Need nibbles of my Stanhope men in action?
Of
course you do!
Here is LORD STANHOPE's IMPROPER PROPOSAL!
The Stanhope Challenge, Book 1
Lord Adam Stanhope faces the Stanhope Challenge of wanting to
marry…and knowing it will be loveless. But he takes one look at
his childhood friend, now a lovely widow, and proposes a marriage in name only.
But when he learns that his bride is determined to be his lover as well as his
wife, he faces a bigger challenge: Accept her delicious offer to delight them
both in bed or spend his life in a greater torment…alone.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
And the taste?
Excerpt Copyright
2014, Cerise DeLand, All rights reserved.
London, January 1809
It is a truth,
universally accepted, that a politician in want of the premiership must also be
in want of a wife.
Felice knew that was
her new husband’s justification for marrying her so quickly.
“A reason as good as
my own,” she told herself as she combed her hair back from her face and fluffed
the ruffled bodice of her wedding dress. She pursed her lips, wondering how
Adam really kissed a woman. How he kissed his mistresses. He had merely brushed
her own mouth with his after the ceremony minutes ago. She’d always thought her
lips worth more than a peck—and she was determined that this second husband of
hers would do more than ignore her.
“I’ll insure that he
does,” she resolved, with a check of her figure in the cheval mirror in the
retiring room of her new brother-in-law’s mansion on Grosvenor Square. “After
all, the fictitious Miss Proper has charms that Adam does not know about.” Nor
should he!
That secret could ruin
her marriage. “And I intend to keep both!”
So go to your wedding
breakfast and be done with this mooning! You accepted his proposal! Now reap
the rewards! London Society is open to you—the excitement of their lives, their
intrigues ready fodder for your pen. For your romances and your poems.
She frowned at
herself.
Be honest, Fee. You
want more than inspiration for your stories. More than a means to repay that
nefarious man your first husband’s debt. You want Adam Stanhope gracing your
own bed, not just his look alike walking on the pages of your newest romance.
You want him inside your body. Making you wet and warm. And kissing your—
A quick knock at the
door had her whirling.
“Dear Felice,” cooed
her husband’s Great Aunt Amaryllis from behind the portal. “Do come out now. We
are quite eager to applaud you and Adam. The guests, too, are clamoring for the
receiving line!”
Most likely, the men
want more wine while they make wagers on how soon Adam will bed me. And the
women? They want to assess how a country mouse like me managed to snare the
renowned, rich and eloquent Adam Stanhope. Third son of the earl. Widower.
Father. Some day soon, the head of his party, if the papers and broadsheets are
to be believed. And thereafter certainly, Prime Minister.
“Adam Stanhope,” she
murmured to herself. “A great catch, Fee. If you can intrigue him.”
And there was the rub.
Adam, now thirty, was
notorious for outlandish behavior. When he’d turned seventeen, he’d run away
from home and sailed to Hong Kong to work with his cousin in his Far Eastern
trading company. Four years later, he’d come home to finish his education at
Cambridge, marry the beauty of the Season and run for Parliament. He’d won
twice now. But since his wife had died in childbirth, Adam had made a name for
himself as a rake. He was just like his brothers in that regard. Still, he was
the only one who had married and challenged the Stanhope family curse. For it
was a legend that no matter whom a Stanhope married, no matter that person’s
quality of character or breeding or good intentions, once wedded, a Stanhope
lived in hell.
“I will be happy.”
Felice repeated the phrase that had become her motto ever since Adam had
appeared in Kent last month and proposed. “I’ll dispense with this hideous man
plaguing me at once. Then I will devote myself to ensuring Adam is happy. I
will be a social asset to him. And a good mother to his son.”
What more could a man
ask for?
* * * *
“A politician has to
have a wife! Who the devil put that ridiculous rule about, Reggie?” Adam
Stanhope asked his friend as he paced in his brother Jack’s drawing room at
eleven in the morning. He threw back another shot of Jack’s fine brandy and
coughed. “Oh, lord, that burns all the way down. Whose idea was it to stay out
all night, eh?” He scrubbed his hand over his face, acknowledging his
predicament had less to do with excess alcohol than with Fee Wentworth. Correction,
Stanhope. “Dammit, you’d think a respectable widower with an heir earned the
right to be free!”
“No help for it, old
man,” Reggie responded and drained his glass of spirits. “Damn good stuff, if I
say so myself! But see here, Adam, you admitted you need her. We’ve been
through this entire argument before. You’ve got a bit of a reputation, courtesy
of that Miss Proper ramblings and—”
The far door burst
open. Adam’s oldest brother, Jack, appeared in all his dark imperious hauteur.
He took one look at both men and slipped inside to shut the world out. “Now,
Adam. Reggie. What the hell are you doing in here drinking?”
Adam cocked a long
black brow at the man who expected to be obeyed in all things. “Drowning my
sorrows.”
“Too late for that!”
Jack’s mouth twitched in a grin. “Get the hell out here and let’s toast the
good health of the bride and groom.”
“Come, come, Jack, you
know what this means for me.”
Jack’s black brows
arched high. “Oh, I do. One look at your bride and I have a very good idea
that—”
Adam scowled at his
brother. “She’s lovely.” Damned gorgeous, in fact. And mine, god help me now.
“But I have ruined her.”
Jack startled. “You’ve
had her? Already?”
“No, no. That’s not
what I mean.”
Jack strode over to
remove the snifter glass from Adam’s fingertips. “I know what you mean. And
this does not help.”
“I’ve known her since
she was ten, Jack!” Adam thrust out a hand, roiled by what he had just done to
this sweet, shy woman.
“And? She was a
charming child then. Now you have—“
“Wrecked her life!
That’s what I’ve done!”
Jack narrowed his eyes
on his brother. “How late did you stay at White’s last night?”
When Adam said “Ba!”
and shook his head, Jack peered at Reggie. “How late?”
The man winced and
brushed imaginary crumbs from his cravat. “Five. Six. Not certain. We were
winning at dice, you see, and couldn’t leave.”
Jack stared at the
ceiling. “I hope to god it was profitable.”
Adam grinned. “Five
thousand in my pockets I hadn’t had before!”
The far door opened
again. An auburn-haired man stuck his head in and grimaced. “What the hell is
the delay here?”
Jack beckoned him.
“Wes, Adam is having a rather belated moment of introspection. Do come in and
help me talk sense into our youngest brother.”
Wes took a step inside
and shut the door behind him. In his cavalryman’s dress blues, he leaned back
against the door. “What’s the matter, Adam? Nerves?”
Adam rolled his
shoulders. “Every man’s entitled. You told me so yourself.”
“That,” Wes chuckled
as he limped over to the chair beside Adam and fell into it, “is before a man
goes into battle!”
“Well, I am!”
Wes gave him the
quelling glance his men termed The Demand. “You are married.”
“I know I thought it a
good idea. Despite the nightmare I lived through with Sarah.” The mere mention
of his first wife sent a wave of revulsion through him. “Everyone thought it a
good idea. My colleagues. The Prime Minister. But you both, most of all, know
this won’t work.”
Wes pursed his lips.
“I’ve seen your new lady wife, and I say give it a go. If you admit defeat
before you start, you’re doomed.”
“This is not a cavalry
charge,” Adam murmured.
Wes shrugged. “Perhaps
it should be.”
“Wes, have a little
pity,” Adam pleaded, his head splitting from too much whiskey and too little
sleep.
“No pity for you,” Wes
shot back. “Felice lives up to her name in temperament as far as I can tell.
And her figure, Adam, has certainly become more alluring than when I last saw
her in Great Aunt Amaryllis’ garden.”
“She was ten!”
“Was she, now? Hmm. No
wonder she was flat-chested.”
“Now see here,” Adam
admonished his older brother. “Her figure is—”
“Superb and yours to
explore.” Wes wiggled his brows suggestively, then looked at Jack. “We met her
when we first summered at Aunt’s house. What year was it Father foisted us off
on the poor old gel?”
Adam groaned. “It
doesn’t matter!”
I liked her then.
Enjoyed her wit and intelligence every time we met. Now I’ve gone and hurt her
irrevocably.
Jack shook his head.
“Don’t argue with him, Wes. He’s got a snoot full from an all-night gambling
rout at White’s. It only encourages him to debate you. And neither of us can
ever outtalk him.” He gave his brother, the Colonel and Man of Action, a
wide-eyed look of despair. “The curse is upon him.”
“Oh, hell,” Wes
mourned. “Not that again.”
Adam frowned at both
of his brothers. “That again? I don’t seem to recall that either of you is yet
married. Why not?”
“Not our time,” Jack
told him.
“No woman I like
enough,” Wes added. “You, Jack?”
“None I cannot live
without,” Jack said with pointed disdain for the subject. “Come on, Adam, let’s
do our drinking out there with all the others.”
“They all wonder, you
know,” Adam offered, his gaze on the door.
“What?” Reggie asked
when the two Stanhope brothers didn’t respond to him.
All three Stanhopes
considered Reggie Mortenson with bleak expressions.
Adam answered for them
all. “They wonder when Felice will leave me. As we speak, they are out there
taking wagers on the number of months she remains.”
“The Stanhope women
don’t all leave,” Jack reminded Adam.
The three brothers
winced and looked at anything but each other. Adam knew each man thought of his
own mother and how each had died in succession. And even though Jack’s mother
passed away after a riding accident, Wes’s died of consumption and Adam’s of
childbed fever, the ton declared each woman had suffered first and foremost
from a broken heart.
“He says he loved each
one,” Jack reminded them of the phrase their father repeated to them often.
Adam shut his eyes.
“He declares he loved Clarice’s mother, too!” Their charming half-sister Clarice
had been Stanhope’s by-blow, conveniently born between Jack and Wes.
“Aye,” Wes
acknowledged with a smirk. “In his prime, the man was a walking satyr.”
Jack inclined his head
toward Wes. “Astonishing, isn’t it, that he managed his estates as well as he
did, hopping from bed to bed like a right royal degenerate.” He flourished a
hand. “Yet, he cared for each woman he bedded.”
Adam growled. “How can
you believe him?” He had never known their father to be honest with anyone,
least of all his three legitimate sons. “You were four,” Adam reminded Jack,
then faced Wes. “And you were two when I was born and my mother took a childbed
fever. How can you know that he tells the truth?”
Jack rolled a
shoulder. “Perhaps on this one issue…”
Adam
shook his head, hands fisted on his hips. “I long to see the day each of you
faces a woman whom you do not wish to kill with the family curse.” He
straightened his cravat and ran two hands through his hair. “Open the damn
door, Wesley, I’m ready to claim my bride and ruin both our lives.”
