Gabriel shook his head at them and stood up, carrying the baby around the room with a soft bounce. He could understand Imogen mistrusting his skills, but George had seen him with his cousin’s children often enough over the years to know better.
The walk failed to do its job and little Dysart Alan Dauntry waved a small fist in the air, his small form swelling with outrage.
George yawned and turned to take him, arms already outstretched long before he reached her. The baby hiccupped and nestled into George like a puppy, clearly content now that he had achieved his goal. Gabriel grinned and stooped to kiss his wife on the back of the neck, the exposed skin too sweet to resist.
They’d attended the races at Epsom Downs last week, then immediately travelled up from London to be present for George’s laying in—as had half their other friends—causing George to laugh and assign them all roles from the nativity.
He and Imogen had been proclaimed camels, while the Morpeths were sheep. Poor Bennett and Layton had been labelled asses. Probably because they were the ones most likely to hover over her. Only Alençon and Cardross had come off well, being assigned the roles of angels. George refused to allow any of them to claim the roles of wise men, no matter what presents they might have brought. And no one spoke of the conspicuously absent St Audley, at least after George brushed off his tardiness by calling him a star rising in the South.
‘Want to go for a punt on the lake?’ Gabriel whispered, trying not to let too wolfish an edge into his smile.
Imogen smiled back, extending her hand to be helped up off the seat. George made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat. ‘Do go and play for heaven’s sake. There’s no need to hover over me.’
Gabriel gave a bark of laughter that made the baby jump. Imogen hushed him and pushed him from the room, one hand firmly set against his spine, propelling him forward.
Clearly the damp heat of the afternoon wasn’t going to put her off a stroll down to the lake…and whatever else he might have in mind for her entertainment.
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Please continue for a sample of book one in the No Rules for Rogue’s Series, SIN INCARNATE, George and Ivo’s story.
Sin Incarnate
Book One: No Rules for Rogues
Georgianna Exley’s passionate nature has always been her undoing—and for this reason, the beautiful young widow allows her lovers only a single night in her bed. But Ivo Dauntry has come home to England, and he’ll settle for nothing less than six nights, one for every year he’s given up for her . . .
Chapter One
London once again finds itself enlivened by the presence of the handsome Lord S—. If only we could discover what has kept him from our shores for so many years…
Tête-à-Tête, 6 October 1788
She’d haunted his dreams for years.
Auburn curls and sherry-coloured eyes. A singularly wicked smile, tilting up higher on one side to expose a dimple. A spray of freckles across her bosom: a constellation designed by God to tempt mankind.
Another man’s wife.
Of all the unfortunate things Ivo Dauntry had learnt about himself over the years, the fact that he could lust after someone else’s wife should have been minor. Should have been nothing beside the fact that he could kill a man, thwart his grandfather’s will, break his mother’s heart, and never look back. But it wasn’t the face of the man he’d killed or the mother he’d disappointed that swam through his dreams night after night.
It was hers.
Mrs Lionel Exley’s.
In his dreams she was nothing like the proper newlywed who had actually existed, barely more than a girl, excited to be flexing her wings on her first visit to Paris. No, the siren in his dreams had eyes that brimmed with the shared knowledge of lust. Her smile seeming to promise everything he’d ever wanted. But she always remained just out of reach.
A temptress. A tease. A practiced coquette.
None of it was real, but he’d had the same dream so many times now that it felt real. Her seduction had become the clearest of memories, as treasured as his first lover, as sensual as the first time he’d plunged naked into the warm water of the Mediterranean.
Mrs Lionel Exley. The woman standing across the prize-fighter’s ring at this very moment, casually clinging to the arm of a man who was certainly not her husband.
The only woman whose virtue he’d ever defended. An action which had cost him dearly. Career. Family. Friends. He’d lost them all. No, not lost. He’d sacrificed them for her, like a lamb on an altar to a biblical god.
And all this time he’d thought it had been worth it.
His fist clenched around his purse, coins biting into his palm. The sea of humanity pressing in on him blurred and spun momentarily before the pain in his hand grounded him again.
Nothing in his dreams had been real, but watching her now, it was as though he’d somehow conjured her, given the dream form. She turned and said something to the man on the other side of her, the column of her neck twisting, swanlike, elegantly pale against the dark fur tippet wrapped around her throat.
He swallowed thickly, lust rushing through him, liquid fire from heart to groin.
Where the devil was her husband?
She shone like a beacon, her red habit blazing out against the
