The Art of Taming a Rake (Legendary Lovers 4)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

NICOLE JORDAN is the New York Times bestselling author of numerous historical romances. She lives with her real-life hero (her husband) in the Rocky Mountains of Utah, where she is at work on her next enthralling tale about the sparks that fly when Regency lovers play the matrimonial mating game.

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Read on for a sneak peek of the next Legendary Lovers book

My Fair Lover

by Nicole Jordan

London, May 1817

The last time she’d visited Brandon Deverill in his hotel rooms, she had climbed into his bed naked—a foolhardy scheme that ended in utter disaster.

Wincing at the scalding memory, Lady Katharine Wilde raised her hand to knock on the door to room number 7, then promptly lowered it again as the swarm of butterflies resumed dancing in her stomach.

Gaining access to the second floor of Fenton’s Hotel this afternoon was the easiest phase of her clandestine mission. Disguised as a nobleman’s liveried male servant, she didn’t fear recognition. No, her anxiety stemmed from having to face Deverill again after six long years.

She fervently hoped that history wouldn’t repeat itself today. Before, when she’d brazenly thrown herself at his head, he had rebuffed her offer, gently but firmly.

“What kind of man would I be if I took your innocence and then sailed away to fight a war, perhaps never to return?”

Her subsequent pleas had not affected Deverill, either. Remembering her abject humiliation that night, Kate bit her lower lip and stepped back from his door. How she had longed to crawl into a hole and die! Maddeningly, her wounded pride still stung all these years later, as did her foolish heart.

Turning, she paced the corridor in an effort to drum up her courage. Unmarried young ladies simply did not visit gentlemen’s hotel rooms unaccompanied—although at four-and-twenty, she was hardly young. And Brandon Deverill—an American merchant and former privateer whose fleet of ships had battled the British Navy—was barely considered a gentleman, even if he had recently inherited the title to an ancient English barony.

Yet she had numerous reasons for risking scandal today: To prove she had recovered from her hurt and show him she was not still nursing a broken heart. To test her fortitude and confirm that she could handle meeting him alone. To deal with her certain embarrassment out of the public eye. And to make her unusual proposition in private.

She’d vowed to have nothing more to do with Deverill, but her aunt by marriage, Lady Isabella Wilde, had asked her help in turning him into a proper English lord. Since Aunt Bella was her dear confidant and the prime motherly figure in her life, Kate felt she could not possibly refuse. Not at least without good reason.

Which would mean confessing the mortifying details of the most lowering experience of her life, when she’d pursued Deverill like the lovesick, starry-eyed, half-witted females she deplored.

Scolding herself for her cravenness, Kate returned to his door and managed to subdue the violent flutters raging in her stomach long enough to rap lightly. Last time Deverill had unequivocally rejected her amorous advances. This time, however, she had something he wanted.

When eventually the door swung open, the first thing that struck her was his bold, dark eyes. They were much as she remembered—deep, penetrating, black-fringed. His arresting eyes had always matched his daring demeanor and actions, she thought in bemusement.

In their dark depths she saw his instant recognition of her, even though she was garbed in her noble family’s livery, complete with silvery powdered wig covering her auburn hair.

She had clearly taken him by surprise. Kate herself was startled by the sight of Deverill wearing only breeches. He was bare-chested and bare-footed, while his overly long raven hair was damp and curling. Apparently he had just bathed and was about to shave, for he held a razor in one hand.

A stubble of beard shadowed his strong jaw, a raffish look that only accentuated his appeal, much to her vexation. A ruffian—a pirate, at that—should not look so blasted appealing. He smelled delicious, as well, deuce take him.

Confounded by his unwanted impact on her senses, Kate stood staring back at him speechlessly, much to her dismay.

When his gaze drifted down over her attire, one eyebrow lifted and she could see amusement spark in his beautiful eyes.

“I should have expected you to act unconventionally,” he remarked in that rough-velvet voice that never failed to rake her feminine nerve endings.

She could say the same of him. He didn’t seem at all nonplussed to be caught in a state of near undress. But then Brandon Deverill was the most infamous man of her acquaintance, which was saying a great deal, considering that she hailed from the passionate, scandalous Wilde family, who could boast centuries of notorious ancestors.

There were lines on Deverill’s face now that made his striking features more mature. But shirtless, with his sun-bronzed, muscular torso exposed, he was even more devastatingly handsome than she recalled. His masculine beauty put classical statues to shame—

Oh, merciful heavens, gain hold of yourself, you moonling.

She was badly mistaken about having conquered her vulnerability, though. She most certainly was not over him. Deverill still had the power to make her knees weak. And she was still swamped by the undeniable, unquenchable attraction that had hit her the first moment upon meeting him so long ago.