Rumours that Ruined a Lady. Marguerite Kaye

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       ‘I may be out of practice, but I can assure you that my experience is second to none,’ Sebastian replied, pulling her tight against him and kissing her.

      She was so shocked that she lay pliant in his arms for a few seconds. Then the heat of his mouth on hers, the heat of his body hard against hers, charged her senses. It had been such a long time since anyone had kissed her. And no one had ever kissed her as Sebastian kissed her. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him towards her, feeling the soft silkiness of his short-cropped hair under her fingers. Sliding her hands down his back, she felt the ripple of his muscles under the soft linen of his shirt.

      His tongue licked along her lips, touching the tip of hers, making her shiver. She gave a little moan, digging her fingers into the soft leather of his breeches, feeling the hard, taut muscle of his buttocks. His kiss deepened. The world darkened. Heat shivered through her veins. And then the kiss slowed, stopped.

      Reluctantly she opened her eyes.

      Born and educated in Scotland, MARGUERITE KAYE originally qualified as a lawyer but chose not to practise. Instead, she carved out a career in IT and studied history part-time, gaining a first-class honours and a master’s degree. A few decades after winning a children’s national poetry competition she decided to pursue her lifelong ambition to write, and submitted her first historical romance to Mills & Boon®. They accepted it, and she’s been writing ever since.

      You can contact Marguerite through her website at: www.margueritekaye.com

       Previous novels by the same author:

      THE WICKED LORD RASENBY

       THE RAKE AND THE HEIRESS

INNOCENT IN THE SHEIKH’S HAREM† (part of Summer Sheikhs anthology) THE GOVERNESS AND THE SHEIKH† THE HIGHLANDER’S REDEMPTION* THE HIGHLANDER’S RETURN* RAKE WITH A FROZEN HEART OUTRAGEOUS CONFESSIONS OF LADY DEBORAH DUCHESS BY CHRISTMAS (part of Gift-Wrapped Governesses anthology) THE BEAUTY WITHIN

*Highland Brides

       and in Mills & Boon ^® Historical Undone! eBooks:

      THE CAPTAIN’S WICKED WAGER

       THE HIGHLANDER AND THE SEA SIREN

       BITTEN BY DESIRE

       TEMPTATION IS THE NIGHT

CLAIMED BY THE WOLF PRINCE** BOUND TO THE WOLF PRINCE** THE HIGHLANDER AND THE WOLF PRINCESS** THE SHEIKH’S IMPETUOUS LOVE-SLAVE† SPELLBOUND & SEDUCED BEHIND THE COURTESAN’S MASK FLIRTING WITH RUIN AN INVITATION TO PLEASURE LOST IN PLEASURE HOW TO SEDUCE A SHEIKH

**Legend of the Faol †linked by character

       and in M&B Castonbury Park Regency mini-series

      THE LADY WHO BROKE THE RULES

       and in M&B eBooks:

      TITANIC: A DATE WITH DESTINY

       Did you know that some of these novels are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

      Rumours that Ruined a Lady

      Marguerite Kaye

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

       AUTHOR NOTE

      Almost all of my books have their genesis in the characters of the hero and heroine. This one was different, and began life as a whole lot of disjointed concepts and ideas, something I’ve learned the painful way was a big mistake!

      While writing THE BEAUTY WITHIN, my previous book about the Armstrong sisters, I decided that Caro’s story was going to be very dark, and as such did some minor setting-up, hinting that there were goings-on in her life without knowing myself what they were. I wanted Caro—on the surface the most compliant and dutiful of sisters—to have a deep, dark secret, and I wanted that secret to be revealed in layers, so I decided that I would begin her story at some tragic pivotal point and then reveal how she got to there. I wanted to write a love story that extended over a long period of time and, just to complicate matters, I decided I wanted there to be a strong gothic element in it too—without actually having defined what I meant by gothic.

      I made Caro a murderer. I invented a twin brother for Sebastian. I made his father physically vicious as well as emotionally cruel. I decided that being a murderer wasn’t dark enough for Caro, and turned her into a long-term opium user. And I invented a mother for Sebastian based on the character of Jane Digby, whose biography I was reading. She was a beautiful and outrageous society beauty, with a string of husbands and lovers, who ended up living as a Bedouin and married to a sheikh. (If you want to know more about Lady Jane, then I can highly recommend Mary S. Lovell’s book, A Scandalous Life.)

      As you’ll see when you read Caro and Sebastian’s story, very little of this made it into the final version. There’s no twin brother, no murder, only a little opium and the only link to Lady Jane’s life in Damascus is the mention of an Arabian horse! The problem was, I think, that concepts don’t make a romance. People and characters do. I did get my lovers with a history, though, and I have structured the story in a non-linear way. Writing this book has been a long and sometimes very painful process, though ultimately it’s produced a story I’m extremely pleased with. I hope you’ll agree.

      I’d like to thank my editor Flo for her enthusiasm and support, without which I think I might just have given up on Sebastian and Caro. I’d also like to thank Alison L for suggesting Lady Jane’s biography to me, and for coming up with Hamilton Palace as the model for Crag Hall. And finally I’d like to thank all my Facebook friends, for all your suggestions and encouragement during the writing of this book. You helped get me there in the end!

      Contents

       Chapter One

       Chapter Two

       Chapter Three

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