Hello Dear Readers!

As with each new Debutante Dares series release, Wolf is doing a giveaway! You can click the link below to enter for a chance to win one of 5 free e-copies of Only Rakes Would Dare. And, if you're so inclined, scroll past the button for a sneak peak of Edith and Griffin's fake engagement story!

Enter to Win a Copy!

Last time we encountered Edith, she was causing trouble in Edmund's life, attempting to compromise him. What's she up to now? Attempting remain uncompromised herself!

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Edith put her back to the books and held The Customs of Cultures Along the Nile before her like a shield. She offered a smile weaker than the punch at Almack’s. “Lord Thorpe, you startled me.”

He nodded, a slow movement that punctuated each step closer to her. “Delicate ladies such as yourself are often given to hysterics.”

Hysterics? Intolerable Man! She was not delicate. Never had been. Confused of late? Yes. Preferring silence and solitude to the pressing dread of family and friends and their expectations? She wanted to cry a bit at that. But tears did not mean delicacy. They meant frustration and exhaustion and sometimes despair too heavy for her heart. 

She pulled herself up tall as an oak. She should show him. Throw the book in her hands at him. No. Not worth the bruises. To the book, not the man. 

“Are you looking for something to read?” she asked instead.

He stopped his approach, looked about the room, chuckled. “No.” He strolled forward once more, a conscious pursuit made of clunking steps and awkward elbows. Somehow. Why did he throw his elbows about so much while walking? “In fact, Lady Edith, I am looking for you.” He stopped again, this time a mere two steps from her.

She could feel his body heat, and added to the heat of the day, it magnified the oppression. She used the book to fan herself. “How unfortunate, as I am looking for solitude.” She pressed her back farther into the bookshelves, grasping at any remaining distance she could put between them, feeling the bite of hard wood against her stays. No more room for retreat.

“I heard the opposite. Heard you’re looking to get leg-shackled.”

“Such directness, my lord. Be careful else you’ll startle me straight into a hysterical fit.” The last word a bite, a snarl.

He nodded, his face full of bloated sobriety. “A risk, yes. But we should start as we mean to continue. With truth.” A step forward. She could feel his breath against her face now. Tobacco, sweet and sickly.

In other circumstances, an admirable declaration, but the man stalked her, a gleam in his eye. Laughter, fear, and mortification shook together in a riotous cocktail in her chest.

“Perhaps you should be clear as well as truthful and direct, Lord Thorpe. What is it you want from me?”

“I owe your brother half my inheritance. Like to get it back in the form of your dowry.”

Anger clear and flame-blue cut through the cocktail. Crawford and his beef-witted friends. A menace, all of them.

Edith clutched the book to her belly. “No, thank you. Have a good day.” She waved toward the door.

He caught her wrist, held it tight. “Hold a moment, Lady Edith. No reason to dismiss me out of hand like that. Rather rude if you ask me.”

“I’m not, in fact, asking you. I do not, in fact, wish you to ask me anything.” Not that he had asked her to marry him. Stated they would do so, yes. Talk about rude. 

He stroked her face. His gloves smelled like his breath, of tobacco and sweat. 

She flinched away from his touch. 

“Don’t you know,” Thorpe said, “before Crawford approached me, I was ready to marry any old hag with a father whose pockets were deep enough to bail me out. Just my luck, Crawford has a diamond for a sister, and that diamond needs a husband.” He tilted his head this way and that, raking his gaze up and down her body. “Can’t bring a fellow up to scratch on your own. Makes me wonder what’s wrong with you.”

She wrenched her wrist from his grasp. “I don’t need a husband. And even if I did, I would never take you.”

“Don’t believe that. Crawford says you’re desperate. Desperate women often end up married to old men in their dotage. Why not take a young buck like me instead?”

Damn Crawford to hell. But not back. She didn’t want him back. He could singe there for the rest of eternity. And damn the baron along with him. 

Thorpe bucked his hips against hers. 

Revulsion roiled in her like worms in a pit, blind and warm and slimy. She squirmed away, but he pressed even closer, trapping her.

She couldn’t breathe. Anger and fear twined together and made her act. She stomped on his foot and punched his nose.

~~~

Only Rakes Would Dare releases August 25th, but it's on pre-order now. I hope you have as much fun reading it as I had writing it!

Happy reading,

Charlie Lane