Welcome to my First Kiss Friday blog. Today’s guest is my good friend Cerise DeLand who has an excerpt from Lord Appleby’s Gorgeous Imposter that releases December 27th. Isn’t the cover just lovely? Happy reading, enjoy, and Merry Christmas, my lovelies!
Excerpt:
Tate caught her wrist. “When I went to find you on the estate last June and you were gone, I left a letter. You did not answer.”
“I did not know you were in England, nor that you came to see me. I…I have not returned to my cottage since last spring.” That was true. But did she tell him too much? Reveal in her tone how her heart ached to learn this now? Now, of all miserable times, when the admission changed nothing.
“I long to tell you now what I wrote in my letter.”
Her gaze flashed up to seize his. She should not ask. She should not want to know. But she did. “What did you write?”
“An apology.”
“No, no apologies! You’ve given enough!”
“For the years I had to leave you, yes! For my father’s demands. The marriage I could not postpone or annul or even end through divorce.”
His marriage that showed her how she was so wrong for him. How she would never become his wife. “Tate, you are not responsible for what others have done.”
“It made hell for us, for you, so yes! I will say this. All of it. All that kept me away. Now Belinda is dead, Vivi. I did what I must by all the rules of Society and I kept away from Norfolk and you for a year. It appeared I mourned her…but I do regret it was less than that.”
Tears sprang to her eyes. She could not see him. But oh, she felt the iron bands of his embrace, the drum of his heart, the fine marble of his male form, and, yes, even his raw desire for her.
She clutched him. The man she’d adored since she was a girl. The man she’d admired and yearned for lo these many years. He was free now. A widower. A man untethered from the woman whom his father had chained him to with wealth untold and threats fantastic.
He lifted her face with both his hands. “I looked for you last spring because I wanted to tell you everything new and bright and possible then, but you were nowhere to be found. I went to George Farland.”
The man whose proposal she’d once considered taking. A tenant of Tate’s. A fine farmer. A fine man. One she could not marry because she did not love him. “Poor George.”
Sorrow suffused Tate’s manly features. “He did not know where you’d gone. I searched and found Charmaine in London. I caught her in her townhouse just as she was moving. But she said she did not know where you were.”
Viv winced. Charmaine always knew where Viv was. But it was news to Viv that Tate had gone to Charmaine, asked for her, and her sister had turned him away with no details.
He thumbed her tears away. “I searched, my sweet Vivi. I wanted to tell you this. Tell you more. Everything I have wanted to say for years!”
Viv stared at him. Charmaine could not tell him last spring where Viv was, lest the news ruin their project. So of course Charmaine had turned Tate away with no information.
Tate’s voice caught as he moved to embrace her. “But I have found you now. And I can say what I have wished to tell you for years. I value you. I admire you. I need you and I will not lose you again.”
Overwhelmed, she caught her breath.
He took her lips. His were warm and firm. He parted hers with a brush of his tongue to the seam. He darted his tongue inside, claiming all of her.
And for once, she let him have her, for she would not, could not, deny him or herself. Her lips molded to his with all the years of longing for him gone with the pressure of one kiss, and two, and another. Her arms bound him closer.
On a gasp, he bore her down to the chaise, her back to the silken damask, her legs open and his between hers. His kisses were stark and deep, fast and luxuriously wicked, his flesh searing hers.
This was what she had wanted from him since she was sixteen. She could not have enough now. His lips on hers. Her hands in his silken hair. His fingertips stroking her throat.
She gazed up at him, shocked she had him in such passion after so many lonely years. But she could not have him. Too much had changed.
She pressed her fingertips to his lips. “We must stop.”
Lord Appleby’s Gorgeous Imposter
By Cerise DeLand
Releases December 27, 2024
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.
Preorder for $0.99 or read for FREE in Kindle Unlimited.
Amazon: https://amzn.to/3Ag8tKA
About the Author:
Cerise DeLand is the USA TODAY bestselling author who loves to write about dashing heroes and the sassy women they adore.
Known for her poetic elegance and accuracy of detail, she’s won awards for many of the more than 60 novels she’s written.
Her work has been nearly life-long! First published in 1991 by Kensington, then Pocket Books, later by St. Martin’s Press and independent presses, she is now published by DRAGONBLADE PUBLISHING. Plus her books have been monthly selections of the Doubleday Book Club and the Mystery Guild.
To research, she’s dived into the oldest texts and dustiest library shelves. She travels abroad taking good walking shoes, trusty notebooks and pens, plus a camera! She visits chateaux and country homes she loves to people with her own imaginary characters.
And at home every day? She cooks. Never dusts. (That can be a problem.) She goes swimming or pumps iron once a week and tries (desperately) to grow vegetables in her arid backyard in south Texas!
Do visit her website, http://cerisedeland.com.
Also visit her YOUTube Channel for her videos of her research travels here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCba82P_Q1kUrJUVVW0CwJmw/