” Peters
suggested. “But he needs cash to stake at the card table, and he’s
in a mood to bargain.”
Quartermaine sipped musingly at his
brandy. “Well, I’ve never been known to sneer at a bargain,” he
said, rising. “But bring him down here. I’d rather not put my
coat back on.”
Peters bowed. “Certainly, sir.”
Quartermaine followed Peters back
through the suite and into the adjacent study where the heart of the
club was centered. No bacchanalia or whoring went on within these
walls; the Quartermaine Club was simply a circumspect, high-stakes
gaming salon where many a noble scion had sent ten generations of
wealth shooting down a rat hole beneath Ned Quartermaine’s watchful
eye.
But it was wealth, not blood, that
determined whether a man—or a woman—could gain entrée to
Quartermaine’s world. Blue blood alone was next to worthless in his
estimation—and he had enough of it in him to know.
Suddenly Quartermaine realized he still
held the pearls in his hand. On a pinprick of irritation, he jerked
open the drawer of his desk and let them slither into it, a cascade
of creamy perfection. Then he took a cigar and went to the French
windows that opened onto his garden.
The ash soon glowed orange in the dark.
He could hear the rattle of a carriage coming up fast from the
direction of St. James’s Palace. The cry of a newspaper hawker in
the street. And then the silence fell again. What the devil was
keeping Lord Reginald?
Perhaps the craven bastard had turned
tail and run back up St. James’s Place to cower in one of his posh
clubs. It little concerned him. Quartermaine always got his money—one
way or another. He puffed again at the cigar and pondered at his
leisure how best that might be done, for patience, he’d learnt, was
truly a virtue.
About
the Author:
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.
Twitter:
@lizcarlyle
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