Wagers Gone Awry’s Release Countdown Continues!
I’ll be posting an excerpt each week until the release, just to whet your appetite!
Less than three weeks!
Available for pre-order now!
Brooke wagers her virtue creating a conundrum of major proportions
Brooke Culpepper resigned herself to spinsterhood when she turned down the only marriage proposal she’d likely ever receive to care for her family. After her father dies, a distant cousin inherits the estate and becomes their guardian but permits Brooke to act in his stead.
Heath, Earl of Ravensdale is none-too-pleased to discover five young women call the dairy farm he won and intends to sell, their home. Desperate, pauper poor, and with nowhere to go, Brooke proposes a wager. His stakes? The farm. Hers? Her virtue. The land holds no interest for Heath, but Brooke does and he accepts her challenge.
Brooke loses, and her devastation is compounded when the cousin arrives, intending to haul the Culpepper misses off to London. Heath astounds himself and proposes in order to apply for guardianship of the other girls. Does Brooke dare marry the handsome stranger who’d been bent on compromising her? Will Heath regret his impulsive gesture, or will unexpected love flourish?
As is oft’ the case when wagering, one party is a fool,
and the other a thief, although both may bear the title nincompoop.
Wisdom and Advice – The Genteel Lady’s Guide to Practical Living
CHAPTER TWO
What maggot in Heath’s brain possessed him to set out on the final leg of his journey to Esherton Green on horseback when foul weather threatened? The same corkbrained notion that compelled him, the Earl of Ravensdale, one of the most eligible lords on the Marriage Mart, to miss the peak of London’s Season in exchange for a saddle-sore arse.
He pulled his hat firmer onto his head. The bloody wind did its best to blast every last drop of rain either into his face or down the back of his neck. He hunched deeper into his saddle.
Fat lot of good that did.
The sooner I’ve finished this ugly business with the tenant, the sooner I can return to London and civilization.
The road from the village—if one deemed to grace the rutted and miry track with such distinction—lay along an open stretch of land, not a single sheltering tree in sight. He’d seen two houses in the distance, but to detour to either meant extending his time in this God-forsaken spot.
Hound’s teeth, he loathed the lack of niceties, the quiet which stretched for miles … the boredom and isolation. Give him London’s or Paris’s crowded and noisy paved streets any day; even if most of the time all manner of putridity lined them.
Despite his greatcoat, the torrential, wind-driven rain soaked him to the skin. Heath patted his pocket where the vowel lay nestled in a leather casing and with luck, still dry. He’d barely spared the marker a glance at White’s and hadn’t taken a peek since.
Reading wasn’t his strong suit, truth to tell.
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This week you get a peek at the hero. He’s a flawed fellow, but redeems himself nicely in the end.
What’s your favorite type of hero?
Darn it Collette. I kept trying not to read your snippets because I knew I would just want to keep reading! Well, I finally broke down and decided to read “one” to see what the story was about! Well, now I am ready for the rest of the book!!
Ha, that’s the idea!!