Dear Readers,

One might presume that only our fair London could be witness to the most delicious scandals, but it has come to the attention of Your Faithful Correspondent that the quiet society of Newport, Wales, was shocked recently by the outrageous behavior of one Miss Anne Sutton, daughter of Richard Sutton, Esq., of Vine Court, Llanfyllin.

Miss Sutton was reportedly present at the nuptial celebrations of the Viscount Penrydd and the new Viscountess Penrydd, the former Miss Gwenllian Carew, whom Your Faithful Correspondent has learned was the one-time ward of Mr. Richard Sutton and Miss Sutton’s dearest childhood friend. It seems romantic entanglements proliferate in this sleepy village on the Severn, however, for the viscount had competitors for Miss Carew’s hand in the form of one Mr. Daron Sutton, our Miss Sutton’s elder and quite dashing brother, and no less than Mr. Calvin Vaughn, of the Greenfield Vaughns, son of Sir Lambert, K.B.

Miss Carew bestowing her hand on the viscount—as all of us, Dear Reader, are obliged to make the best possible match—Mr. Vaughn buried his disappointment in claiming that his previous betrothal to Miss Sutton still stood.

Miss Sutton, it seems, did not agree, for Your Faithful Correspondent has it on the best authority that not a day after the return of Captain Hewitt Vaughn from abroad—creating such a stir at the viscount’s nuptials that his own mother fainted and had to be revived—he and Miss Sutton are engaged to be married.

Yes, the wily Miss Sutton has apparently traded the second son for the first, who is by all accounts a handsome figure of a man, and who is, perhaps not coincidently, now in possession of the gracious estate of Greenfield in Rogerstone, Monmouthshire.

If one reads the regular papers, as Your Faithful Correspondent does, one recalls that at Acre, Captain Vaughn was praised for the narrow defeat of the obnoxious little general Napoleon, thwarting his ambitions to become Emperor of the Orient. The captain has returned to Newport, however, with such a cloud of accusation over his head that Your Faithful Correspondent dare not repeat the whispers, for TREASON—one shudders to even think the word.

Why would a man with a shadow over his head steal his brother’s bride?

For that matter, why would the bride allow it?

You can be sure there is some complication here, Dear Reader, but you may likewise trust Your Faithful Correspondent will ferret out the truth. Is the valiant Captain Vaughn lacking in all honor? Is there some sinister plot afoot? What could Mr. Calvin Vaughn have done to drive a fair gentlewoman, of whom no harsh word has heretofore been breathed, to be found in a bed not her own, and not belonging to her affianced, either?

Answers will follow in these very pages, Dear Reader. Your Faithful Correspondent will not disappoint.

Until then, may your tea always be hot and your news always spicy.

The Knight Falls First

Anne Sutton has the beauty and breeding to make a gentleman’s wife, but not the dowry. When her parents offer her to the vile Calvin Vaughn, Anne does something a gentleman’s daughter would never do: she decides to ruin herself. And the best means at hand is Calvin’s prodigal older brother, Hew, lately returned from war.

Hewitt Vaughn is either the hero of Acre or under a cloud of disgrace—he’s yet to find out which. He’s home to recover from his wounds and take charge of the family estates; stealing his brother’s fiancée is decidedly not a way to redeem himself. But when the lovely, desperate Anne entreats Hew’s help, how can he, as a man of honor, deny her?

When Anne’s plan spectacularly backfires, the only solution is a forced marriage—to each other. But as she makes a home in Newport, Anne wonders if Hewitt Vaughn is the smartest mistake she ever made. And Anne might be the future he never dreamed he could have, but to win her, Hew has to persuade her he would have chosen her anyway—and he’ll have to defeat the dangerous enemy who wants to take everything from them, including one another.

Excerpt:

“Kiss me,” she whispered, lifting her chin. Her lips grazed his jaw, and his entire body jolted with the rush of blood.

Yes. God, yes. He wanted to roar his triumph over the hills, releasing it like a clap of thunder. She chose him.

He almost did it. He almost closed his arms and hauled her against him and let his mouth fall upon her, devouring. He would kiss her until they both forgot their names.

But say he did kiss her. Then what? What came after?

Hewitt Vaughn never did anything in the moment. He always, always had a plan.

Carefully he cupped her shoulders, holding her in place. She seemed delicate, but she wasn’t. Firm muscle met his fingers. She might be slender, but she was strong.

“What?” he asked, searching her eyes with his gaze. “What are you asking me, Anne?”

“Kiss me,” she said stubbornly, reaching her mouth toward his.

This wasn’t right. She didn’t want him. She wanted … something else.

“And then what?”

Another growl of thunder shook the window casement. Hew swore it rattled the boards beneath their feet. Cold gusted into the room, and she shivered. Pink spots burned on her cheeks, pale as the linen of her shift.

“When they find me here,” she said. “In your room. Then I am ruined, and he can’t marry me. They can’t make me.”

The cold wrapped around Hew, digging through skin to bone. “Then what happens?”

His voice did not sound his own. His voice sounded to his ears as it had after the torture, when he’d stepped away from his body to watch, from a distance, what was happening to that heap of man-shaped flesh.

“I ruin you.” He shaped the words through lips that didn’t want to cooperate. “Then what?”

“Then I have to leave here,” she said softly, her words a thread of sound against the swirling storm. “And I am free.”

His hands felt numb and heavy, curled over her shoulders. She didn’t know him. She didn’t want him. She meant to use him to get something she wanted.

Wasn’t that what people did? Wasn’t that how the world worked? It was only dolts like him, Hewitt Vaughn, who thought there should be more.

Who assumed he didn’t deserve to have what he wanted anyway, so it didn’t matter if he were denied.

“You suppose I will simply … tumble you,” he said. It wasn’t the word he thought of first, but she was a lady, a gentleman’s daughter. And she was not a seductress, whatever else she was about; her hands hadn’t moved from their desperate clasp about his back. He felt the weight of her arms, a slender rope hauling him like a fish into her net.

His voice really was not his own; it was some beast coming from deep inside him. “And then you will go about your merry way.”

She blinked. Her long lashes tangled, clinging together with their globes of tears. “Well, yes. Isn’t that how it works?”

For his brother, maybe. And for hers. Not for him.

He told himself to straighten his arms. Told himself again. After a moment, his limbs obeyed him. He pushed her away.

She didn’t let go, kept her hands stubbornly locked about his body.

“Anne,” he said gruffly. “Go back to your room.”

She shook her head. “No.”

“If you don’t want to marry my brother, then we will find a way to end it. I will help you.”

Idiot! the beast inside him roared. Take her! She’s yours.

She pushed herself close to him, breasts to his chest. Hew’s mind blanked of thought. Pure sensation took over. Craven need, choking his mind like the dust storms that whirled up out of the desert.

Yours! The wind roared, ramming the glass panes of the window.

“This is how to end it,” she said. “Kiss me.”

He wanted to do more than kiss her. He wanted to consume her. He wanted to raze her to the ground, and he wanted to lose his mind with her. Inside her.

To outrun, finally, the agony, and the humiliation, and the ghosts.

“What if you can’t walk away?” He kept his eyes on her face, because her breasts were too close, and he felt the outline of her through the thin linen of his shirt. “What if this doesn’t make you free?”

She hadn’t thought this through. She didn’t know what she was doing. She was an innocent; that much was obvious. She didn’t know the first thing about what two bodies could do to one another. The pleasure. The entire cessation of pain, and of fears for the future.

She shook her head, and a gold ringlet swayed against her shoulder. Hew was trapped in the gleam of her hair in the candlelight, against the soft glow of her skin. He could smell how soft she was.

“I cannot simply walk away. They can find me and make me come back. I need you to do this for me. Hewitt.” Her whispering his name untied something in him. The straight, clean lines of logic he usually thought in. “Help me. Please.”

“Ruin you.” The words were a dry crackle from his suddenly parched throat. He hadn’t been this thirsty in the hottest days at Acre. “When you don’t even know what it means.”

“I know I want it to be you,” she said, and pressed her mouth to his.

He was lost.

He saw it all. Even in a storm, even in the midst of mind-crushing agony, Hewitt Vaughn was strategic. He could see the end of things. He saw—or thought he saw—the end of this.

It would end with his being torn apart. Again.

So be it. Anne Sutton pressed her mouth to his, and Hew surrendered.

Buy Link: https://books2read.com/u/4jjqMD

About the Author:

Misty Urban is a medieval scholar, freelance editor, and college professor who writes stories about misbehaving women who find adventure and romance. Her Ladies Least Likely series of historical romances, set in Georgian Britain and beyond, feature headstrong heroines who set out to carve themselves a place in the world and find soul-searing love along the way. Misty lived for several years inside assorted books and academic institutions, and now lives in the Midwest in a little town on a big river. She loves to hear from readers and give away free stories through her newsletter and on her website, http://www.mistyurban.com

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