by Diane Darcy
Books by Diane Darcy
Time Travel Romance
She Owns the Knight
Bewitching the Knight
Once in a Blue Moon
Fairy Tale Romance
She’s Just Right
The Princess Problem
Beauty and the Beach
The Texas Sisters
Steal His Heart
Christmas Novellas
The Christmas Star
Stand Alone Stories
Serendipity
A Penny for Your Thoughts
How to Rewrite a love letter
For previews of upcoming books by Diane Darcy, to sign up for the mailing list, or for more information about the author, visit www.DianeDarcy.com
Acknowledgments
A great big thank you to Melody Chase, Heather Horrocks, Kristin Holt, and Sara Cardon. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this and for giving me such wonderful ideas and feedback. You ladies are awesome!
Excerpt: She Owns the Knight by Diane Darcy
Why does she have to travel seven hundred years through time to find a decent guy?
Broken-hearted Gillian Corbett finally finds the knight of her dreams...in the past. Unfortunately he’s bossy, overbearing, and...betrothed! Fortunately,he thinks she is his affianced, which keeps her from garderobe duty. Or worse, being hanged as a spy. She knows she has to get back to her own time before his real fiancé shows up and the truth is discovered. But until she finds a way, she’s going to squeeze every bit of enjoyment she can out of this situation. As far as she’s concerned, this is one relationship in which she gets to call the shots, not the other way around. The dowry provided by his betrothed bought him, lock, stock and barrel. She’ll gladly whip him into shape for the girl who ends up with him. No thanks required. In the meantime, Gillian owns him, and as every twenty-first century girl knows...ownership has its privileges.
Why can’t he find a lady who is obedient, submissive...or at least not trying to kill him?
After a horrible first marriage that ended badly, Sir Kellen Marshall is determined to protect what is left of his dreams. He needs an heir, an alliance, and a chaste bride who has never loved another. Would that he’d been choosier in his specifications because what he’s ended up with is a loud, bossy, demanding female who will drive him daft at every opportunity. So why does he feel he’d like to lay the world at her feet if she’d simply give him the chance?
When modern meets medieval, can there be a happily ever after?
Prologue
England, 1260
“Is aught amiss?” Brows drawn together, Lord Kellen Marshall reached a hand to steady his wife. “Is it the babe?”
Catherine set her goblet on the sideboard, but seemed unable to take her gaze from it. “You switched the cups?”
“Aye. To give you the less cloudy, more pleasing drink. I’ll not have you drinking the dregs.” He gave her a smile, hoping, aching to receive one in return.
Her face turned ashen.
Kellen quickly set his drink aside, lifted her slight weight, and carried her swiftly to the bed to set her among quilts and pillows. He ran to the heavy wood door, threw it open, bellowed for help, then hurried back to where Catherine lay sweating, clutching her swollen belly. In the distance, people scrambled and orders thundered as Kellen lowered himself to her bedside.
“’Tis Cowbane,” she whispered to him.
“What?” Mouth gaping, he shook his head. “No. That cannot be.” Who would do such a thing? Who would dare to poison his wife?
“You have ruined everything.” She turned away from him, pressing her face into the pillows, gagging and shuddering before rolling back to grip his surcoat, her face taut with fear. “Please. You must save me. Please.” She put a hand to her stomach. “The babe.”
Several knights appeared in the doorway, “Find the midwife! Bring the healer!” Kellen roared the words.
A wide-eyed servant rushed out of the chamber as others filled the entrance.
Kellen gripped his wife’s cold hand as her breathing quickened and resignation set her face. “You cannot save me,” she said, tears filling her eyes. “’Tis not possible.”
Her breathing became labored, her throat violently clenched, and her entire body tightened, head thrown back.
Kellen, every muscle in his body constricting with panic, shook her shoulders. “Catherine!”
She took a loud, gasping breath, then relaxed for a moment. Kellen wiped sweat from her brow with shaking fingers. “Catherine, you must be well.” His voice broke. “Perchance the babe comes early?”
“The drink was meant for you.” She breathed heavily, drawing breath an effort.
“What are you saying?”
“My daughter is not of your seed.” Again, she convulsed violently, foam gathering at the corners of her mouth, then relaxed once more, placing a hand to her belly. “Nor is the one in my womb.”
Kellen studied her face, the swelling of her body. He swallowed and gripped her hand. “You are out of your head.” His voice roughened, low, deep, and pleading. “A devil has overtaken your mind.”
“I despise you.”
He tried to convince himself she was not herself, yet saw in her clear eyes she spoke true. And he was well aware the poisoned drink had been meant for him as he’d switched them himself. Why would she dishonor herself this way? It was senseless. “Why?”
“You sicken me.” Her face twisted. “I hate your disgusting, overlarge body. Your vile face. My lover is wonderful, slim and beautiful as a knight should be. Handsome and without scars.” She smiled, her face relaxing. She laughed once, then stopped breathing.
His wife, eyes open and staring, lay dead in his arms. He shook her, rage and despair welling within him. “No!” He clutched her to him. “No!” She’d swallowed poison meant for him? She’d meant to kill him? Surely he’d misunderstood. She was no poisoner. She could not be.
Kellen’s eyes filled with hot tears and he gently shook his wife once more. “Live. Live, curse you. Live!”
She didn’t move.
His wife was dead. His son, as well. His son.
Kellen’s head pounded. He laid his wife gently on the bed, stood, and backed away. His head, suddenly heavy, bobbed up and down as dizziness overtook him.
Air finally filled his lungs and he threw his head back, and howled like a madman. He clenched his hands in his hair and, heart pounding, every muscle constricting to the point of pain, Kellen turned and grabbed the long bench from against the wall.
With a yell, he heaved it into the fireplace and watched as pieces of heavy wood, ashes, and smoke burst into the air.
Next, he gripped a chair and dashed it against the stone wall, once, twice, until the heavy wood shattered. He ripped a tapestry Catherine had fashioned from the wall. He smashed her writing table with his fists. Threw a basket of knitted baby clothes into the fire. Tore and pulled the linen hangings from the great bed and cast them to the floor.
Breathing hard, searching for something else to destroy, Kellen stood still in the middle of the chamber. He looked to the doorway, where only a few of his knights remained, and a few more beyond, out in the hall. The servants had run off.
Only the midwife, Catherine’s old nurse, the one come from Corbett Castle, had dared enter the bedchamber. She covered Catherine’s body with a fur coverlet, knelt on the stairs beside the bed, crossed herself, and wailed.
Kellen watched her wipe foam from Catherine’s mouth, and turned away.
His dream had died with Catherine. With the babe. His marriage, the chance to continue his line, to build a family, was the one thing that had kept him alive through all the petty wars, the politics, the tournaments, and his dangerous allegiance to King Henry.
Who provided her the poison? Who turned her against him? He knew she could not have done this on her own.
Her lover, no doubt.
Kellen’s teeth ground together, and a guttural sound escaped his mou
th. The babe was not his? The girl child not of his seed? There lived a man who did not have long for this world.
“Mamma?”
Kellen turned to see his three-year-old daughter lingering in the passageway with her nurse, and pain twisted his guts. She should not be there, and he did not want to look on her. He waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “Take the girl away from here.”
He would not be cheated this way. His eyes narrowed. He would marry again. He would petition the king and remind him of his loyalty and—
No. That could take years and numerous favors. At a score and ten, Kellen could not wait. Would not. He sucked air into his lungs. Corbett owed him an honorable daughter. He had seven. Six, now. He would demand another, the youngest, and most trainable, or Corbett would pay the price for his daughter’s treachery with a war. Any betrothment on the girl’s part would needs be broken. He would show no mercy. He’d have his heir within the year, or else.
He grabbed the nurse still kneeling beside Catherine, startling her, and hauled her to her feet. “Give me the name of her lover.”
Rigid with terror, the woman gaped. “My lord?”
“Catherine’s lover. His name?”
The woman trembled, shook her head, and her head-cover slid to reveal gray hair as fear widened her eyes. “Nay, my lord. She would never play you false.”
Kellen forced himself to release the woman before he gave into the desire to shake her. “She admitted such. Doubt not that I will find and kill him.”
Teeth clenching, he nodded toward Catherine. “Finish this. After, go home to Corbett. Tell him of his daughter’s infidelity, of her attempt to murder her lord. I want another daughter in reparation, or there will be war. You will leave directly after the burial.”
He would have a wife and heir. But he would never make the mistake of trusting another woman. With one last glance at Catherine’s white face, he turned and strode from the chamber.
If you’d like to read more, please go to www.DianeDarcy.com
Excerpt: My Spare Lady
A Romantic Comedy by Heather Horrocks
Still stinging a year after being dumped by her boyfriend for a fast-talking, black-clad, high-heeled New York writer, Beth Lawrence decides to leave her calm, predictable, obviously boring life behind and try life in the fast lane for awhile.
Popular race car driver Eric Davis is just the man to take her for a few laps around the track.
She just wants some laughs with no commitment, but can she keep from falling in love with a man with an unexpected gentle side? Or will her heart hit the wall at two hundred miles an hour?
CHAPTER ONE
BETH LAWRENCE TAPPED HER BRAKES, her heart revving as her new car slowed toward the speed limit. “Oh, please, please, please don’t turn on your lights.”
Her cousin, Angie O’Brien, twisted in her seat to look back, her long black hair blowing in the convertible’s breeze. “You already snagged a highway patrolman?”
“It’s not me he’s after. He’s after somebody else.” It could be true. She couldn’t be the only person in the state of California speeding today.
“Maybe he’s not, but the last one was. Why’d you choose fire-engine red, anyway? Everybody knows red cars get the most tickets.” Angie tapped a manicured fire-engine red nail, which she used to collect men rather than tickets, against the center console. “Like you need help in that department.”
“Shhh.” When Beth risked a glance in her rear-view mirror, her own brunette hair too short now to get in her eyes in the wind. Actually, her hair wasn’t even brunette with just a hint of red any more. She’d had it dyed bright red when she had it cut this morning. She practically glowed.
No lights, thank heavens, but her heart continued to pound as the highway patrol car pulled in behind her. “Oh, no, no, no, please not again. I can’t afford another ticket. I still have to get through three more months without one.”
When the lights started flashing, Beth groaned and pulled her brand new ticket-catching fire-engine red Mustang to the side of Freeway-99 north of Sacramento. Just five more miles and she’d be on the exit to Aspen Grove. At least he hadn’t used his siren.
“Oh, your mother is going to love hearing about this,” Angie teased. “She warned you these changes would bring you no good, not thirty minutes ago.”
“Not one word to anyone.” Beth glared at her cousin. “Or I’ll tell your brother who bashed the fender on his Jeep.”
“Sheesh. Okay. Fine. I won’t tell.” Angie settled her voluptuous curves back into the passenger seat. “I really think you should be nicer to me on my birthday, though.”
Shaking her head in disbelief, Beth turned to watch the patrolman approach in her side mirror. “I don’t believe this.”
“I do. Because you have a lead foot. But this is a record, even for you. You’ve had this new car for what? Three hours?” Angie laughed and shrugged. “Just flirt with the guy. That’s how I get out of my tickets.”
“That might be a great idea in racecar-land, but not in real life. I’m just going to be nice, keep as quiet as I can, and hope he writes me down for fewer miles over the speed limit so I can still keep my license.”
Good thing the Mustang’s top was retracted, or Beth would have had an awkward time getting the window down with her own newly manicured nails with the orange-red tips. But at least they matched her new dress and shoes. If only her ticket were red, too, then everything could match. Her finances would be in the red, too, after her insurance company got through raising her rates again. Wait, that wouldn’t be the problem; she’d spend a fortune on cabs unless her mother drove her everywhere, because she probably would lose her license.
The July sun beat down on her head. Without the wind from driving, she was heating up fast. Her heart pumping blood at twice the normal speed didn’t help any, either.
The patrolman walked up beside the car and she looked up at him. A long way up. He was a big man, six-foot-something, heavily muscled, dark moustache and shades, and in his early thirties, she’d guess. Good-looking if only he was smiling, she’d bet. And ticked off at her.
She’d wanted to attract male attention when she’d made the changes, but not male highway patrolmen, especially not ones wearing a wedding ring.
With a frown, he stood there quietly for a moment, his eyes hidden behind his sunglasses. His deep voice rumbled when he finally asked, “Do you know how fast you were going, miss?”
Still not believing she’d been pulled over again, Beth shook her head and admitted meekly, “No, sir. I lost track for a moment.”
“You were going eighty-two in a sixty-five zone.” He shook his head as if disappointed in her. “In fact, you were driving like a regular bat out of—”
“Heck!” Beth blurted out and could have kicked herself. Who cared if he swore at this moment, if it would keep her from getting a ticket. Not that there was anything that could keep her from getting a ticket with eighty-two in a sixty-five zone. Especially not flirting, as Angie had suggested. Ring or no ring.
The patrolman nodded in agreement. “Exactly.”
“Officer, she couldn’t help it. She just got this cool car and I begged her to take me for a ride.”
Oh. Just. Great.
Surprised, the officer peered across at Angie, who continued blathering. “I’m like the biggest fan ever of NASCAR racing and I asked her to show me what her new car could do. I’m really, really sorry, sir.”
When Angie actually batted her eyelashes at the guy, Beth shook her head.
The officer’s frown deepened. “Do you want a ticket, also, young lady?”
“Oh, no,” said Angie, folding her arms innocently. “Definitely not.”
“Good. Then I’ll address myself to the driver.” Leaning over a bit, he turned back to Beth, now close enough she caught a whiff of his aftershave. Old Spice. Her father’s favorite. “May I see your license, please?”
“Yes, sir.” Beth’s stomach churned as she handed
it to him.
This was usually the part where they took the license, glanced at it, walked back to their car, and came back with a ticket and a story about how they could have charged her with seventeen miles over the speed limit, but because they were such nice guys they’d only put down ten.
He did glance at it, but then he stopped and studied it. He looked back at Beth. Back to the picture on the license. To Beth’s face.
Warmth spread up to her cheeks. She knew what was coming. She’d already gotten blasted by her family. Why not the law?
He lifted his sunglasses and studied her again. His frown deepened, if that were possible. “You don’t look like this photo.”
“That’s because she just went crazy and gave herself a makeover, officer. It’s all James Jackson’s fault, though.” Angie just couldn’t stay quiet, and she spat out the name. “You should have seen the fit her mother threw when she saw the short spiky hair. And the tight dress. So of course she doesn’t look like the photo. She’s a brand new woman. Created today.”
Beth could feel her face reddening.
“Is that right?” The barest hint of amusement tinged the officer’s question.
He continued to stare at Beth, so she stammered, “Yes, sir. I decided I needed a change.” Oh, boy, had she ever. She’d changed everything, from the hair on her head to the new stilettos on her feet to the car she drove.
He dropped his sunglasses back over his eyes. “And did your mother throw a fit?”