First Kiss Friday with Jude Knight

01 Friday Feb 2019

Posted by SherryEwing in 2019, First Kiss Friday

Tags

#BellesInBlue, #ReadARegency, Be My Guest, Beauty and the Beast, Bluestocking Belles, bluestocking heroine, childhood sweethearts, First Kiss Friday, Friends to Lovers, Historical Romance, Jude Knight, Regency Romance, scarred hero, Star Crossed Lovers, the boy next door

Welcome to another First Kiss Friday. Please help me welcome my dear friend Jude Knight who will give you an excerpt from her novella The Beast Next Door from the Bluestocking Belles’ box set, Valentines From Bath! Happy reading and enjoy.

Excerpt:

“Are you cross with me for not kissing you, Charis?” Eric’s voice had dropped to a husky purr, and again, his thumb touched her, this time tracing her lips. “I was afraid.”

Without her volition, Charis turned her head to follow his hand as he went to draw it away. “A—afraid?” she stammered.

“You and I have been alone, dolcezza mia; no chaperone to protect your honor—and mine, for I feared that once I started I would be unable to stop. I long for you so. I imagine how soft your lips will be, how you will melt in my arms, how you would look…” he stopped, catching his lower lip in his teeth.

Charis blushed. “Did we need a chaperone, Eric?”

“You doubt it?” He lowered his face towards hers, slowly. Perhaps he was trying not to startle her. Perhaps he wanted to give her time to turn her head or to pull away. Charis waited, lifting her face to make her lips more accessible.

He was right to call himself a scoundrel, for he stopped just a couple of inches away. When he made no further move, she lifted onto her toes and closed the distance.

Eric greeted her initiative with an approving murmur, his mouth cruising in small kisses along hers. Was that his tongue sliding along the seam of her mouth? She opened her mouth to ask, and it darted inside, sending a bolt of sensation all the way to her female places. Dimly, she was aware of one large hand lifting her derrière, holding her up. Just as well. Without that support, she would have fallen from his lap, although how she had arrived in such a scandalous position she could not have said.

She essayed a foray with her own tongue and was rewarded by Eric’s groan as his hand pulled her even closer to his body, and something hard dug into her hip. She wriggled, and he groaned again, pulling away a fraction of an inch to say. “Amore mio,” in a strangled moan.

Charis wanted to moan herself. Her breasts felt hot and heavy, and the lower part of her torso was uncomfortable, as if each kiss pierced through to that forbidden place. She wanted. She gripped Eric’s nape and pulled him back to her mouth, and that both eased the ache and made it worse.

When Eric’s free hand first brushed and then cupped one of her breasts, she leaned into the new sensation eagerly, her own hands roaming down from Eric’s neck to the bare skin under his banyan. The hand behind her tugged her closer. “Bellisima,” Eric murmured.

Perhaps Eric could move whatever he had in the pocket of the silk trousers he wore under his banyan. “Something is digging into me,” she whispered, shifting uneasily.

It was the wrong thing to say. Eric stilled, and then lifted his head. With both hands on her hips, he shifted back onto the seat beside him, then tucked her head against his shoulder and wrapped his arms around her. “Thank you, dearest Charis,” he said.

“For the kiss?”

“Yes, definitely for the kiss. And for reminding me that you are an innocent and I am a gentleman who greatly esteems you and wishes to cherish you for all our days.” He was breathing hard, as if he had run a considerable distance, and Charis, too, felt short of breath.

The Beast Next Door in
Valentines From Bath
Just $0.99!

In all the assemblies and parties of Bath, no-one Charis met could ever match the beast next door.

Charis Fishingham has always felt more at home at Eastwood—Beastwood, as the neighbours called it, after the flawed child who once lived there. In the Eastwood gardens, Charis can escape her mother’s expectations, her sisters’ chatter, and her own worries about her future. There, she reads and remembers her secret friend, long gone into exile to have his birthmarks removed at his family’s command.

Now the Beast has returned. Eric Lord Wayford would rather face the surgeons of Naples and Napoleon’s armies than the tongues of the ton. He joyfully greets Charis, and their future looks to be full of hope.

But someone does not wish Charis to wed the Beast of Beastwood, and will stop at nothing to keep them apart.

25% of the proceeds benefit our mutual charity, the Malala Fund.

Buy Links:

Amazon US | iBooks | Kobo | Nook | Smashwords
Amazon AU | BR | CA | DE | ES | FR | IN | JP | IT | MX | NL | UK

About Jude Knight

Website and blog: http://judeknightauthor.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JudeKnightAuthor/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JudeKnightBooks

Pinterest: https://nz.pinterest.com/jknight1033/

Email: jude@judeknightauthor.com

First Kiss Friday with guest Jude Knight

02 Friday Nov 2018

Posted by SherryEwing in 2018, First Kiss Friday

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Be My Guest, Bluestocking Belles, Historical Romance, Jude Knight, Regency Romance

It’s always a pleasure to have my dear friend Jude Knight as a guest author for First Kiss Friday. It’s even better when we get to help her celebrate a brand new release! Don’t you just love everything about this cover? This excerpt is from House of Thorns. Bear has asked Rosa to marry him, and she has requested time to consider. Happy reading!

Excerpt:

In the early dawn, when she served him coffee and a plate loaded with food to fuel his morning’s work, he did not pester her for a decision, but he returned early for lunch, driven home by a heavy shower.

“Have you had enough time to think, Miss Neatham?” he asked, as he entered the kitchen door and interrupted her bread making.

“Yes, Mr. Gavenor.”

He stripped off his rainwear and advanced on her with hands outstretched. “Yes, you have had time to think? Or yes, you will marry me?”

Rosa blushed, and allowed him to capture her hands.

“Yes, I will marry you, Mr. Gavenor.”

He bent from his great height and brushed her lips with his. “Then you had better call me Bear, as my friends do. Or Hugh, if you prefer. My great aunt used to call me Hugh.”

“Hugh, then. Thank you, Hugh. I shall try to be a good wife.”

He kissed her again, another butterfly touch of the lips, then put his hands on her waist and lifted her to sit on the dresser. Now her face was level with his.

“That is better,” he murmured against her mouth. Then his lips met hers again, not a mere brush this time, but a gentle and inexorable advance, setting her lips tingling and taking her breath. His hands slid behind her, pulling her against his chest, so he stood between her open knees, his body pressed tightly to hers.

No, just one hand hugged her, for the other came up behind her head, and tipped it slightly, holding it in place as his lips moved against hers and his tongue swept the seam of her shut mouth once, twice, and again. He hummed with satisfaction when she parted her lips a little, letting his tongue dart inside, and her whole body hummed with pleasure.

Pelman had subjected her to a kiss once; an awkward, embarrassing thing, with her twisting to escape and him boxing her into a corner and pawing her body while he slobbered on her face. The new Lord Hurley, who had also propositioned her when he first arrived at the Hall, had respected her refusal. In fact, he had rather avoided her, and had left again not long after the will was read.

Pelman laughed when she said ‘no’ and waylaid her when she was alone. It had, until now, been her only experience of the pastime, and she had not seen the appeal.

It was very different being the focus of Bear’s undivided attention, the recipient of his tender passion.

She lost herself in the new feelings, grasping his shoulders to bring herself closer to his body, trying her best to imitate the movements of his mouth and tongue.

He pulled away, and rested his forehead on hers, still holding her close. “We had best stop, Rosabel. You are to be my wife, and worthy of all respect, and I have no intention of tupping you on the kitchen dresser. At least, not until we are wed.”

Rosa reluctantly let him go, and he stepped back a little so he could lift her down to the floor. She was pleased to see he looked almost as dazed as she felt. “Would you call me Rosa?” she asked.

“If you wish, though Rosabel suits you. Beautiful rose. My beautiful Rosa.” He still held her waist, and he leaned forward to drop a kiss on her hair. “I will move to the village this afternoon, Rosa, and will ask the rector to post the banns tomorrow.”

His rose thief comes with a scandal that threatens to tear them apart.

Retired exploring officer Bear Gavenor has fled the marriage mart for the familiarity of his work; restoring abandoned country manors to sell to the newly rich. He doesn’t expect to find a potential wife stealing his roses.

Lying gossip has driven Rosa Neatham from respectable employment, and now she has been turned out of her home to make way for the new owner. But a fleeting return to collect some roses for her ailing father changes her fortunes.

In a marriage that offers more inconvenience than convenience, can this unlikely couple beat gossip, misunderstandings, and their own self doubts to find happiness?

Buy links

Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JWCZW55/

About Jude Knight

Website and blog: http://judeknightauthor.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JudeKnightAuthor/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JudeKnightBooks

Pinterest: https://nz.pinterest.com/jknight1033/

Email: jude@judeknightauthor.com

First Kiss Friday with guest Jude Knight

19 Friday Oct 2018

Posted by SherryEwing in 2018, First Kiss Friday

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

#BellesInBlue, #FIrstKissFriday, Be My Guest, Bluestocking Belles, First Kiss Friday, Follow Your Star Home, Historical Romance, Jude Knight

Today on First Kiss Friday, I’d like to introduce fellow Bluestocking Belle Jude Knight and her characters from our joint box set, FOLLOW YOUR STAR HOME. We just know you’re going to love getting to know James and his wife Mahzad! Happy reading and take it away, Jude!

This excerpt is the first kiss for James and Mahzad in Paradise Regained, my contribution to the Bluestocking Belles’ 2018 holiday box set, Follow Your Star Home. My hero and heroine have been married for more than a decade, and have eight children, but they’ve been separated for months, and distant with one another for longer still.

James has arrived home to find a small army camped outside their gates demanding the heads of his in-laws, and Mahzad is horrified when a woman claiming to be his mistress turns up shortly afterwards. Their confrontation turns into something else in the following excerpt.

Excerpt:

“What?” He ignored the provocation of her description of Cecily. She was offended that he held the meeting without her? “I thought to take a burden off you when your father was so ill. I meant no insult, Mahzad. You should know that.”

“How?” she demanded. “By mindreading? I have lost my magic abilities, oh inscrutable one. My genie is in retirement.” She turned away, her voice dropping. “I have no idea why you do the things you do, except that I know I am a burden to you. I am sorry to inconvenience you and your father by continuing to exist.”

Exasperating female. Would she stick to the point?

“What the devil do you mean now? What has my father got to do with it?”

“He wants you to come back to England,” Mahzad accused. “Your ‘oh so dear’ Cecily told me, and Peter and Yousef confirmed it.” She sniffed and tossed her head. “You will not go because I am an embarrassment to you.”

“Like hell you are,” James snapped. “Neither of them said that, and if they did, it isn’t true.”

She was avoiding his eyes, bending over her weapons, putting the arrows neatly away into the quiver and unstringing the bow. “They said you refused to go and that you told your father’s men that you would not leave your wife.” She whirled back to face him, snarling in her turn. “I say little difference if you did, since you are never here anyway and spend no time with me when you are.”

James was reeling from her dozen blows, some of which had got completely under his guard, but this last remark matched so closely to his own feelings about Mahzad that he struck back.

“You’re the one who is always busy and who never has time for me. You are too busy being katan and mother and friend to everyone in the valley. You’ve made it more than clear you don’t need me, and you don’t want me around.” He took a step closer toward her, crowding her against the table. “But this is my valley. They are my children. You are my wife. It’s about time you remembered that.”

He seized her and forced his mouth down on hers, intending a punishing kiss that overwhelmed her defenses and reminded her he was master in this area as in others, but she met his force with her own passion, softening under his invasion, molding her body to his as she clutched his head to pull him closer. His original intent forgotten, he poured all his longing into the kiss, trying to communicate his love and his frustration, losing himself in the touch and smell and sound of this one woman who was to him above all others.

Until she broke the kiss and shoved him away. “I cannot believe you blame me for all this,” she said. “Just like a man.”

And she stalked away, leaving him alone.

Jude’s novella, Paradise Regained, is set in the Kopet Dag mountains north of Iran. Silk Road routes skirted the mountains on both sides and snaked through them. The year is 1794, and though the Silk Roads had long been closed to Europe, trade and travel between the Middle East and the Far East was far from over. Jude’s hero and heroine have established a kingdom in the mountains and a business protecting caravans from bandits and marauding tribes.

Paradise Regained will be published in Follow Your Star Home [https://bluestockingbelles.net/belles-joint-projects/follow-your-star-home/], the Bluestocking Belles’ holiday collection for 2019.

Paradise Regained

James Winderfield yearns to end a long journey in the arms of his loving family. But his father’s agents offer the exiled prodigal forgiveness and a place in Society — if he abandons his foreign-born wife and children to return to England.

With her husband away, Mahzad faces revolt, invasion and betrayal in the mountain kingdom they built together. A queen without her king, she will not allow their dream and their family to be destroyed.

But the greatest threats to their marriage and their lives together is the widening distance between them. To win Paradise, they must face the truths in their hearts.

About Jude Knight

Jude writes everything from Hallmark to Regency Noir, in different eras and diverse places, short, medium and extra long. Expect decent men with wounded hearts, women who are stronger than they think, and villains you’ll want to smack or worse.and all with a leavening of humour.

Website and blog: http://judeknightauthor.com/

Subscribe to newsletter: http://judeknightauthor.com/newsletter/

Bookshop: https://judeknight.selz.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JudeKnightAuthor/

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Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/jude-knight

Books + Main Bites: https://bookandmainbites.com/JudeKnightAuthor

Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/Jude-Knight/e/B00RG3SG7I

First Kiss Friday with guest Jude Knight & a FREE eBook

15 Friday Jun 2018

Posted by SherryEwing in 2018, First Kiss Friday

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

#BellesInBlue, #FIrstKissFriday, Be My Guest, Bluestocking Belles, Historical Romance, Jude Knight

Welcome, my lovelies, to another First Kiss Friday with my friend Jude Knight. We’ll be turning up the heat with this excerpt and be sure to get your #FREE copy because everyone enjoys a freebie and Jude’s writing is exceptional! Take it away, Jude!

Thank you, Sherry. This excerpt is from The Prisoners of Wyvern Castle. My hero and heroine met for the first time a few hours earlier, at their wedding. They’ve been forced to marry, and threatened with dire consequences if they do not immediately consummate the marriage. (His sister and her brother want an infant they can control to be the holder of Rupert’s title.

Rupert and Madeline are both virgins, so they need to follow their instincts and whatever information they’ve picked up from breeding animals (he breeds farm horses, she breeds dogs). Plus Rupert’s vague memory of some naughty pictures he saw when he was eleven, before the accident that made him blind.

Excerpt:

Madeline hardly noticed the chill of the night air bringing goosebumps to her arms as she gaped at her new husband. She had known, of course, that men were different than women. He was angular where she was curved, his shoulders broad and muscular, his chest tightly defined planes. Where her skin was smooth and bare, his bore dark hair in the shape of a rough cross, the horizontal reaching from side to side, the vertical arrowing down to…

Her mouth dried as her eyes followed to where the line pointed. More dark curls, and among them, thicker and longer than she expected, his… Her kennel master called it a pizzle, but no dog had one that size! Of course, dogs were smaller altogether, and puppies, too, much smaller than a human child, and some people clearly enjoyed what was about to occur if the scandalous behaviour at harvest time could be taken in evidence.

Lady Wyvern, too, undoubtedly allowed Graviton… So it wasn’t just the lower orders, and why would it be? A pedigree showed no more discretion than a mongrel when in heat, and the kennel hands needed to be alert to keep a determined bitch confined so she didn’t…

He was reaching for her again, and all the words chattering on in her head tumbled to silence when she dragged her fascinated gaze upward to his intent face.

“May I?” He was asking for permission to touch her, and his courtesy was reassuring. Suddenly bold, she moved forward so his hands encountered her left arm and her right breast, and she put her own hands deliberately on his chest. Husbands could touch wives, of course. But surely wives could also touch husbands?

***

Rupert froze. She had her hands on him, resting softly on his body, just above his nipples. Would she move them? Would she explore him as he did her? Oh, he hoped so! He set the example, stroking his hand down her arm to the elbow and then inward, to curve around her waist and draw her nearer, at the same time cupping whatever his other hand had fallen upon. Her breast, it must be. It filled his hand beautifully, and the skin was soft, like warm satin, like the nose of a new-born foal.

The scent of citrus teased his nostrils again, and he bent closer to inhale. Yes. It was her hair. “You smell of lemons and violets,” he murmured, hardly aware he was speaking, with so much of his mind absorbed in documenting the feel of her skin, of her curves, and revelling in the slow, halting movements of her hands as she shaped the muscles of his chest, his shoulders, his upper arms, then back to his chest.

Where would she touch next? His own hand traced the flare of her hips, then reached further to curve his long fingers around one buttock, as his other hand continued to stroke the breast, brushing over the… did they call it a teat in a woman? No. Nipple. It was a nipple. He took it between two fingers and rubbed gently, and Madeline squirmed, rubbing up against him.

She spoke, her voice sounding as distracted as he felt. “My hair.”

“Mmmm?” What about her hair? He reluctantly let go of her breast and felt his way up the side of her face to run his fingers into her hair. It was silky and fine, and stray tendrils clung to his skin, escaped from the tight plait.

“I perfume the soap with oil of violets and use lemon verbena in the rinse water,” Madeline explained. His question. She was answering the question he had forgotten asking.

He let his hand drift down to her breast again, and she shivered as it ran over her naked skin. He should tell her what he wanted, but if he asked her to take his shaft in her hands, she might be offended. He should be more subtle, perhaps. “Do you like that? I like the way you are touching me.”

“I like it,” she repeated.

Coaxing her to describe what she liked, asking her specific questions, telling her how her hands felt on his chest, his flanks, his arms—it excited him further but, paradoxically, helped him to keep from flinging himself on top of her. Mating had its own rhythm, just as music did, and his wife was not a mare to correct him with her teeth and hooves if he rushed her. He would need to repeat the same motifs in all their variant forms until the symphony reached its exposition, the fulfilment of the primary melody.

At his gentle urging, she became bolder, and firmer in her strokes, her hands tending closer to what he hoped would be their goal.

As he caressed her, he formed an image in his mind. She was small, much smaller than he, and curved in interesting ways, from her soft arms to the globes of her breasts, bigger than he expected, but still small enough for him to cup with one hand. Below the breasts, her body narrowed to a tiny waist he could span with his long fingers, and then flared out again. He brushed his hand across the soft curls he found in the spot he yearned for. He had curls in the same place, but otherwise, she was completely different.

Kissing her behind the ear, which made her squirm with what he hoped was pleasure, he dipped a finger down from the curls into the one part of her body he had not explored. She was warm and wet, and he was fascinated by the folds of skin he found. Completely different.

She pushed herself against him when he found the place he would soon be filling. The part he would use was throbbing and twitching with eagerness. He would spend if he did not soon enter her, and his tutor had always assured him that spending, except as God commanded¾in marriage and in one’s wife¾was a wicked sin that would send him to hell. Well, now he had a wife, and she was ready, surely?

“Are you ready?” he asked, just to be certain.

“Rupert,” she answered, pushing herself still harder, and he took that as a yes, lifting himself over her. He guided his tip to her entrance and then could wait no longer. With a surge, he was fully seated, and it felt wonderful. Better than he had imagined.

He had plunged several times before he realised she was not moving. With a mighty effort, he froze in place. “Madeline? Are you all right?” She was rigid below him, and though the tightness felt wonderful, he did not think she was enjoying it.

“It hurts,” she said, voice trembling with tears.

“I’m sorry.” He made to pull out, cursing the ignorance that had caused him to hurt this little wife he had somehow acquired. But she held onto him, both hands gripping his hips.

“No. It is feeling better now. I am not… Stay. Please.”

And because he wanted to, he let himself be persuaded, but held as still as he could while he kissed her, horrified to find her cheeks wet under his searching lips.

“I hurt you,” he grieved, and again tried to pull away. Again, she held him in place. “I am better, Rupert. It feels good. Please stay.”

He rested his weight on his elbows, caged her face with his hands, and covered her with kisses, trying to focus on the meeting of their lips while his hips trembled with the need to surge and pump.

She met him with her own lips, pressing little kisses all over his face, and after a long moment, he could feel the tension in her ease. Slowly, cautiously, ready to clamp the iron control back over the animal within, he eased slightly away and then back. Again. And again.

When she began tentatively lifting her hips to meet his thrusts, he could hold himself in check no longer. His body took over as his mind, his sensations, his whole universe narrowed to the heaven of the elusive, approaching, present, completed release.

Hand-Turned Tales

The Prisoners of Wyvern Castle is a novella in Jude’s free book of lunch-time reads, Hand-Turned Tales.

Hand-Turned Tales is designed so that readers can try Jude’s story-telling before they buy her other books. Or, if you already like her books, enter her fictional world again in four different situations

In The Raven’s Lady, Felix returns home in disguise after 13 years. He plans to catch a smuggler then take up his viscountcy. He does not expect the smuggler to be Joselyn, his childhood sweetheart. (Short story: 5,500 words)

In Kidnapped to Freedom, Phoebe is stolen away from her plantation by a handsome masked pirate. (Short story: 5,100 words)

All that Glisters is set in New Zealand in the 1860s, a time when gold miners poured into the fledgling settlement of Dunedin. Rose is unhappy in the household of her fanatical uncle. Thomas, a young merchant from Canada, offers a glimpse of another possible life. If she is brave enough to reach for it. (Short story: 13,000 words)

The Prisoners of Wyvern Castle is a gothic historical romance set in the world of my novels and novella. Rupert has been imprisoned by his wicked sister, and forced to wed. His new wife, Madeline, has likewise been threatened into saying her vows. Forced into marriage, they find love, but can they find freedom before it is too late? The Prisoners of Wyvern Castle is a prequel to Revealed in Mist. (Novella: 23,500 words)

Links and more information: https://judeknightauthor.com/books/hand-turned-tales/

About Jude Knight

She writes historical novels, novellas, and short stories, mostly set in the early 19^th Century. She writes strong determined heroines, heroes who can appreciate a clever capable woman, villains you’ll love to loathe, and all with a leavening of humour.

Website and blog: http://judeknightauthor.com/

Subscribe to newsletter: http://judeknightauthor.com/newsletter/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JudeKnightAuthor/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JudeKnightBooks

Pinterest: https://nz.pinterest.com/jknight1033/

Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/Jude-Knight/e/B00RG3SG7I

First Kiss Friday with Jude Knight

11 Friday May 2018

Posted by SherryEwing in 2018, First Kiss Friday

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

#BellesInBlue, #FIrstKissFriday, Be My Guest, Bluestocking Belles, First Kiss Friday, Historical Romance, Jude Knight

Welcome to another First Kiss Friday. I’m always excited when my guest Jude Knight has a new book out (currently up for pre-order) and we get a look into the incredible world she creates. This excerpt is from The Realm of Silence. Gil and Susan are pursuing Susan’s missing daughter up the Great North Road. This morning, they are having breakfast in the garden of the inn before resuming the chase. They are discussing where to stay when they reach Edinburgh. Happy reading and enjoy!

Excerpt:

“Best we take rooms at the coaching inn our runaways are headed to,” Gil agreed. “If Mademoiselle Cornillac follows her usual practice, she’ll talk about the next day’s destination to the ostlers, and we’ll know where to head.”

“Unless Edinburgh is her destination.”

“Even so. Someone at the inn may have overheard something, or your clever daughter may have found a way to leave a message. We start at the inn.” The pie Gil had chosen was filled with eggs and cubes of ham, potato, and carrot. He savoured the flavours then took another bite, relishing the crispness of the pastry.

Susan was washing her turnover down with a swallow of ale, shifting impatiently as her hands inched towards the knife and fork she had placed on her plate between mouthfuls, as proper table etiquette required. Her inclination to rush the meal and be on her way was clearly at war with her training in manners.

“Relax, Susan. A few minutes will make the world of difference to your digestion, and very little to our arrival time.”

What a valiant creature his Goddess was. She managed a smile, though it didn’t reach her eyes. “I know you are right, you annoying man. I will try not to worry and to be patient.

“You are thinking I have no notion what you are suffering, and you are right. I have never been a father and have never had to wait and worry about a child of my flesh.” Gil almost left it at that, but then he took a deep breath and spoke the rest of his thought. “But I have been an officer with men I loved and who loved and trusted me, and I have had to send them into danger knowing that some of them will be killed and others wounded. That perhaps gives me a small inkling of your feelings, Goddess.” He winced as the last word slipped out. She hated when people called her that, but it was how he felt. He had worshipped her from the moment he met her as a boy; carried a candle before her image in his heart since that day; held her as a beacon of the best of English womanhood through a thousand engagements on four continents and any number of islands.

She was oblivious to his preoccupation, considering what he had said. “I had not thought about it like that. Yes. I imagine you were a father, or at least an elder brother, to your men. My brothers are the same. It is similar, Gil. So, you know how hard it is.”

Susan called him Gil, he noticed, when she was moved, just as he slipped into calling her Goddess. He did not call her attention to the slip, but when he moved her chair back to help her rise, and she stepped to one side almost into his arms, he could not resist wrapping them around her.

He had intended a brief peck on her hair. She lifted her mouth as if she had been waiting for just such a move, and he was lost. She was all that existed. The elusive scent of her saturated his nostrils, her yielding curves filled his arms, and her lips and mouth consumed all of his thoughts as he tenderly explored them.

How long the kiss lasted he had no idea, but when she stiffened and pulled away, he let her go immediately, sense rushing back into his brain and berating it for the most arrant stupidity. She didn’t comment—wouldn’t even meet his eyes—but led the way out of the garden, almost running in her hurry.

The Realm of Silence

(Book 3 in the Golden Redepennings series)

Rescue her daughter, destroy her dragons, defeat his demons, go back to his lonely life. How hard can it be?

“I like not only to be loved, but also to be told I am loved… the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave.” George Eliot

When Susan Cunningham’s daughter disappears from school, her pleasant life as a fashionable, dashing, and respectable widow is shattered. Amy is reported to be chasing a French spy up the Great North Road, and when Susan sets out in pursuit she is forced to accept help from the last person she wants: her childhood friend and adult nemesis, Gil Rutledge.

Gil Rutledge has loved Susan since she was ten and he a boy of twelve. He is determined to oblige her by rescuing her daughter. And if close proximity allows them to rekindle their old friendship, even better. He has no right to ask for more.

Gil and Susan must overcome danger, mystery, ghosts from the past, and their own pride before their journey is complete.

Preorder links and more information: http://judeknightauthor.com/books/the-realm-of-silence/

About Jude Knight

Website and blog: http://judeknightauthor.com/

Subscribe to newsletter: http://judeknightauthor.com/newsletter/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JudeKnightAuthor/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JudeKnightBooks

Pinterest: https://nz.pinterest.com/jknight1033/

Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/Jude-Knight/e/B00RG3SG7I

First Kiss Friday with guest Jude Knight

27 Friday Apr 2018

Posted by SherryEwing in 2018, First Kiss Friday

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

#BellesInBlue, #FIrstKissFriday, #ReadARegency, Be My Guest, Bluestocking Belles, Historical Romance, Jude Knight, Regency Romance

Welcome, my lovelies, to another First Kiss Friday. It’s my pleasure to bring back fellow Bluestocking Bell, Jude Knight and an excerpt from A Raging Madness. In this excerpt, Ella has just shown Alex, who has been invalided out of the army, a path to a possible future. What starts as a spontaneous thank-you develops into more. Happy reading and enjoy!

Excerpt:

Alex said nothing for a moment, and in the silence, she remembered he was an earl’s grandson. “I suppose you cannot, can you? Gentlemen do not go into trade.”

But his voice in the darkness was rich with warmth and excitement. “This gentleman can and will. That’s a marvellous idea, Ella. And I would not need to beg from Rede and Anne. I have money of my own. They paid me for being a human pincushion in the stead of my Distinguished Personage. They would have preferred me to die, I think, since a posthumous medal would have been cheaper, but I pleased myself instead of them, and so they gave me a reward. I have a good sum invested, and it is growing larger thanks to my cousin’s gift for making money.”

The sound was Alex shifting and dropping to the floor. Before she was aware of his intent, he was bending over her. Perhaps he meant to kiss her cheek, but she had turned her face towards the sound of his movement, and his lips dropped on her mouth, paused, and then moulded themselves to hers.

She had been right to be afraid. One touch of his lips and she burned for more, shifting to allow him better access, opening her mouth to welcome his invading tongue. No. Not invading; no conquering assault to batter down her defences, but a long-awaited and cherished caress that set her aflame, so she moaned and locked her hands behind his head to prevent his escape, and he stretched above her on the narrow bed and placed his own hands gently either side of her face.

“Ella,” he said, into her open mouth, and crushed his lips to her again before she could speak, though what would she say? Alex? Yes? Stop?

He was aroused. Though he took most of his weight on his elbows and his knees, still the length of him poked into her belly. If she shifted, even a little, it would rub the place that burned. Only the cotton of her shift and his shirt kept them apart, and all the good reasons for not lifting both garments out of the way had melted in the heat of his kiss.

Thoughts scattered. She pushed herself up against him, her nipples so hard the cotton hurt, and it was a good hurt, like the burning he both relieved and heightened as he rubbed his male organ against her, setting her squirming and moaning.

Suddenly he moved, sliding down the bed to nudge her shift sideways down one arm, freeing one breast, and seizing on the nipple with his mouth, his teeth, his tongue.

She moaned again, helpless to keep the sound from escaping, as he used one hand to tease the other nipple, and the other to gather the hem of her shift until her woman’s place was uncovered, and his hand was doing delicious things that narrowed her world to him. To Alex, and his hands and mouth and body, and what was happening to hers.

Alex tensed suddenly and raised his head, his hands stilling. Ella suppressed a whimper, caught and subdued the involuntary movement to draw him back, surfaced from the sea of sensation, and finally heard what he had heard. Voices, speaking low. Footsteps. The soft clap of a hand on the roof of the cabin—Jonno’s nightly salute, too soft to wake them but a signal they heard more evenings than not.

Jonno and the O’Haras were back from the tavern, and the spell was broken.

She dropped her hands from his shoulders, tried to cover her breast and pull down her hem, and blushed furiously in the dark. “I am so sorry, Alex,” she said. Though whether she was sorry to stop or sorry they had ever started, she had no idea.

After a moment, he pulled away, swinging his legs around so that he sat beside her on the bed.

“I am not that kind of woman,” she said, trying to sound convincing to herself when her whole body was screaming to complete what they had begun.

“Right.” He sounded strained. He sucked a breath in, then let it slowly out through his teeth.

“I cannot apologise enough…” Ella began, but Alex interrupted, his voice as courteous as ever, though strained.

“The fault is mine, Ella. I meant only to salute you for the gift of my future, and I forgot myself. I…” He stopped and took another deep breath. “I cannot bring myself to apologise. For any impression of disrespect, yes, indeed. I beg your pardon with all my heart if I have offended. But for offending you, not for kissing you.” He stood, and moved away from the bed. She could not make out what he was doing, but he had not returned to his own bed.

“It was everything I have dreamed this age,” he said, almost under his breath. This age? He had been dreaming of kissing her this age?

But she had to correct his misapprehension. “Each other,” she said.

Whatever he was doing—it sounded as if he was putting on his boots—he stopped. “Each other?”

“We kissed each other,” she explained.

The amusement was back when he replied. “We did, and very nicely, too.”

“And we cannot do it again,” Ella warned, hoping her regret was not obvious.

“No, I suppose not. I am going to take a short walk, Ella. I won’t go far, but the cold will be… beneficial.”

He had opened the hatch and was leaving before she spoke again, giving him a gift of words in return for those he had given her.

“It was better than I dreamed.”

His only response was a catch in his step before he continued, but a few minutes later, he began to whistle as he walked the canal path. It took her only a few bars to recognise the tune, and she smiled in the dark, mouthing the lyrics in time to his whistling.

Their marriage is a fiction. Their enemies are all too real.

“Envy is a raging madness that cannot bear the wealth or fortune of others.”
François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld

Ella survived an abusive and philandering husband, in-laws who hate her, and public scorn. But she’s not sure she will survive love. It is too late to guard her heart from the man forced to pretend he has married such a disreputable widow, but at least she will not burden him with feelings he can never return.

Alex understands his supposed wife never wishes to remarry. And if she had chosen to wed, it would not have been to him. He should have wooed her when he was whole, when he could have had her love, not her pity. But it is too late now. She looks at him and sees a broken man. Perhaps she will learn to bear him.

In their masquerade of a marriage, Ella and Alex soon discover they are more well-matched than they expected. But then the couple’s blossoming trust is ripped apart by a malicious enemy. Two lost souls must together face the demons of their past to save their lives and give their love a future.