Now available! The Maid, Book 1 in the Rags to Richmonds series

Hi all! I have a new release this week and its a little different! Hope you’ll give it a try (it’s free in KU!) and in the meantime, here’s an excerpt to whet your whistle!

You can get The Maid at Amazon

Adelaide dropped her basket upon rounding the corner onto the upper landing and colliding with someone coming in the opposite direction. Her hasty apology wilted into a thoroughly half-hearted one when she saw it was Lord Kemerton. She curtseyed and picked up her dropped things. When she stood up, it was to find him watching her, a quirk to his mouth that might have been contempt or ridicule. Or wind, probably, he’s so puffed-up. She would not have hung about to allow it to grate on her nerves, only his broad frame took up rather a lot of the narrow corridor, and she could not politely get past.

“I cannot seem to avoid you,” he said. “I assure you it is not by design. I understood the housemaids began working on this floor at an earlier hour.”

“We usually do, but I was delayed this morning. Pardon me if I have inconvenienced your lordship.”

He finally stepped out of her way, but she guessed by the way he watched her go past him that he had perceived her insincerity. What was it about this man that whet her tongue so? It would be just her luck if he reported her to Mrs Bunce. Then she would be in trouble for impudence as well as dawdling. “I would not be late if it were not for your friend.”

“What was that?”

Adelaide went cold all over; she had not intended that he hear her muttered complaint. Without turning to look at him, she mumbled, “Nothing, my lord,” and kept walking.

“No, you said something about my friend being to blame. I insist you tell me what you meant.”

“I did not mean anything.”

“Has Lord Oakley approached you again?”

Something in the earl’s tone—anger? reproach?—made Adelaide stop walking and turn to face him. Bad enough all her own people thought her guilty of promiscuity; she had no desire to add this toffee-nose’s censure to the pyre. “No, my lord.”

He looked at her closely, and for long enough that she began to feel self-conscious. She could not recall that any man had ever regarded her so intently, and certainly not one so handsome. It irked her that it was suspicion and not admiration that spurred him to do so. She lifted her chin and deliberately did not blink as she held his gaze. Something else he could complain about to Mrs Bunce: her impertinence for not lowering her eyes in his presence.

“Be on your guard with Lord Oakley,” he said abruptly. “His honour is usually impeccable, but he seems to have taken an unsavoury interest in you.”

It was all Adelaide could do not to exclaim—unsavoury indeed!

“In fact, it would be for the best if you were to avoid him for the remainder of his stay,” the earl continued. “His manners may give him the appearance of earnestness, but do not be fooled into believing that anything good could come of a dalliance.”

She could hold her tongue no longer and cared not whether the earl was displeased. He had thought it politic to begin lecturing her; he could jolly well hear her reply!

“Pardon me, my lord, but I have no intention of embarking on a dalliance, as you call it. I may be a lowly housemaid, but I assure you I am not without principles.”

He inclined his head. “I did not mean to imply otherwise, but principles are not always proof against false promises or foolish impulses—and both those things ruin innocent people.”

“Do not make yourself uneasy. Your friend is safe from ruin on my account.”

“I was not talking about him, I—” Lord Kemerton stopped speaking and sucked in a deep breath, his eyes wide as he stared at the letter opener Adelaide had withdrawn from her pocket.

“If he attempts to impose any foolish impulses on me, I shall make sure he knows they are unwelcome.”

She had done it to silence him, tired of hearing him speak of her inferiority and undesirous of listening any longer to how unworthy she was of a viscount’s attentions. Yet, now that she was brandishing a blade at the Earl of Kemerton, and he was regarding her as though she were a mad woman, she rather regretted being so rash. While she racked her brains for a way to extract herself from the situation, Lord Kemerton did something as infuriating as it was unexpected—he laughed at her.

“Of course you have a knife. I know not why I am surprised.”

Adelaide’s cheeks erupted with heat, and tears of mortification stung her eyes. Had the earl raged, had he dragged her to Baroness Grisham, demanding her instant dismissal, had he even retaliated with force, he could not have injured her more. His amusement was salt in the wounds already inflicted by his censure of her character, and she wished she had the nerve to stick the wretched letter opener in him. Instead, she shoved it back in her pocket and ran away.