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Dear friends, allow me to present to you our cast. We have here: Claire Crawford, Victorian virgin, prone to fainting fits from a too-tight corset and burdened by her own innocence. Sean Henry, an intense Irish doctor who’d be happy to relieve her of her virginity were he not tormented by a dark, dirty secret. And Edgar Chadwick and Arthur Kent, a promiscuous valet and the desperate man who’d do anything to win back his love.
They all have a battle on their hands. Demon lust stalks the London night and no one is safe from its evil appetite. Some don’t even want to be. There could be worse things, after all, than being...eaten.
Be chilled or be thrilled, but be ready. Wicked comes the beast. And he’s very hungry.
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Available now from Amber Heat and Amber Allure.
Genre: Gothic historical erotic-romance
Rating: NC-17 (for adults only)
ISBN-13: 978-1-60272-507-2
Cover by Trace Edward Zaber
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The book itself is erotic, but the following excerpt is PG. This is how the story starts:
“Claire...”
Brittle as the autumn leaves that littered the garden, the call came. With it, a withered hand lifted from shaky repose on the bedclothes, reaching for a granddaughter’s devotion, and finding reassurance in a gentle grip. Anyone who’d known Sir Thaddeus Crawford in his robust prime would have wept to see and hear him now, his body decimated by disease, eyes dim, voice hoarse and thin.
His only living relative, orphaned in infancy and raised by him, blinked back tears as she tried to warm his icy fingers in hers. Good breeding and training kept her tone level. Claire Crawford wore composure like a veil, hiding emotion behind a modesty that was more habit than inclination.
“I’m here, sir, right beside you.”
Where else? Right by his bed, in the chair where she’d rocked and read and watched over him these past weeks while her hopes for a recovery died a sure death, and so, too, would Sir Thaddeus. Fear mingled with grief at the prospect. However would she manage alone? No parents, no siblings, no uncles, aunts or cousins...and soon no grandfather. No family and few friends, none to protect and guide her as Thaddeus had.
Always she’d stayed close by him, neither encouraged nor daring to fly far from the nest. While a peaceful existence, calm and orderly, it had left her ill prepared to face a world that she’d been warned was fraught with wickedness beyond the safe walls of their London townhouse. Adventure, if any, she found in books--the brave tales of Sir Walter Scott, the breathless romances of Mrs. Radcliffe, even an occasional penny dreadful--a frivolous indulgence, but one her grandfather allowed since he enjoyed melodramas himself and cared little who knew it.
“Just so long as you don’t mistake such fancies for fact,” he’d cautioned. “There are villains aplenty, m’girl, but not the sort one reads about in novels.”
No, of course not. Even if there were, they wouldn’t threaten Claire, who was too shy and too plain to attract any man’s notice, good or bad. No such luck. The spine-tingling dark devils of literature preferred far prettier prey. As did the real rogues, apparently, the fortune hunters Thaddeus had expected ever since Claire came of age. That none had yet appeared, he attributed to his own staunch vigilance on her behalf.
Feminine pride hoped he was right. So much easier to blame her lack of suitors on him than the plump figure, carroty corkscrew curls and freckled face she saw in her looking glass. But common sense counseled otherwise. When she gazed in the mirror these days, an old maid stared back.
“Too old for marriage,” she muttered to herself. “Twenty-eight and never been wooed, not even in deceit. No one wants my inheritance if they have to take me with it.”
“No one but a fool would refuse either prize. And twenty-eight is hardly old. Wait till you’re my age.”
“Damn,” Claire cursed. She hadn’t meant her distress to be heard. Self-pity was a weakness and not to be surrendered to. For that matter, she hadn’t meant to swear. Fatigue made her lax on both counts. Although a “damn” was tame in this house, Thaddeus being ex-navy with the vocabulary to prove it.
“If you don’t want me to hear something, child, don’t say it. I’m half blind, not deaf.”
“Ah, but you still see through your sorry granddaughter well enough.” A small sigh escaped her, wry and tender. “Silence avails me nothing, sir, when you seem always to read my thoughts.”
“Only when my thoughts are the same, m’girl.” With surprising strength, his hand tightened on hers. “I’ve done you a grave disservice, Claire, keeping you so cloistered.”
What? He might be correct, but she couldn’t let him think it.
“No, never! You’ve taught me and cherished me and--”
“Don’t argue. I know bloody damned well what I’ve done. Thank God I also know damned well what to do about it. Send for Dr. Sean Henry!”
A damned smart idea under the circumstances—fetching a doctor, that was. The outburst had given her grandfather a wheezing fit. But Dr. Henry, their new neighbor? Why?
Frankly, Sean Henry was a strange bird, a member of the landed aristocracy who preferred his earned title of doctor to his hereditary one of baron. He owned an estate near Galway, but had rented the house next to the Crawfords’ and been introduced to them by his landlord the day he moved in, which was shortly before Thaddeus became ill. They’d had no contact with him since, despite his proximity. He kept odd hours, saw few patients, and employed only two servants. It was rumored his fortune was small and his debts large, yet he seemed to do nothing to increase the former or diminish the latter.
“I prefer the laboratory to the surgery,” he’d mentioned during their single encounter.
Which meant what? A cryptic man, Dr. Henry, in more ways than one. A mountain of a man, his features too rugged to be termed handsome, but somehow compelling. Magnetic. He drew your gaze and held it--tall and brawny and dark as a gypsy--the roughhewn look of a common laborer with the impeccable manners and dress of a lord. An enigma with the flash of lightning in storm-gray eyes and the music of Ireland in his speech. The mere memory of him made Claire itch in places respectable women weren’t supposed to scratch.
A very disturbing man.
She hesitated, her heart suddenly pounding like a steam engine. “F-forgive me, sir, but is this wise? Why not summon your own physician? Dr. Henry’s ability is unknown. We’ve met him only once.”
“Perhaps. But sometimes once is enough. I liked his looks...and so did you,” Thaddeus labored out. “Don’t try to deny it. I saw how you blushed under his gaze... I’ll wager he liked your looks as well.”
Impossible. There’s nothing to like.
“He was merely being polite,” she sputtered. “In any case, it’s utterly beside the point. I was questioning his medical abilities, not his appearance.”
“Bilge water! I hear tell he’s doctored your latest favorite author...that Robert Louis Stevenson chap...so he must be good. Plus, he’s convenient...and young...and unattached--” The old fellow broke off in a spasm of coughing.
Claire almost joined him, almost fainted--just like one of Mrs. Radcliffe’s heroines. How preposterous. It must be her corset. Nellie the maid had laced her in too tight.
“Unattached?” she squeaked. “What does that have to do with anything?”
Thaddeus was too busy battling for air to answer. Waving his hand, he shooed her away. Go, go, hurry, the gesture said.
So Claire did--as fast as she could, though not as fast as she wanted. Blasted knees. They wobbled under her like jelly. Thaddeus regained his voice as she stumbled out of the bedroom and into the hall.
“Send for my lawyer, too.” He drew a ragged breath. “I wish to adjust my will.”
Will!
The word pierced her like an ice pick. It could mean only one thing--which also explained why he needed the nearest doctor. The end loomed closer than expected. He was dying. Not soon, but now.
Dear God, I’m not ready for this.
Pausing but a second to gather up her skirts, Claire ran the length of the hall and down the servants’ stairs, rallying the staff, calling for Giles the butler to send someone next door for Dr. Henry, and to go himself, in a cab, for Mr. Butterson the lawyer.
“Quickly!” she shouted--most unladylike, but this was no time for decorum. Then she collapsed, dizzy and spent, into her maid’s startled arms. She wanted to race back to Thaddeus, but her body refused. Exhaustion, shock, and the corset from hell all conspired against her. The room reeled, thick fog filled her head, and she heard sounds as though from a long way off. The bang of a door...hurried footsteps...the murmur of voices, but they might have been speaking gibberish for all she understood what they said. Nellie’s words were the first to penetrate the fog.
“Oh, my poor Miss Claire. She’s scarce slept for days, what with nursing the master. It’ll be a wonder if she’s not made herself sick. Here, Doctor, this is her room. Thank you for carrying her. Should I do anything now besides putting the dear lass to bed? Spoon a bit of laudanum or tea into her, perhaps?”
Doctor? Claire struggled without luck to open her eyes; her lids seemed to weigh ten stone each. Bloody hell, I must have fainted. And still wasn’t quite recovered.
Even worse, she was trapped in a hot granite embrace--but relishing it, in a shameful, flushed fashion. Clutched in two burly arms and crushed against a massive chest, swamped by a solid sea of muscle, more male anatomy than Claire had ever before experienced on a one-to-one basis. It was almost...intimate?
A giddy thrill shot through her. She felt damp and feverish, all a quiver. Scandalous. Nor did knowing that the male was a doctor, innocently offering medical aid, soothe her flustered nerves. Because she also knew the doctor was Sean Henry. No other could kindle such a burn. Besides, she doubted he was very innocent. Honestly, did he have to hold her this close? The whole situation so mortified Claire, she did what any self-respecting, compromised virgin would do.
She fainted again....
