Fans of Eloisa James & Julia Quinn discussion
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March 16th Puzzler
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Awww I loved this, actually reread it recently and this part always makes me smile :) :)
No, I have never met the Great Fraud. Can't wait to find out who he is!
Looking forward to the identity of this book.
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It seems familiar. It sounds good :)
Mod
I don't know this one, but it sounds good. Can't wait for the reveal.
I'm very interested to hear what this one is. Seems familiar, but I'm doubting myself :-)
This excerpt is from The Last Hellion by Loretta Chase.
Haven't read this one, definitely adding it to my very long TBR pile :-)
Mod
You're in for a treat, Stacey!
I just bought one of yours today Manda
so I'll have to read this one after that one :-)
Mod
Heroine was aware of the sheeting rain, of the blasting light, and of shuddering thunder, and voices, too, but only as something distant, in another world eons away.
All the world she knew at this moment lay in a too-still form at the edge of the wreckage, and an eternity seemed to pass as she scrambled down into the track to him.
She sank down on her knees, in the mud, where he lay facedown.
Behold me prostrate before you.
She remembered him kneeling before her in Covent Garden and the sound of his theatrically pleading voice and the glint of laughter in his rogue's eyes belying his soulful expression.
A terrible, mad laughter surged up inside her. But she was never hysterical.
She pulled at his coat. "Get up, drat you. Oh, please." She was not crying. It was the rain, filling her eyes, and the sting in her throat was the cold. It was so cold, and he was so heavy. She tore his coat trying to turn him onto his back, and then she could not let him lie there in the mud, and so she yanked him up by the lapels. "Wake up, you stupid, stubborn brute," she cried. "Oh, wake up, please."
But he wouldn't wake up and she couldn't hold him up. All she could do was cradle his head and wipe the mud from his face and order and argue and beg and promise, anything.
"Don't you die on me, you beast," she choked past the burning thing in her throat. "I've grown… attached to you. Oh, come. I never meant… Oh, I shall be wretched. How could you, Hero? This is not fair… not sporting of you. Come. You've won." She shook him. "Do you hear me, you thickheaded cockscomb? You've won. I'll do it. The ring. The parson. The whole curst business. Your duchess." She shook him again. "That's what you wanted, isn't it? Make up your mind. Now or never, Hero. This is your last chance. Wake up, damn you, and m-marry me."
She choked back a sob. "Or I'll leave you as I found you." She bowed her head, despairing. "Here. In the mud. In a ditch. I knew you'd come… to a b-bad end."
Hero was very bad. A hopeless case.
He should have opened his eyes sentences ago, but he was afraid he'd wake up and find it was only a dream: his dragon-girl scolding him and grieving for him.
But it wasn't a dream, and she must be soaked to the skin, and he must be the greatest brute in Christendom to risk her falling ill on his worthless account.
And so Hero reached up and brought her beautiful, stubborn face close to his. "Am I dead and are you an angel, or is it only you, Heroine?" he whispered.
She started to pull back, but he was not so enfeebledor noble—as to let her off without a kiss. He cupped the back of her head and held her down, and she yielded, as always, in an instant. Then he knew it was no dream.
No dream ever tasted so plum-sweet as her soft, ripe mouth, and he savored it, lengthening and deepening the kiss, drinking her in while the storm broke about them.
But this time when he released her—reluctantly, so very reluctantly that he should be canonized for self-restraint—the truth slipped past his guard and he said thickly, "I'd rather you, wicked girl, than all the seraphs in heaven. Will you have me, sweet? Do you mean it?"
She let out a shaky sigh. "Yes. I mean it, plague take you. And I am not sweet. Get up, you great fraud."