RELEASE DAY BLITZ ~ BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DUKE by Kelly Bowen




                               


BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DUKE by Kelly Bowen
A Season for Scandal, #3
Publisher: Forever
Format: Mass Mark    Price: $5.99 USD
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Their love was always in the cards.

He should have thrown her out. But when club owner Alexander Lavoie catches a mysterious blonde counting cards at his vingt-et-un table, he's more intrigued than angry. He has to see more of this beauty-in his club, in his office, in his bed. But first he'll have to devise a proposition she can't turn down.

Gossip said he was an assassin. Common sense told her to stay away. But Angelique Archer was desperate, and Lavoie's club offered a surefire way to make quick money-until she got caught. Instead of throwing her out though, the devil offers her a deal: come work for him. Refusing him means facing starvation, but with a man so sinfully handsome and fiercely protective, keeping things professional might prove impossible . . .

“I don’t suppose you’d be interested in a job?”
“A job?” Angelique was aware she was repeating him like a half-wit, but she couldn’t seem to wrap her head around the last minute of conversation.
“Yes.” Lavoie leaned forward slightly.
“Ladies don’t have jobs.” Angelique tried to put some conviction into that statement, knowing it was what she was supposed to say. Such knowledge had been drilled into her since she was old enough to walk. Ladies grew up and married well and became wives who lived out their lives in genteel comfort. They did not partake in industry. Or gambling.
At least they didn’t until they did not marry at all, much less well, and their parents died, their family fortune went missing, and their newly titled brother couldn’t stay sober long enough to look for it. Then ladies did what they had to do to hold their families together.
She glanced up at him, but her sharp reply, like everything else, had only seemed to amuse him.
“A strange thing to say for a lady who already treats my vingt-et-un table as her personal place of business.” Lavoie’s lip had curled, his scar making it look more like a smirk than a smile.
She looked away, despising the truth in his assessment. “I do no such thing. Ladies don’t have jobs,” she repeated, though it was a pitiable attempt at her defense.
“Ladies don’t have jobs that people know about,” he countered.
“What? What does that mean?” Angelique’s eyes snapped back to his.
Lavoie moved out from behind his desk and leaned back against the front of it. He crossed his booted feet casually, never taking his eyes off her. “It means, my lady, that once you stop pretending to be aghast, and you understand that I offer the potential to earn more money in a single night than you will earn in three at the card tables, you might wish to reconsider. I wish you to deal a high-stakes vingt-et-un table that can accommodate at least six players who will be playing against the house and not each other. Who will be playing against you.
Angelique was at a loss for words.
“I don’t need to have your answer now,” he said, tipping his head. “You know where to find me. I will pay you for your time, of course, and you will also receive a percentage of whatever you—my club—wins. I promise that your identity will remain concealed. And unlike the men you have had to endure thus far at the tables, I promise that I won’t touch your breasts. And anyone else in my club who might attempt to do so in the future will answer to me.”
She felt her face heat all over again, even as another hail of unwanted thrills crackled through her like a summer storm.
“Tell me you’ll think about it,” Lavoie prompted.
“Very well.” The shock was wearing off, and Angelique was trying her best to collect her scattered thoughts. She’d be an idiot to deny him outright. She didn’t trust him entirely, but her current situation didn’t leave her many choices. And she couldn’t deny that his offer, like the man himself, was more than a little…intriguing. Exciting. Fascinating.
Lavoie pushed himself off the desk, coming to stand directly in front of her. His eyes skimmed over her hair, her mask, her gown, as if he was evaluating—admiring—what he saw. “With a mind such as yours, I think you would be brilliant,” he murmured. “I think that you and I would make splendid partners.”




ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kelly Bowen grew up in Manitoba, Canada. She attended the University of Manitoba and earned a Master of Science degree in veterinary physiology and endocrinology. But it was Kelly's infatuation with history and a weakness for a good love story that led her down the path of historical romance.  When she is not writing, she seizes every opportunity to explore ruins and battlefields.

Currently, Kelly lives in Winnipeg with her husband and two boys, all of whom are wonderfully patient with the writing process.  Except, that is, when they need a goalie for street hockey.

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Tour ~ Ready Set Rogue by Manda Collins

                              


Ready Set Rogue (A Studies in Scandal #1)
by Manda Collins

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WHO WILL WRITE THE BOOK OF LOVE?

When scholarly Miss Ivy Wareham receives word that she’s one of four young ladies who have inherited Lady Celeste Beauchamp’s estate with a magnificent private library, she packs her trunks straightaway. Unfortunately, Lady Celeste’s nephew, the rakish Quill Beauchamp, Marquess of Kerr, is determined to interrupt her studies one way or another...

Bequeathing Beauchamp House to four bluestockings—no matter how lovely they are to look at—is a travesty, and Quill simply won’t have it. But Lady Celeste’s death is not quite as straightforward as it first seemed…and if Quill hopes to solve the mystery behind her demise, he’ll need Ivy’s help. Along the way, he is surprised to learn that bookish Ivy stirs a passion and longing that he has never known. This rogue believes he’s finally met his match—but can Quill convince clever, skeptical Ivy that his love is no fiction?

Despite her discomfort and distress at being drenched, she was in possession of the sort of temperament that did not allow the petty annoyances of life to dampen her spirit. He could not think of a single other lady of his acquaintance who would meet such a situation with such equanimity.
“If you wish,” he said over his shoulder, “you may remove your gown and wrap up in one of the blankets . . .” He trailed off as he saw that she was already in the process of doing just that. He swallowed at the sight of her breasts outlined by the wet fabric as she tried to reach behind to unbutton her gown.
“I am trying to do just that, but I’m afraid this gown requires the assistance of another pair of hands.” In another woman he might have suspected her of flirtation, but there was a sort of shy diffidence in the way she spoke that told him she was not trying to be coy. It was a refreshing change from the cynical seductions he was used to in London.
But when he looked up, their eyes caught, and he muttered a curse. She might be an innocent, but she had a wellspring of natural sensuality that just might do him in.
Completely unaware of the direction of his thoughts, she asked, “Would you mind helping me?”
He was crossing toward her before she even finished speaking, and when he moved to stand behind her, he was almost jealous of the wisps of damp hair that kissed the nape of her neck. “Move your hands,” he said thickly, un- able to say more in case he’d tell her what he was truly thinking.
As he bent his head a little to see the buttons, Quill was assailed by the scent of woman mixed with rosewater rising from her warm skin. He fumbled a little as he set his fingers working against the fastenings, unable to resist dragging a little against the smooth skin of her back as one by one he pulled the bindings free. It was near impossible for him to breathe as he watched inch after inch of her gown part to reveal first the almost transparent fabric of her chemise, then neatly threaded laces of corset below.
As if she sensed his hesitation, she said quietly, “That’s good enough. I think my gown bore the brunt of it.”
The danger of the temptation she posed suddenly making its way into his brain, Quill pulled his hands back as if they’d been licked by flames. “I’ll go have a look at the fire,” he said pointedly as he turned his back to her and placed one hand against the wall beside the stone fireplace and gazed down into the actual flames below.
Perhaps it would have been safer for them both if they’d pressed on to Beauchamp House, he reflected as he tried not to listen to the rustling of her clothes as she slipped out of them. It had been years since he’d felt the sort of uncontrolled desire that held him in its grip now. It was impossible to forget every luscious detail of her. From the smooth skin of her bare back to the flush in her cheeks.
He’d also been cursed with a healthy imagination when it came to his carnal desires, which now unhelpfully flooded his mind with all the delicious ways in which two adults could put a rainy afternoon in close quarters to good use.
“You may turn around now,” Ivy said finally, after several fraught minutes of him trying to think of everything but the woman undressing just feet away from him, and failing miserably.
When he turned, he saw that the thick wool blanket that covered her was about as unflattering a garment as it could be. But even that did nothing to quell the effect of her loveliness on him.
“You may sit beside me if you like,” she said tentatively, her green eyes perhaps seeing more of his discomfort than he was comfortable with. “There’s no other chair here, and it would be ridiculous for you to sit on the floor when there is a perfectly good seat here.”
His expression must have shown his skepticism as he looked pointedly at the empty place beside her on the small bed.
“Do not be missish, my lord,” she said, echoing his own words to her as they huddled beneath his greatcoat. “We are both sensible creatures. I can sit beside you without unleashing my base passions on you and offending your delicate sensibilities.”
Despite his misgivings, Quill bit back a laugh. “I believe that is supposed to be my line,” he said with a grin. “You must think me a poor figure of a man if you think I will collapse in a fit of the vapors.” As he spoke, he walked the few steps to the other side of the cottage and lowered himself gingerly to the cot beside her.
“Hardly that,” she said holding her blanket at the neck while extending her other hand toward the heat of the fire. “You looked so serious, I thought to relieve the tension a bit, that’s all.”
“You use humor like that frequently, don’t you?” he asked, unfastening the diamond stick pin from where it nestled in the now-crumpled folds of his cravat.
Before she could respond, he said, “Let’s use this to hold that,” holding up the pin.
Nodding, she shifted a little to face him, lifting her chin so that he could duck his head and see what he was doing as he stabbed the pin through the thick blanket. Pulling back a little, he looked up to find her green gaze lingering on his mouth. And unable to stop himself, he gave in to the temptation that had dogged him ever since they set out together that morning.
Pulling her against him, he covered Ivy’s mouth with his own, and kissed her.

Copyright © 2017 by the author and reprinted by permission of St. Martin’s Press.

I couldn't wait to get my hands on Manda Collins, latest book Ready Set Rogue.  You only have to read a few pages in this book and you are immediately captured.  Manda Collins doesn't let her fans down; she has a way of writing and each and every book isn't like another one you have read. She has a freshness to her style.  This book is about a four young bluestocking women who have inherited the home of Lady Celeste Beauchamp.  Well the nephew is none to happy to find out that his aunt bequeathed his favorite "secondary" home to a group of women. Had his Aunt gone made?
This is a bit of a mystery spun in around a delightful romance, between two unlikely characters.
Dream away and cuddle up and pick up this ebook or paperback, this is a winter weekend getaway while the weather outside unpredictable, this book will make to keep you sizzling.


Manda Collins spent her teen years wishing she’d been born a couple of centuries earlier, preferably in the English countryside. Time travel being what it is, she resigned herself to life with electricity and indoor plumbing, and read lots of books. An affinity for books led to a graduate degree in English, followed by another in Librarianship. By day, she works as an academic librarian at a small liberal arts college, where she teaches college students how to navigate the tangled world of academic research. A native of coastal Alabama, Manda lives in the house her mother grew up in with two cats, sometimes a dog, sometimes her sister, and always lots of books.