Welcome! I’m so happy you’ve stopped by my First Kiss Friday blog. Today’s guest is my dear friend Caroline Warfield who has an excerpt from her novel Duke in Name Only. We hope you enjoy this first kiss scene. Take it away Caroline!
For months Phillip, Duke of Glenmoor the Duke in Name Only, lived in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, with the Archer family in relative obscurity as “Artie.” When he resolved to testify the villains who attacked him initially, they’ve come after him to kill him, and the Archers take on his problems as their own. Phillip and Nan Archer have been dancing around their attraction and in danger, shared sudden, passionate kisses. In this scene, after her tavern has been burned to the ground, living in tents and facing the daunting task of rebuilding, they share their first real kiss.
Excerpt:
The fourth night, he couldn’t stand it. He’d have rolled in the snow if there was any. He crawled from the tent and went to the river’s edge, tempted to plunge in to cool his blood but wise enough to stay put, leaning against the big elm.
He didn’t hear her approach, but he knew when she came to stand behind the bench and gaze on the moonlight reflected in the water. He held his breath, certain she could not see him in the shadows. Several moments passed.
“What keeps you up, Artie?”
Damn. She knew I was here. He could hardly say, “Lusting for you.” Not when watching her outline in the moonlight made it worse. “Thinking of all we have to do. It is daunting.”
She sighed deeply. After another moment, she turned his way and took a step toward him. “Would you kiss me, Artie?”
So unexpected that it took his breath away, the question froze him in place. He held himself rigid.
“One kiss. I’d like one kiss in the serenity of the night. One that isn’t a survivor’s kiss prompted by horrific violence. One just for the simple joy of kissing.”
He swallowed hard. “Nan, I don’t know what is going to happen to me. I don’t want to promise what I can’t deliver.”
“I’m not asking for a promise,” she said tartly. “I’m asking for one kiss.”
“A kiss can be a promise,” he murmured. It would be. It would promise everything he desired but couldn’t have with any kind of honor unless he let it anchor him to Archers’ Roost. He wouldn’t let it, and that wouldn’t be fair.
“It doesn’t have to be.” She walked toward him. “I know you’ll leave. This place isn’t for you. You don’t belong in a rough tavern much less a tent, wearing homespun, working with your hands. I suspect I know it better than you do.”
She came to stand a foot away, still bathed in moonlight. He could feel the longing in her, the heat radiating from her. His heart pounded; his breath came fast and hard. “So,” she whispered. “One kiss. No promises.”
He touched her check with the knuckles of one hand and she leaned into it, making a soft noise, and he was lost. His hand went around her head and his other arm around her waist, pulling her until they touched gently, chest to chest. She lacked only an inch or two of his height; he needed to bend only the smallest bit to reach her mouth, her glorious mouth. And so, he did, running his fingers up into her hair.
What constitutes one kiss? He wondered. Was it when lips touched lips and then done? How long dare they hold? Was it when his tongue traced the seam of her mouth? When she opened for him? How much exploration constituted just one kiss? He stopped caring, and kissed his way across her cheek to the spot below her ear and down her neck, his mouth wet and needy against her skin.
She moaned, gripped his shoulders, and slipped one hand around his neck, pulling him closer, her body thrusting against his, their closeness now neither gentle nor tentative. He plundered her mouth again and she followed his lead.
A rush of cold air when she ran her tender fingers under his shirt, caressing his chest, forced him to his senses, awakening his sleeping conscience. She moaned in protest when he pulled his mouth from hers. He set her head to his shoulder with the shaking fingers of one hand while the other caressed her back. “One kiss? That promised quite a lot, I fear, Nan. More than either one of us plans to make good on. We could make love and then what?”
She pulled back. “No. I—”
He didn’t let her go entirely. “You what? Are you telling me you will lie with me once, or twice, and then we’ll go our ways? I don’t think I can do that. Yet, you said yourself I don’t belong at Archers’ Roost. Can you picture yourself coming to England with me?” God, Glenmoor, the vipers of the ton would tear her apart.
“For a visit. Maybe. But no. This is my place.” Her tremulous voice faded to silence, and she pushed against his chest half-heartedly.
“Your kiss promised much, Nan. Beware what you promise.” He took her hands and pulled them away, sliding past her. He left her there and sought his own bedroll and a sleepless night.
About the Book
Misfortune is an excellent teacher.
When Phillip Tavernash, Ninth Duke of Glenmoor, discovers his title is held fraudulently, he embarks on a journey to North America determined to succeed on his own. It doesn’t go well. He has no idea what a fish out of water he will be.
Nan Archer had to summon enough backbone to stand up to her father and older brother, who moved their family across the frontier every time civilization reached any clearing in which they’d made a stake. She has landed on the banks of the Mississippi and built something of her own, the tavern Archers’ Roost. She will go no further.
When Nan’s brother dumps a pathetic traveler, robbed, beaten, and wounded on her tavern floor, she takes him in as she would any wounded duck. That he called himself duke is cause for hilarity.
Attraction blooms easily, but can Phillip look past his life of privilege to find what he’s looking for deep inside himself? Can he convince her she’s the answer to his search?
Is he a duke or a bastard? Does it matter in the end?
FREE with KU or buy a copy at: https://www.amazon.com/Duke-Name-Only-Entitled-Gentlemen-ebook/dp/B0C1L3L968
About the Author
Award winning author Caroline Warfield has been many things: traveler, librarian, poet, raiser of children, bird watcher, Internet and Web services manager, conference speaker, indexer, tech writer, genealogist—even a nun. She reckons she is on at least her third act, happily working in an office surrounded by windows where she lets her characters lead her to adventures in England and the far-flung corners of the British Empire. She nudges them to explore the riskiest territory of all, the human heart.
You can learn more about Caroline Warfield at these social media links:
Website: http://www.carolinewarfield.com/
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Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/Caroline-Warfield/e/B00N9PZZZS/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/WarfieldFellowTravelers
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CaroWarfield
Email: warfieldcaro@gmail.com
Newsletter: http://www.carolinewarfield.com/newsletter/
BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/caroline-warfield
You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCycyfKdNnZlueqo8MlgWyWQ