BLURB:
What’s an American heiress to do when a pair of britches, a plunge
into a pond in the dead of winter and a broken betrothal force her to set sail
across the ocean to an arranged marriage with a fortune hunting Englishman?
With her hopes and dreams sinking to the bottom of the sea like so
much lost treasure, Emily Calvert falls into the pretty poison she finds in a
little blue bottle.
Can Nicholas Avery, a charming aristocrat with a faulty memory for
names and a family in dire need of financial salvation, convince the wounded
lady that the blessed oblivion she finds in his arms is sweeter than opium?
EXCERPT:
Without a word Emily pushed open the carriage door
and jumped to the ground, her boots sinking into the muck of the stable yard,
her hem trailing along behind her as she turned and marched off toward the
small village.
“Miss Emily!” Tilly struggled to catch up to her mistress,
her little hands clenched in her skirts to hold them above the mud. “Lord
above, what’s come over you, hollering at your father that way?”
“Do not start in on me, Tilly,” Emily warned with a
glare over her shoulder. “You’d do well to remember your place.”
“My place?” the girl repeated as she caught up and
fell into step beside Emily.
“You are my servant,” Emily answered even as she
cringed at the malice dripping from her voice, swirling in her head. She felt
mean, mean and nasty and cruel. “We’re in England now, Matilda Calvert. I’m to
be a lady now and you had best learn to curb your tongue and behave as a lady’s
maid ought to.”
“Why’s everyone staring at us?” Tilly asked,
ignoring Emily’s words entirely.
“They’ve likely never seen a dark-skinned girl like
you before,” Emily replied. “Drop your skirts, Tilly, you’re showing off your
ankles.”
Tilly dutifully complied, her wide eyes taking in
the village and the people who’d stopped to stare at them as they passed. “I
think it’s you they’re eyeballing.”
“Why on
earth would they be looking at me?” Emily demanded.
“I don’t think they’ve ever seen a lady marching
down the street with her hair falling from her pins and fire shooting from her
eyes,” Tilly answered with a grin.
“Well, let them look,” Emily muttered as she
reached up to tuck a wayward curl back into place.
“Where are we going?”
In answer Emily stopped before a little shop wedged
between a milliner and a curio shop. The door was painted a bright green and
flanked by two large multi-paned windows through which she could see row upon
row of bottles stacked on shelves from floor to ceiling. Above the door hung a
weathered sign carved with a mortar and pestle.
The proprietor, a stoop-shouldered man with a shiny
bald head and trim beard greeted them, his welcoming words tinged with a faint
Prussian accent.
Wasting little time on pleasantries, Emily ordered
a bottle of the apothecary’s own special recipe of laudanum, one he’d only
whipped up that morning.
As she waited, she looked about the long, narrow
shop, entranced by the odd assortment of goods stored on the shelves and on
tall rotating display cases. The air was redolent with myriad scents, from
lavender to ginger, frankincense to eucalyptus, all combining into an exotic,
spicy aroma that somehow soothed her frayed nerves, calmed the rapid beat of
her heart.
“Oh look at all the pretty little bottles!” Tilly
cried from across the room.
Emily joined her before one of the windows where
the girl had discovered a display of colored glass bottles of all shapes and
sizes. A bright blue bottle with a round base and a long, elegant neck sat on
the edge of the shelf. Emily tilted her head to study the bottle that was as
pretty and dainty as any porcelain statue that had ever graced her mother’s
front parlor. It was shaped almost like a woman, the base the bell of her
shirts, the handle a long elegant arm cocked out with hand resting along a trim
waist. Deep within the fluted neck sat a stopper decorated with pretty blue,
red, and green gems.
“My wife says the ladies prefer their tonics in
pretty bottles,” the apothecary said as he joined them. “She thinks it make the
taking of them less onerous.”
“I’ll take this one.” Emily lifted the dainty blue
bottle, surprised by its near weightlessness. The bottle was only slightly
larger than her hand and even lovelier up close. She held it up to the
sunlight, amazed by the way it glowed, by the blue beam that shot through the
glass to dance along the warped wood floor, as if the little bottle had captured
the sunlight and turned it into a moonbeam.
“Shall I fill it for you?” he asked with a nod.
“Thank you,” Emily replied with a trembling smile,
her eyes fixed on the package he held out to her in exchange for the blue
bottle. The paper-wrapped parcel was heavy enough that Emily suspected the
contents would last her to London, would see her cocooned in oblivion through
her first meeting with her aunt, through her father’s departure to join up with
a group of train-mad gentlemen to tour the country’s fledgling railways,
perhaps even through her first introduction to her future husband.
If she was very lucky she might even manage to make
it through her first London Season in quiet contentment, might avoid thinking
of her future, a future that held no resemblance whatsoever to the one she’d
imagined for herself.
“Now mind me, young miss,” the apothecary cautioned
as he handed the second, smaller wrapped parcel into her hands. “Every
apothecary brews his own variety of laudanum. This here that I’ve given you
might be a bit more potent than what you’re familiar with. You be sure to take
care with how much you take until you’ve accustomed yourself to it.”
Emily nodded, barely hearing his words as
anticipation shivered up her spine, finding a nest at the nape of her neck
where it settled like a faint beat, a warm, whispering tingle.
It was an odd sensation, anticipation coupled with
a sort of jittery restlessness, and one she would come to both welcome and
dread in the months that followed.
AUTHOR Bio and
Links:
Write
About What You Know.
Every
Creative Writing Teacher and College Professor said these words to Lynne Barron
in one form or another. But what did she know?
She
knew she enjoyed the guilty pleasure of reading romance novels whenever she
could find time between studying, working and raising her son as a single
mother.
She
knew quite a bit about women's lives in the Regency and Victorian era from
years spent bouncing back and forth between European History and English
Literature as a major in college.
She
knew precious little about romance except to know that it was more than the
cliché card and a dozen red roses on Valentine's Day.
Then
she met her wonderfully romantic husband and finally she knew.
Passion,
Love and Romance.
And
she began to write.
If
you would like to learn more about Lynne Barron and the Idyllwild Series,
please visit her website at LynneBarron.com or follow her at Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/LynneBarronRomanceAuthor
Author
Website http://www.lynnebarron.com
Lynne will be awarding a $25 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour, and a $25 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn host.
The more you comment, the better your chances of winning. The tour dates can be found here:
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Thank you foe featuring Pretty Poison today!
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