Regency Reformers, #2
Jenny Holiday
Entangled Select
May 26, 2015
London,
1815
Trevor Bailey is on the cusp of opening the greatest
hotel in London. His days as a gutter snipe are behind him, as he enjoys a life
of wealth, society, and clandestine assignments as a spy in the service of His
Majesty. Until one tumultuous night churns up the past he'd long left
behind...
Turned out by her employer for her radical beliefs, Lucy Greenleaf
reaches out to the man who was once her most beloved friend. She never expected
that the once-mischievous Trevor would be so handsome and gentleman-like
and neither can deny the instant attraction.
But Lucy's reformer ways pose a threat to the hotel's
future and his duties as a spy. Now Trevor must choose between his new life and
the woman he's always loved…
Excerpt from The Likelihood of Lucy:
Who was this
man? He was the Trevor of her youth, yet he was not. The boy would not have
touched her like that. Would not even have noticed her face long enough to
bother with a dab of pudding gone awry. The boy had reserved that sort of
intense scrutiny for lock picking and cake filching.
The man, by
contrast, was causing her stomach to feel like little wings were fluttering
inside it.
It was almost
as if she wasn’t in the room, which was ridiculous because of course she
was. It was her lip he caressed. But he stared so intently at her mouth that
the encounter seemed somehow to be unfolding between him and it without her
presence mattering at all.
She lifted
herself onto tiptoes, and the tiny birds inside her took off, a great flapping
flock of them. They were propelling her toward him, and she wasn’t in charge
anymore. She pressed her lips against the spot of chocolate near the corner of
his mouth. If she’d thought the chocolate
tasted sinful
before, she’d been naive. The tang of his skin magnified it, made it magnetic.
“Lucy,” he
rasped, his lips moving against her skin as he spoke her name. She waited for
more, for him to cry halt. He did not. So she remained where she was, her lips
pressed against the corner of his mouth but not moving, the roar of blood in
her ears a rushing waterfall.
Beneath her
mouth, his jaw clenched, became hard like iron, and his breath, already short,
took on a ragged quality. Warmth pooled low in her belly like that chocolate,
liquefied and hot. Every second they stood there, unmoving, something coiled
more tightly inside her. It was almost painful, but it was impossible to
imagine stepping away.
He moved only
an inch. Less than an inch. His lips grazed hers, and though they barely
touched hers, the warmth in her belly became fire. How was that possible? They
weren’t even kissing, not really, and yet she felt as if she were at the gates
of Bedlam.
A thought
crept in. She tried to push it away, but it persisted. This is why Mary had
fallen victim to her bouts of suicidal behavior. This—this unnamable
compulsion—would grow and grow until it took over, displacing everything else,
everything that made her herself. Unlike Mary, she
wasn’t capable
of producing great works of philosophy with the potential to change the world,
but she did have a life. A hard-won life she’d made for herself through sheer
force of will. Trevor was helping her—she’d had no choice but to permit it
given his logical argument that their arrangement would benefit them both. But
she needed to remember why she had agreed to stay only for six months. Because
men were dangerous—even him. Even Trevor. Perhaps especially him.
So she stepped
away.
Buy Links:
Amazon * Barnes&Noble * iTunes * Kobo
About
the Author:
Jenny Holiday started writing in
fourth grade, when her awesome hippie teacher, between sessions of Pete Seeger
singing and anti-nuclear power plant letter writing, gave the kids notebooks
and told them to write stories. Most of Jenny's featured poltergeist, alien
invasions, or serial killers who managed to murder everyone except her and her
mom. She showed early promise as a romance writer, though, because nearly every
story had a happy ending: fictional Jenny woke up to find that the story had
been a dream, and that her best friend, father, and sister had not, in fact,
been axe-murdered. From then on, she was always writing, often in her diary,
where she liked to decorate her declarations of existential angst with nail
polish teardrops. Eventually she channelled her penchant for scribbling into a
more useful format. After picking up a PhD in urban geography, she became a
professional writer, and has spent many years promoting research at a major
university, which allows her to become an armchair stronomer/historian/particle
physicist, depending on the day. Eventually, she decided to try her hand again
at happy endings--minus the bloodbaths. You can follow her twitter accounts
@jennyholi and @TropeHeroine or visit her on the web at jennyholiday.com.
Thanks for having me, Melody!
ReplyDeletelove the excerpt!
ReplyDeleteDenise