Compromised...
(oh I am so in love with this cover)
I wrote this as a prequel to my new Regency series, Cursed Treasure. There was no way it could be any longer, it just fitted this length.
Luckily Evernight agreed and said they'd be happy to publish it as a free read.
So from today, you can download it for free, for ever ( well as long as Evernight publish it)
by clicking ...here...
and here's the first wee bit to tease you...
The
Moon Curse
"Pay
the price. The heart of ye child to be liftin' the curse. Dare ye risk it?"
***
English Channel, 1789
The boat was small and smelled of stale
fish. The tide was high, and the water a sullen, choppy, dark brown swell.
Huddled on the bottom boards with a sobbing baby on one side and his sick mother
throwing up into a rough wooden pail on the other was not the nicest place to achieve
freedom.
Not that she had, yet. The French coast
was still much too close for comfort.
Marie-Josephine decided she would prefer
to help sail the boat instead of being told to hold on and stay out of the way.
Patience was not her best trait. Plus, the attitude of the captain could almost
make her wish herself back in her beloved France. Almost.
Except there was the not inconsiderable
presence of Madame Le Guillotine and the sure knowledge she'd be on her way to
make her acquaintance if she ever set foot on French soil again. Her enemies
had made certain of that. She sighed as the boat pitched and she rolled over
onto a coil of rope. The tarry strands stuck to her bare ankle—her stockings
had shredded and been discarded days before—and scratched the skin. It was
nothing compared to what others suffered. Luckily, the next wave rolled her
back toward the side of the vessel once more. Spray flew up in the air and covered
her face. The sharp, bitter smell that often portended storms smell of ozone
filled her nostrils. It was not a night anyone sensible would choose to be
afloat. Hopefully, that would work in their favor.
She resumed her musings. Anything to take
her mind away from this present danger, even if it was only reliving dangers past.
Apart from being Mademoiselle de Coeur,
daughter of a count, her calm rejection of Etienne Blanc, who most certainly
was no aristocrat, and a pig to boot, would have made her future—or lack of one—certain
if she had stayed. No, wailing babies, sickly mothers, and all, it was better
to be where she was. After all, at least she had a chance of survival, slim
though it seemed at that moment.
The captain—Theo, one of the sailors had
called him—looked down as he stepped over her and the baby he'd thrust at her
with a growled, "Take him and hold him secure." He spoke French as
good as she or any aristo, but he didn't look like a Frenchman. However, he did
look dangerous; she wouldn't want to cross him. "It's going to be a rough
passage." He'd spoken no truer words. From the first moment they'd left
the tiny cove that they had spent days walking to, the boat had rocked and
swayed like a lantern in the wind.
Now, he winked. It seemed his good humor
had been restored. "Nice day for a sail, eh?" Almost immediately he
transferred his interest away from her and shouted orders to his crew before he
adjusted the flapping sheets.
He might well be a sailor, but to Mijo's
admittedly untutored eyes, he looked every inch an aristocrat, and none the
ruffian he purported to be. Even his voice was cultured, and his impeccable French,
with more than a passable accent, was not that of the peasantry.
However, at that moment, Mijo couldn't
have cared if he was the king of Britain or a hermit from a cave, as long as he
continued to be in charge of the worsening situation.
A seaman shouted something, and Theo
swore. "We're being followed. Hold on to something and say your
prayers." His dark eyes flashed, and he blew her a kiss.
Mijo would have maintained he was
enjoying himself more and more with every moment that passed. He climbed the rigging
like a monkey and barked out orders to his three-man crew. As he laughed and
obviously revelled in the thrill of the chase, she tried to flatten herself out
of the way of large, heavy feet and wet ropes. Once a booted foot hit her side,
and she winced.
The crewman looked down. "Sorry,
ma'am."
"Sans
importance." The wind caught and tossed away her words as, with a
flurry of canvas, they added more sail, and the boat leaped eagerly to the
challenge and sped along. The sheets billowed ghostly in the dark night sky,
the only sounds apart from the rushing water and the thud of the waves, that of
the ropes that held the sails and the creaking of the hull.
Beside her, the young mother retched, and
in front of them, several others looked away and took refuge where they could. It
was obvious they deemed themselves unable, or unwilling, to aid the poor woman.
The baby, obviously spent, was silent. It could be a scene from any of Mrs.
Radcliffe's gothic novels, except it was real and not between the covers of a leather-bound
book.
The moon slid in and out of the clouds.
Why had they fled when there was a moon? Sheer stupidity, or necessity? She
knew it was the latter, and their captain—Theo—was either very brave or incredibly
foolhardy. Whichever, she was eternally grateful, or would be when they reached
dry land.
Waves crashed over the bows, and within
seconds Mijo was soaked. She shivered and handed the baby to his mother, who
was now half sitting up. The little mite would give her something to
concentrate on, and if he stayed next to Mijo, he stood a good chance of being
drowned or stamped to death by a misplaced boot.
~~~~~~
And just to tease you, even more. Here's the first few paragraphs of My Lord Suitor book one of Cursed Treasure...and *drum roll* I've just got a publishing date for it. August 7th...
Autumn, 1814
Devon, England
Tessa loved Devon. The hills
in the distance, the sea murmuring in the background, and the wind that got up
in a minute and teased the treetops and grass of the rolling fields around her.
Whatever the season, she was drawn to this area of the country. However, she
admitted to herself, autumn was her favorite. It was a joy to see the
blackberries ripe, plump, and juicy, and decking the hedgerows as they displayed
themselves for picking and eating—as it was to watch the leaves turn to the
golds and russets of the end of the year, and fall to carpet the earth with their
glorious hues. It was satisfying to know the harvest was safely gathered and the
grain and vegetables securely stored to see them through anything the winter
would throw at them.
Here, she felt she was
herself. Not someone who had to appeal to those chinless wonders who called
themselves young bucks or pinks, or even the elite gentlemen of the ton. Here
she was just Tessa. Even at night when, as her maman said, pixies danced and
the night creatures played, Tessa felt welcome. Perhaps being born on the
stroke of midnight had something to do with it. Not only did she straddle two
days, with her birthday on All Hallows Eve, she hovered over the cusp where the
veil between the living and those who had passed was thinnest. She sensed
emotions deeply, sometimes to her detriment.
Tessa shook her head and let
her hair dance around her shoulders. Freed from its normal neat and tidy-ish
chignon, it fell almost to her waist in a mass of russet-colored curls, and
covered her cloak like a cape. She kicked a pile of leaves high into the air,
spun around in a circle, and let her hair fly out around her. She laughed, her
voice melodious on the night air. Then she sighed. For some reason, tonight she
was twitchy, and she had no idea why. That in itself was peculiar. Tessa thought
deeply and had an intuition far greater than most. It was rare she couldn't
work out what her feelings and thoughts meant. Perhaps because her parents
were, in the words of her sister Amalia, loved up, and Tessa felt excluded? Where
Amalia got her expressions heaven knows, but Tessa thought it fitted their
maman and papa perfectly. However, it didn't explain her own state of mind.
Oh, it wasn't their fault she
felt cast adrift, it was the whole find-a-soul-mate scenario. Why couldn't she
experience that?
After a harmonious evening,
playing childhood games such as "go fish" and "spillikins,"
the rest of the family had retired to bed, and as far as Tessa knew all their
candles were snuffed, and all the other occupants of the house were fast
asleep. But not Tessa. The age-old call of the night had tempted her senses and
demanded she listen and join them—it—outside.
The air sang, and the scents
of the earth and all things that grew there surrounded Tessa, and as she'd
hoped, brought a modicum of peace. However, it was not enough to stop her
wondering why she was on edge.
She gathered her cloak around
her as a gust of wind teased the fallen leaves to swirl upward in a mini whirlwind
of what would be, in daylight, glorious color. She could imagine it. They created
a barrier between her and the trees on either side of the ride—one of the
swaths of grass several yards wide, which bisected the woods around Birch
Hall's gardens. For several seconds she was in the center of a cloud of dancing
foliage. Several twigs and leaves landed on her hair and shoulders, and one
tiny one settled on her nose. Tessa scrunched her nose up and blew it off. It
tickled.
A rabbit, barely discernable
in the darkness, scurried across the grass with hardly a look in her direction,
followed by several others. The final one—the buck—stopped a few yards away, sat,
twitched, and then satisfied all was well, disappeared down a burrow.
Somewhere nearby in the dark
night, an owl hooted to be answered by one closer to her.
Tessa shivered. Stories of
smugglers and their way of communicating with each other infiltrated her
troubled thoughts, and she looked around nervously. She should not be out
tonight, but that tempting, teasing, indefinable something called to her, and
she'd ignored her thoughts and left the house. Now maybe it was time to regret
her spur of the moment decision. Heaven knew Mijo had warned her about her ‘act
now, think later’ impetuousness.
A gust of wind shook a nearby
tree, and its leaves fell softly to the ground like silent raindrops of molten
gold. Tessa shook her head at her fanciful thoughts. She bit back a whimper as
a whirring noise made her jump and turn around. The glimpse of the pale
feathers of an owl as it flew in front of her went some way to assailing her
fears.
Fool,
All Hallows' Eve is not yet upon us. She should know. It would add another
year to her age and yet more insinuations of how unmarriageable she had become.
As far as Tessa was concerned, long may that state reign.
Happy Reading,
Love R x
