Sassy Excerpt from THE UNDERCOVER SCOUNDREL!
Last week I went through one final round of edits on book #3, THE UNDERCOVER SCOUNDREL – a phase known as “typeset” or “pass pages”. At this stage, a (heavily) revised Word document is actually put into book format, complete with fancy chapter headings, pretty graphics, and all that jazz; I was looking for little things, typos, missed words – the final read through. It's the last time I'll see Caroline and Henry Lake before you do in June!
To celebrate, I thought I'd share a fun little excerpt from the story – hope you enjoy!
LONDON, Spring 1812
Caroline’s eye caught on a flash of gray-blue brilliance across the ballroom, widening at the realization that it was a diamond—the diamond, King Louis’ French Blue. It was enormous, even from a distance; there was something distinctively seductive about the way the jewel sparked and glittered in the low light of the chandeliers above, winking red one moment, flashing white the next.
Perhaps it was the lady wearing the French Blue who was so alluring. She was tall and shapely, and wore a gown of diaphanous pale gauze that left very little to the imagination. The jewel hung from a collar of wisplike diamond threads, resting just above the inviting crease between her breasts. Like the diamond, her eyes flashed a bold shade of blue; but even as the pert slope of her nose, the knowing smile of her lips exuded confidence and coolness, the woman’s color was high.
One need only look slightly to the left to know why.
Caroline’s brother William, despoiler of debutantes, voluptuary extraordinaire, was grinning down at the lady as if he might enjoy that ample bosom for dessert.
Caroline rolled her eyes. So much for finding London and its dissipated amusements dull; a few coupes of punch and William was back to his old tricks. Hopefully the poor girl knew better than to indulge him.
Who was she, Caroline wondered, and why had this Mr. Hope chosen her to wear his prized jewel? Perhaps he wanted to display his wealth before all the world, or at least all of London, and there was no better way to do that than to wedge it between a pretty girl’s breasts.
But even as curiosity prickled in the back of her mind, Caroline’s thoughts returned again and again to Henry.
Was he here at the ball? She was beginning to feel foolish for even thinking such a thing; she was beginning to feel foolish for thinking she’d seen him at all earlier this afternoon in Hyde Park.
Yet it was him. It had to be him. She’d felt it in her skin, in her heart. Henry Lake was back in London.
But even if he was back, even if he was here, what did she hope to accomplish by chasing him down? He disappeared twelve years ago with hardly a handshake; no one had heard from him since. It was obvious he did not want to be found.
Caroline turned, and so did her heart inside her chest.
He was here. He was real, and alive.
And he was looking at her.
She looked away, heart pounding, heat rushing to her face. She felt unsteady on her feet, as if the ground had suddenly shifted, jolting her to life. Her ribs fought against the prison of her stays as she struggled to catch her breath.
Meeting his eyes—his one eye, which at the loss of its partner seemed to have taken on twice the intensity, twice the heat—made Caroline feel as though she was going to cry; like she was falling into the deep well of emotion that had lain hidden inside her all these years.
Caroline began to move if only to keep from fainting. She inched sideways through the crowd, feeling the heat of Henry’s gaze on the back of her neck. Was he following her?
She glanced over her shoulder. Oh, he was definitely following her.
Stumbling blindly through the crowd, Caroline at last found respite at the refreshment tables. She didn’t need to look to know that Henry was getting closer.
Caroline hooked a trembling finger through the handle of a crystal coupe and threw back the punch.
Dear. God. It was more brandy than punch, burning a ribbon of fire down the length of her throat. She coughed heartily, running the back of her hand across her lips. She looked up. Henry was close. Very close.
She looked down at her empty glass, waiting for what her brother called liquid courage to light a fire in her belly.
She waited.
And waited.
And was none the more courageous when, sadly, a footman removed the coupe from her hand.
Taking a deep breath through her nose, Caroline looked up.
Henry was an arm’s length away; as he moved to stand before her, he captured her eyes with his, her chin drawing higher to meet his gaze.
He drew up in front of her, a respectable distance separating their bodies until a crowd of drunken dandies jostled enthusiastically behind him, pushing him closer.
Too close.
His face lit with panic.
“Oh, oh, how clumsy, and the crowd . . . I, um. Are you all right?”
She blinked, startled by the sound of his voice. A chill shot down her spine; that voice of his, deep, rumbling, was at once foreign and familiar.
“Yes,” she breathed. No. Not at all. “All right, thank you.”
Henry’s green eye, wide, glowed in the half-light of a thousand candles. For a minute the room fell away and she was beneath the arched ceiling of her family’s ancient chapel, the echo of her vows ringing in her ears as she met Henry’s gaze.
She blinked and the spell was broken. She could see stray white strands of his wig clinging to the damp skin of his forehead; heavens, he was bigger than she remembered, and more handsome, and intimidating, and so . . . so very much.
“Hello,” he said softly.
She met his eye. “Hello.”
Caroline could smell the scent that rose from his skin. He smelled fresh, like lemon soap and laundry. There was something else there, too, something visceral and spicy, something that sent a rush of recognition through the base of her skull.
The eye patch was more sinister up close; its surface shone dully, and Caroline wondered what, exactly, was hidden beneath it. She resisted the impulse to reach up and feather her fingers across its surface.
The drunken dandies returned, forcing Henry to lurch forward; Caroline caught him in her arms. His face was bright red.
“I, uh, I swear I’m not doing this on purpose—here, once I can move I’ll, um, move?”
Caroline squeezed her eyes shut, her body pinned against his. She willed herself to be still.
His chest bowed and scraped against her own. They were both breathing hard.
Behind them the music started, a rising melody that permeated the sounds andaround them. Henry glanced over his shoulder.
“There’s more room near the dancing,” he said.
Caroline ignored the excited thump inside her chest. “Are you—”
“Asking if you’d like to breathe? Yes. Although to do that we’ll need to dance.”
“But it’s a waltz.”
Henry furrowed his brow. “What’s wrong with a waltz?”
“I don’t know how.”
Really, she hadn’t a clue; considering she often had difficulty walking, it was safe to assume she was going to be miserable at it. Never mind that Henry was looking down at her like that; she was likely to break her leg, his leg, perhaps even both their legs . . .
No matter the threat to their lower extremities, Henry’s left hand dipped to the small of her back. He grinned.
“Then I shall teach you.”
The protest died on her lips when his right moved to clasp her own in the steady warmth of his palm. He pulled her against him; his breath tickled the hair at her temples. She felt terrifyingly present, her body coming alive as he pulled her yet closer. She looked down at the bare skin of his throat, the ridge of his jaw covered in the barest velvet of pale stubble, and swallowed.
They began to move. Caroline blushed at the intimacy of their movements, the way Henry guided her body to glide in time to his. Her gown sighed as it brushed against the gilded buttons of his courtier’s coat; his thighs pressed insistently against her own.
The ballroom surrounded them in a whirl of dark shape and sound, and yet the sensations bursting to life inside Caroline were all bright, all color. She could feel his eye on her as they moved. She did not dare look up.
Oh, heavens, what was she doing? All these years later—the heartbreak, the regret—she should know better than to waltz with Henry Beaton Lake.
And yet here she was, rising to the touch of the man whose memory had tortured her for a decade.
Despite his size and limp, Henry moved as if on air. His steps were confident, smooth. She wondered where he’d learned to waltz; in which corner of the world had Henry thrilled other women with his surefootedness, his steely command?
In the circle of his arms she felt safe and stranded. She felt lost and more than a little strange, as if it all were a dream: not entirely unpleasant, but certainly impossible, thrillingly, terribly so. She’d already woken once to find him gone. She was not fool enough to do so again.
Besides, she was widowed, and possessed of a hard-won freedom she would not give up for the likes of Henry.
But oh, that look in his eye . . .
Her stays felt too tight, suddenly, and Caroline struggled to breathe. She stumbled, but Henry was quick to right her.
Just when Caroline thought she might swoon, or die, or both, an enormous clatter reverberated through the ballroom. It was a throaty, tinkling sound. Henry froze; Caroline bumped her nose against the inviting little slope of chest where his collarbones met. They both turned at once in the direction of the noise; a wave of stunned silence washed over the crush.
There, on the far wall of the ballroom, a handful of figures costumed in black crashed through the high arched windows, showering the crowd below with broken glass. The figures somersaulted through the air before coming to land—impossibly!—on the monumental chandeliers spanning the length of the room. Pistols held high in their hands, they wrapped their arms and legs about the gilded cables from which the fixtures hung.
Caroline and Henry together ducked at the one-two-three discharge of the guns; the acrid smell of gunpowder filled the room. She cried out, and Henry held her head to his breast, covering her ear with his hand. With her heart in her throat, she watched the intruders pull knives from their belts, and begin sawing at the cables.