It was just after nine thirty that night when my phone beeped with an incoming text message. I was still up, sitting in bed reading, or, well, attempting to read. I’d been staring at the same paragraph for at least ten minutes now, preoccupied by thoughts of the afternoon I’d spent with Levi, and how … More Clever is the Devil: Chapter Nine
I spent most of the carriage ride home gazing out of the window, huddled within a heavy woolen shall to stave off the chill of the night as I attempted to come to terms with the fact that I had fallen for my husband. Matters were further compounded by how I felt about his lover. … More Scandal: Chapter Six
Our host for the evening, the Viscount Delmar, had recently inherited his position. The previous viscount had died without issue, so the title had passed to his eldest cousin: the portly young man currently seated at the head of the dinner table. As he was unmarried, the seat opposite him fell to the ranking noblewoman. … More Scandal: Chapter Five
Half an hour later, John and I were seated in the familiar confines of the smaller of our two carriages as we began the short drive to the Viscount Delmar’s. Full night had descended upon London, bringing with it a fog that rendered the darkness outside the window murky and strange. It played tricks with … More Scandal: Chapter Four
London, April 1806 “Too tight, Your Grace?” my handmaid, Harriet, asked as she stuck the final pearl-tipped pin into my hair. I had no doubt that the low chignon she’d coiffed my unruly mane into appeared effortless and elegant, for she was quite skilled, but it pulled at my scalp something dreadful. By the end … More Scandal: Chapter Three
I fled blindly around the corner in the hallway, not knowing where I was going, only that I needed to escape. A set of stairs, their narrowness marking them as the servants’ stairs, appeared at my right, and I wrenched my skirts up and climbed them, shocking a maid into a high-pitched shriek when I … More Scandal: Chapter Two
London, 1804 “You don’t have to go through with this, Kit,” Marcus said from across from me. I ignored him, my face turned away so that I could stare out at the night-drenched scene beyond the carriage window. The lamps that lined the boulevard outside our London residence had been lit just as the dying … More Scandal: Chapter One
When all the windows on the rear of the building were busted out, I popped the back of the Jeep open. Levi went to fetch the cooler, placing it just beneath us so we could use it as a footrest as we sat on the tailgate and watched the sinking sun send the shadows of … More Clever is the Devil: Chapter Eight
Northern England, 1798 Somewhere far below, deep in the belly of the manor, my mother was screaming. Even huddled on my bed, with the heavy curtains of the canopy drawn tight, and the door to my room firmly closed, I couldn’t escape her terror. These were not the stifled groans I remembered from when she … More Scandal: Prologue
Crash! “Nice one,” I said as Levi’s rock smashed through the small, rectangular window we’d been trying to hit for the past five minutes. Shards of glass sparkled like diamonds in the late afternoon sun as they fell past the crumbling brick façade and then burst into a thousand tiny slivers on the rocks beneath. … More Clever is the Devil: Chapter Seven
