Secret Realm New Year Blog Hop
Welcome to my website! I’m excited to be included in this blog hop with so many fabulous authors. Today I am offering an ebook of My Darling Gunslinger, a Wine Bottle Corset and two Corset Bookmarks. Read on to enjoy an excerpt and answer the question in the comments below. As an added bonus, by commenting you’ll also be entered to win January’s lovely funky floral corset.
After seven years on the run, crossing oceans and uncharted lands to escape an aristocrat with murder on his mind, Lady Charlotte Grenville, Countess of Westlockhart, has finally found a safe haven in the wilds of Montana.
Until the night a gunslinger wounded in body and soul falls at her feet.
In a single hand of cards, Tyler Morgan wins both the Zeppelin Ranch and the chance to hang up his guns forever. He never expects to find a proper English lady living on his land with her son and an odd assortment of servants.
With his past haunting him and his heart threatened by the lady who can never be his, Ty’s future stretches out before him in one long, lonely eternity.
When Charlotte’s secrets are revealed and her life endangered, will Ty strap on his guns once more to embark on a perilous journey to the glittering world that is Victorian London?
This story contains all sorts of frolicking, dallying and debauchery, and very little of the fun takes place behind closed doors.
Excerpt
Charlotte threw back her head and laughed, the joyful sound echoed by Sebastian and Daisy.
Suddenly the music came to a crashing halt and Ken stopped dancing, one hand gripping hers tight, the other pushing her hip. She spun and landed gently against the wall beside one of the windows, exactly where her dance partner wanted her.
Ethel scooped Sebastian up off the floor, bringing the boy tight against her chest.
Charlotte hadn’t a clue what had alerted her friends to danger. It did not matter. She trusted their instincts, trusted them with her life. More importantly, she trusted them with Sebastian’s life.
Turning to the window, she whipped the drapes across the glass, shutting out the night, blocking unseen eyes from viewing the scene within. She moved on to the other three windows, pulling the blue velvet curtains closed, careful to stay out of sight of whomever lurked outside.
“On the porch,” Ethel hissed as she marched from the room with Sebastian tucked against her chest.
“How many?” Ken asked his wife as he moved around the room, turning down lights as he went.
“One that I could see.”
Then Ethel Chang was gone, her long legs striding across the foyer and taking the stairs two at a time.
Akeem appeared in the doorway, his bald head nearly touching the lintel above, his bare chest filling the space.
“Go to your room, Miss Daisy,” he told the startled woman, his voice infinitely sweet.
“What’s happened?” Daisy looked confused more than alarmed.
And no wonder. Perhaps fifteen seconds previously all was laughter and music in the room, and now Sebastian had been carried out of the room, the drapes slammed shut, and the cat sat hissing and spitting between the two old hounds.
Charlotte plastered her body to the wall exactly where her friend had deposited her moments before. Mr. Chang crouched beside a spindly little table, his hand in the drawer. Akeem stood nearly naked before her uncle’s housekeeper, pulling her gently to her feet.
Above the rain and thunder, above the frantic beating of her heart, Charlotte heard heavy pounding.
Boot heels on the porch?
No, fists knocking on the front door.
“I’ll get it,” Daisy cried out, an unmistakable edge of anxiety in her voice.
“No,” Charlotte whispered, stepping away from the wall.
Mr. Chang appeared out of the gloom, one hand slapping against her ribs, pushing her back again. “Stay.”
Akeem picked Daisy up off her feet as she attempted to brush by him, turning and depositing her back in the parlor.
She stared with wide eyes at Charlotte, her employer’s niece, her closest friend.
“It’s all right, Daisy.” Charlotte doubted her whispered words went far to reassure the other lady.
The knocking came again, fainter, just as Ethel stopped in the shadows halfway down the stairs.
“Sebastian?” Charlotte asked.
“Magnus has him.” Ethel looked at her husband poised on the balls of his feet in front of Charlotte. “No one in the yard. One horse tied to the rail.”
Mr. Chang let out a soft breath and removed his hand from Charlotte’s abdomen.
“A neighbor perhaps,” Daisy said with a nervous laugh.
“Answer the door, Miss Daisy. Slowly open it all the way and step back behind it.” Ethel crouched on the stairs and brought a long rifle out from where she’d hidden it in her skirts along her leg. She steadied the gun on the polished wood handrail and sighted down the long barrel.
“I’m sure it’s only a neighbor come to borrow a cup of sugar,” Daisy said, and Charlotte laughed at the inane words. It was past nine and raining hard enough to drown a rat. There wasn’t a person alive desperate enough for sweet tea to ride for miles for a cup of sugar.
Daisy walked to the open door and hesitated at the threshold to the foyer. Even from across the room Charlotte could see her trembling.
“I’ll do it.” Charlotte pushed away from the wall, brushed against Ken, her fingers trailing down his arm to his hand. “I know what to do.”
Gently she pushed Daisy back into the parlor before squaring her shoulders and approaching the front door. “Are we ready?”
“Ready,” three voices chimed behind her as the last light was extinguished, throwing the foyer into darkness.
Charlotte swung the heavy steel door open and stepped behind it, using it as a shield against whatever lay beyond.
Wind blew into the foyer, tossing aside the little welcome mat Daisy had spent days cobbling together from discarded fleece and an old, leather work apron.
Wind and nothing else.
No men running in.
No bullets ricocheting off walls.
Charlotte gripped the small revolver Chang had slipped into her hand as she’d passed him and stepped around the door, trusting Ethel’s steady aim, trusting that Ken was crouched with two knives and a half-dozen throwing stars in the shadows behind her, trusting that Akeem was ready to tackle whoever waited on the other side.
A man waited on the other side. To be precise, a man dressed all in black stood on the edge of the porch gripping one of the wood posts that held the roof over the sheltered space.
He swayed on his feet and, for one frozen moment, Charlotte thought he might fall back and tumble down the steps into the muddy yard beyond.
He mumbled something unintelligible as he righted himself and took one unsteady step forward. It sounded like “Lady Blue.”
The man shifted and a soft beam of moonlight fell across the porch, touching dark trousers plastered to long legs and worn boots caked with mud. A black coat whipped around him in the wind and her mind seemed to stutter around an eerie sense of déjà vu. She’d seen this man before.
“Charlie Green,” the man whispered as his left hand rose from his side.
Charlotte lifted her arm and pointed the revolver at him, right between the eyes hidden beneath a drooping, water-logged black hat. Her hand did not shake. Her finger did not tremble on the trigger.
Slowly he reached into the breast pocket of his coat, the movement pushing the wet garment back. Charlotte saw the gun riding low on his hip, pearl handle glinting.
She looked for his right hand, found it held out from his lean hip, palm up and fingers spread. It struck Charlotte as vulnerable somehow, that large hand held palm open. Then she saw his fingers tremble and his arm shake.
Moisture dripped from beneath the sleeve of his coat, ran in a dark trickle across his palm.
“Jasper,” the man panted, holding a folded piece of paper out to her.
Before Charlotte could decide whether to take the three steps necessary to reach for the paper, two things happened simultaneously.
Akeem pushed past her and the stranger began to crumble.
His legs folded. Truly, she’d heard the expression but had never imagined it was possible. But the man’s legs simply gave way, bending at the knees as if a switch had been flicked and his brain had cut off all communication below the waist. He didn’t fall backward or tumble headfirst at her feet. He didn’t list to the side. He went straight down.
Before his body hit the porch, Akeem scooped him up.
Charlotte stepped back in silence as her friends all sprang into motion in the foyer.
Akeem cradled the gunman in his arms as carefully and gently as a mother with a newborn babe.
“Can you get him upstairs?” Ken asked.
Akeem smiled, his teeth flashing in his dark face.
“The back bedroom,” Ethel instructed unnecessarily. That room was the only one that locked from the outside.
“I’ll boil water and cut linen for bandages,” Daisy called over her shoulder as she headed down the hall to the kitchen.
Ethel and Ken followed Akeem’s retreating form up the stairs.
Charlotte was left alone in the empty foyer, her fingers locked around the butt of the small gun, her gaze riveted to the dark red drops running in a trail from the door to the stairs and beyond.
My Darling Gunslinger
Is now available at your favorite retailers including:
To enter to win an ebook copy of My Darling Gunslinger, a Wine Bottle Corset and two Corset Bookmarks simply answer this question in the comments below: Who does Daisy say might be at the door?
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January’s Corset is a little bit Victorian with a touch of Funky. This lovely floral pattern features chunky metal hooks and buttons for an industrial flair. I’ll randomly choose a winner February 1st.
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