He’s the last man she wants to see.
But he’s the only man who sees right through her.
Haunted by their past, they’re desperate to save their future together…if they can.
He’s the last man Viv wants to see.
Vivienne de Massé goes to Paris impersonating her oldest sister, the infamous Drury Lane actress, Charmaine Massey. Viv has a reason…and a plan to avenge the capture and death of their other sister during the Terror. Only one man can stop her.
Tate Cantrell is the only man who sees right through her.
Tate Cantrell bursts into her dressing room one night in Paris, and calls Viv’s bluff. He reminds Viv she plays a role—and a dangerous game she cannot win alone.
He declares she needs him. She always has. Indeed, he’s spent the last decade helping the émigré Massé family—and falling in love with charming Viv. Now the Earl of Appleby, Tate works as a spy for Scarlett Hawthorne’s network on the Continent. He alone has the means and the connections to help her….if she’ll let him.
Haunted by their past, they’re desperate to save their future together…If they can survive those who would destroy them.
Excerpt, All rights Reserved, Lord Appleby’s Gorgeous Imposter, Cerise DeLand 2024.
Viv halted her mount. The sight before her brought tears to her eyes. Cringing, she caught her breath at sight of the huge, vacant plot where, according to witnesses, her father had been marched up a platform, hauled to Mademoiselle Machine Horrible, and murdered in the middle of the square.
“Come away, my dear.”
She sniffed back her tears, caught and yet not surprised by the sound of the bass voice in her earshot. Tate Cantrell again. Was he her personal Paris plague? She chanced sight of him. So broad-shouldered, muscular, and bold, he presented that vibrant mix of flashing blue-green eyes and sugared cinnamon hair that made her mouth water. As if she weren’t in his thrall already, he added to the drama of his presence in a magnificent mahogany-brown riding habit. “I should expect you everywhere I go now, is that right?”
His eyes danced. But of course, said his look. “I know you well.”
Indeed. “Too well. You cannot annoy me into conducting a conversation with you.”
He gave a laugh. “Then I shall annoy you enough to protect you.”
Once she would have kissed his cheek for that. Now, congenial as his promise was, that irritated her. She ground her teeth and urged her horse back toward Pont Neuf. “I have enough protection.”
Tate rode beside her, easy as if he’d been invited. “He does look the part. I hope you pay him well.”
“Ba! Look at him, monsieur.”
She nodded toward her groom. Older, gruff with a day’s growth of beard and a bulbous nose long disfigured by too many brawls, Fortin flashed his black eyes at Tate. Then, with suave menace and a hand to the butt of his pistol at his side, he said, “Monsieur, if you please.”
“I assure you, sir,” Tate cooed in the sweetest French as he raised both gloved hands, “I am a friend and I mean no harm.”
Viv sniffed the air.
Her guard grimaced. “The lady does not want you, monsieur.”
Tate checked her eyes. “I believe she does. In fact, he always has.”
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