If you are looking for a full-length happily ever after, my final Rogues to Riches novel, Never a Duke, comes out April 26. I’ve included an excerpt of Ned and Rosalind’s story below as well.
If you’d like to stay up to date on all my upcoming releases (I just published the first six titles in The Lady Violet Mystery series), the best way to do that is following me on Bookbub. I publish a newsletter about once a month (unsubscribing is easy), and you might also take a gander at my Deals page. This is where I post information on discounts, freebies, or early graceburrowes. com web store releases.
Whether you are reading these tales at the beach, tucked up on your couch, or maybe even by the shade of a great big tree, I wish you, as always…
Happy reading!
Grace Burrowes
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Read on for an excerpt from Affair by the Sea!
An Affair by the Sea—Excerpt
Allegra leaned back in the phaeton to smile at her nieces. How she would miss these lazy afternoons, spinning tall tales about her alleged pirate suitor, the dashing—and fictitious—Captain L’Amour.
Dorcas cast a startled glance past Allegra to her sister Portia. “No matter what, this is our final summer with Allegra. We have to make it the best one yet.”
Portia’s eyes sparkled. “No—the wildest one yet. We must send you to your wedding day with stories of your own to tell Captain L’Amour.”
Allegra chuckled. “I’m sure the good captain does not need the tepid tales of a spinster.”
“Start with this.” Portia threw the reins into Allegra’s lap. “Tell him the first time you held the ribbons, you were perched in a smart phaeton in the middle of Brighton.”
Allegra tossed the reins back. “You take them. I can’t drive.”
“You can’t if you don’t try,” Portia agreed, and shoved the reins toward Allegra.
“If Portia can drive,” Dorcas pointed out, “I’m sure you can, too.”
“You’ll be able to tell Captain L’Amour you were wild and spontaneous in your youth, too,” Portia coaxed.
“Listen,” Allegra said. “When it comes to driving a carriage, only one party gets to be wild and spontaneous. If the horse goes first, I don’t know what I’m supposed to—”
“If you can play the piano, you can hold a pair of ribbons,” Dorcas said. “Just keep them steady and firm. Loosen when you want speed, pull back when you want to stop.”
“I want to stop now,” Allegra said. “I think I’ll walk back to the hotel.”
Portia put her palms above her head. “Uh-uh, can’t give the reins to me. Better hold on to them.”
“That looks very dangerous,” Allegra said. “Your experienced hands should at least be near my inexperienced hands, since your hands are the ones that know what to do, and mine are the ones that do not. Dorcas, you’re always the voice of reason. Can you talk some sense into—”
Dorcas lifted her fingers above her head, too. “Ooh, how lovely it is to have a stretch in the fine sea air. I certainly cannot drive a carriage whilst stretching my poor, tired arms. I’m so glad my elder cousin is here to mind the phaeton as we take in the sweeping views.”
Allegra wasn’t taking in a sweeping view of anything other than her white-knuckled grip on the brown leather reins. Very well. Steady. Firm. Not too loose and not too tight. They were all going to die.
Suddenly, Portia bounced in her seat.
“Please stop bouncing,” Allegra said hoarsely.
“But Allegra.” Portia gesticulated at a row of windows on the other side of the cobblestones. “Do you see—just up ahead—”
“I don’t see anything,” Allegra said. “I can only see my hands bloodlessly gripping these reins until you take them away from me. Please take them away from me.”
“Didn’t you say Captain L’Amour was improbably handsome?” Portia insisted. “Like something from a gothic romance?”
“I cannot tell you Captain L’Amour stories right now,” Allegra said. “I am very busy trying not to crash this carriage.”
Dorcas lowered her voice. “But you did say Captain L’Amour possesses rebelliously overlong black hair with a soft curl that invites one’s fingertips?”
“Yes,” Allegra managed distractedly. “I spent many nights stroking it inappropriately. I’ll tell you about it later.”
“You said one can tell by looking at him that he is a sailor with a long and storied history,” Portia added. “The handsome scar, the telling limp, the cane with an eagle handle to symbolize the soaring raptor that gave him that handsome scar…”
“Mm-hm.” Allegra’s fingers were starting to slip with sweat. “These do sound like details I may have shared with you.”
“A face too pretty to stare straight at for long,” Dorcas prompted. “A propensity for blue-green waistcoats because they remind him of the sea…”
“What is your point?” Allegra whispered. “I am trying very hard not to kill us all at the moment.”
“Her point,” Portia said, “is that Captain L’Amour is right there!”
“What?!” Allegra jerked her gaze up from her hands.
There, on the pavement not ten feet away from them, was a man who very much resembled the yarn she had spun for her cousins. Tall, well-formed, curling dark hair, scarred, gripping a cane, a face so beautiful it hurt to look at him…and a brightly spangled blue-green waistcoat that glittered in the sunlight like the froth on the open sea.
She dropped the reins in shock.
Unexpectedly given their head, the horses darted forward too fast for the phaeton. The carriage listed one way. The horses curved the other. The world spun.
Dorcas gasped. Portia screamed.
And Captain L’Amour—or whoever the devil this gorgeous specimen might be—was caught right in their path.
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Order your copy of An Affair by the Sea!
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A Tryst by the Sea –book one
An Affair by the Sea—book two
A Spinster by the Sea—book three
Love Letters by the Sea—book four
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Read on for an excerpt from Never a Duke, book seven in the Rogues to Riches series.
Never a Duke—Excerpt
Ned Wentworth, de facto manager of His Grace of Walden’s banks, has been summoned from his duties by a note from an anonymous lady claiming to need his aid and offering to compensate him for his efforts…
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What could a well born lady have that would make troubling on her behalf worth Ned’s while? He gathered up the dog’s leash, bowed a farewell to Lord Stephen, and strode off for the park.
The scene along Serpentine put Ned in mind of Burns’s admonition about the best laid plans, for on the third bench along the water’s edge sat none other than Lady Rosalind Kinwood in all her prim, tidy glory.
She was the farthest thing from a damsel, and a stranger to distress unless she was instigating it. Her devotion to various causes was both articulate and unwavering. Her ladyship of course occupied the one bench in all of London she should not occupy at the one hour when Ned needed her to be elsewhere.