Tempted

“She may perhaps give an inch here or there, but eventually she will win the war and he will do what she wants even if it means getting rid of me. You could be such a woman. I am yours already.”

“I don’t want you.”

“That’s not true,” he said, taking a step closer. “Those lips don’t lie well.”

“I must not want you!”

“You, perhaps, should not want me, but that doesn’t change the fact that you do…I”

Dear Reader,

Fans of Laurel Ames and the Regency period rejoice, for this month Ms. Ames is back with her new novel, Tempted. This RITA Award finalist is known for her unique characters, and her current hero, military engineer Evan “Mad” Mountjoy, is no exception. Add a heroine with an indiscretion in her past, and a little intrigue, and you have the perfect mix for what Affaire de Coeur calls an “exciting, unusual, and delightfully quirky Regency.” Don’t miss it.

Ana Seymour’s sixth book for Harlequin Historicals, Gabriel’s Lady, is a heart-warming Western set in a goldmining town in the Dakota Territory. It’s the story of an eastern do-gooder who heads west to rescue her brother, only to fall in love with his disreputable partner.

For those of you whose tastes run to medieval novels, look for Knight’s Ransom, the next title in Suzanne Barclay’s dramatic ongoing series, The Sommerville Brothers. And Emily French rounds out the month with her emotional tale, The Wedding Bargain, about a Puritan woman who defies her community to marry a bondsman with a tortured past.

We hope you’ll keep a lookout for all four titles wherever Harlequin Historicals are sold.

Sincerely,

Tracy Farrell

Senior Editor

Please address questions and book requests to:

Harlequin Reader Service

U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

Tempted

Laurel Ames

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

LAUREL AMES

Although Laurel Ames likes to write stories set in the early nineteenth century, she writes from personal experience. She and her husband live on a farm, complete with five horses, a long spring house, carriage house and a smokehouse made of bricks kilned on the farm. Of her characters, Laurel says, “With the exception of the horses, my characters, both male and female, good and evil, all are me and no one else.”

This book is dedicated to my computer expert husband, Don, who makes all the books possible.

Chapter One (#ulink_c24494cb-9f4a-50e7-ada1-3fe17173cc21)

Devonshire County, England

April 1814

Two riders moved up the road through a light rain. It was not wet enough to force them to seek shelter, especially considering that the red Royal Engineers’ uniform of the slighter man had already faded much from the weather, and the worn batman’s uniform of the larger man covered a frame so substantial it would have taken much to melt him. The young captain rode stiffly, as though it hurt him to move, his servant with a relaxed slouch, partly owing to having to lead two horses loaded with baggage.

They came not to a ruined Spanish village nor to some godforsaken Portuguese valley, but to an ordinary English country house. “It looks different than I remember it, Bose,” Captain Mountjoy observed.

“We haven’t seen it for ten years, Evan lad. Recollect you were little more than a boy when we left.”

“I was fifteen. I think I would have remembered something of Meremont.”

“As I said. Let’s see if this grandmother of yours is still alive.” The older man urged his hard-muscled horse to a shamble and rode not to the main house, but to a smaller house set off to one side. He dismounted, and his mount gave a sigh of relief, waiting patiently as its rider rapped at the door, then tried to peer in a dusty window.

“It’s shut up,” Evan said sadly. “Gram must be dead. I surmised that when her letters stopped. We may as well go.”

“Go? You mean leave again without even inquiring? Are you forgetting I might want to find out if Joan has been true to me after all these years?”

“Sorry, Bose. I am a selfish lout I was forgetting you have a reason to come back here.”

“You have, too. You are the eldest son. There is something owing to you.”

Evan winced. “No. I don’t mean to go up to the house. You go round to the kitchen and ask after Joan.”

“While you wait here in the rain? We’ll ride down to the stables, at least pull the horses in out of this weather for a bit. If you’ve turned chickenhearted on me you can cower there.”

An unexpected smile stole over Evan’s tired face as he turned his mare and trotted it toward the stable block. They dismounted, and Evan took the bridles as Bose sprinted for the house. The stable boys gaped at Evan, then turned out to attend to a carriage and pair that arrived unfashionably at the back door. The lady who descended from this equipage cast a dark look at him and, rather than entering the house, strode across the courtyard, muddying her hem on the cobbles.

“Who might you be?” she demanded.

“Captain Mountjoy, ma’am.”

“And I am Lady Mountjoy, now,” she claimed, with a challenging tilt to her chin. “I married your widowed father in good faith and with certain expectations. I tell you plainly, sir, you are not wanted here.”

“I know that,” Evan said with a certain glint in his brown eyes. “I only came to inquire if Gram—my grandmother— is still living.”

“She died in January. She left you something, I believe. You may consult with her lawyers in Bristol.”

“No, don’t unsaddle them,” Evan said gently to the wide-eyed stable boy, passing the lad a coin.

Lady Mountjoy did not like being ignored. “There is nothing for you here,” she insisted.

“I know. I’m only waiting for Bose to come back from the house. Is everyone else…well?”

“We go on perfectly fine without you. There is no entail, you know. Nothing need be left to you. Nothing has been left to you.”

Evan’s heart thudded to a stop. “Father—he’s dead then?” His voice was high, like a boy’s. He staggered a little, but the mare propped him up.

Evan took the woman’s silence for assent. Why would this come as such a shock, since his father had never once written? And why would it hurt so much? He scarcely even remembered him.

“She’s here!” Bose crowed, “and as happy to see me as the day I—pardon, ma’am.”