Hello dear readers!

I'm writing you with this unscheduled epistle because I have another giveaway fro you! Wolf is running a new release giveaway for Daring Done Right. And you can join the giveaway here!

What a sneak peek? Here's an excerpt!

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Lady Sarah pulled her hood up to secure over her wig and masked face and set off immediately into a rapid trot, her posture perfect as a pin.

Xavier followed, kept his distance. Alerting her would only cause her to bolt, and then he’d have to bolt to keep up, and hell, he’d not had coffee this morning. Slow and steady, hat pulled low, never taking his eye off the lady before him.

He watched from across the street as she entered the alley behind the Collingford mansion that led to the mews. She’d be safe now, his duty done. He turned to leave.

“King Brute!”

He squeezed his eyes closed, held still as stone. Surely, he’d imagined her voice yelling at him from a distance.

“I say, King Brute!”

Plumb out of luck.

He turned Apple around, trotted across the street, and swung down to stand before Lady Sarah, who hid her annoyance about as well as a dalmatian hid its spots. Not. At. All. She’d left the wig and mask behind somewhere in the alley or mews, and her hair shone bright in the early morning, slicked tight against her skull, except for where tendrils escaped at her temple and around her neck. There it was. Right where he’d last seen it atop her head, bright red and obnoxious as ever. Her freckles, too. She’d wiped most of the powder from her face, except for where it touched her hair, a ghostly outline of already pale features.

He scowled. “Do not call me that.”

“Why are you here?” she demanded.

“Escorting you home.”

“It’s intolerable. First you ruin my victory on Rotten Row, and then you stalk me her. We do not like one another. Please do keep your distance. And”—she lurched forward on a halting step—“do not tell a soul.” Her eyes wide as moons, her arms wrapping around her body as if for protection. 

“And ruin you? Ruin your friends and family? I think not.” He wasn’t that foolish. 

She nodded, the movement so tight and small he almost didn’t see it. Then she turned slowly and stalked into the alley.

He followed. “I have been following the exploits of the Dare Queen. Her dares—your dares—have grown more outrageous, more dangerous. That you’ve adopted a disguise shows you’re aware of the danger to your reputation. You must temper your spirit.” He winced. Wollstonecraft might not appreciate the sentiment. And he’d read her book on women’s education so many times in the last months, he’d nearly memorized it. It had not improved him as he’d hoped, just confused his boulder-solid brain. He still did not understand why Edith had turned to Lady Sarah when she needed help, but it had made him a mite more aware of his own attitudes toward women. So far, it had been nothing but a deuced uncomfortable experience.

“What can you be thinking?” he demanded. He winced again. Yelling at ladies was no good. He knew that. She drew forth his beastly inner self, like that enchantress what’s her name in the tale about the man kept at sea for ten years. She waved a wand and made a pig of a man. 

Lady Sarah whirled again, waggled a needle of a finger at him. “I am not your burden, Lord Flint. I can take care of myself.” She rocked back a step, looked through a door into the mews where a groom brushed her horse. “Thank you for keeping your silence.”

Strike him down with a chicken feather. Gratitude?

He cleared his throat. “Naturally.”

She rolled her eyes and turned like the sun—hellishly slow—then disappeared into the mews.

He followed. He shouldn’t. He’d only be goaded into more bad behavior. But his feet took him toward her nonetheless, as if they knew the secret of his heart better than even she. His heart knew she looked deep enough to find a pig, deep enough to find a daring man who liked to poke creatures with claws, who liked to risk getting swiped at, sliced to ribbons.

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Daring Done Right releases on Thursday and is on pre-order now. I hope those of you who've read this series enjoy the final novel in it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

If you enter the giveaway, I wish you the best of luck!

Happy reading,

Charlie Lane