To Kiss a Count. Amanda McCabe
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Look out for Amanda McCabe’s sumptuous Renaissance trilogy coming soon from Mills & Boon®
A NOTORIOUS WOMAN
‘Court intrigue, poison and murders fill this Renaissance romance. The setting is beautiful…’
—Romantic Times BOOKreviews
A SINFUL ALLIANCE
‘Scandal, seduction, spies, counter-spies, murder, love and loyalty are skilfully woven into the tapestry of the Tudor court. Richly detailed and brimming with historical events and personages, McCabe’s tale weaves together history and passion perfectly.’
—Romantic Times BOOKreviews
HIGH SEAS STOWAWAY
‘Smell the salt spray, feel the deck beneath your feet and hoist the Jolly Roger as McCabe takes you on an entertaining, romantic ride.’
—Romantic Times BOOKreviews
‘Marco—why are you here today?’
‘To bring you this.’ He reached down to the floor beside the settee, bringing up the umbrella she had lost in Sydney Gardens. ‘I thought you might need it in such a rainy place as Bath.’
‘That is kind of you,’ she said slowly. ‘But surely you could have sent a servant?’
‘I could not entrust a servant with the rest of my errand.’
‘The rest of your errand?’
‘This.’ Marco reached out to gently cup her cheek in his palm, cradling it softly like the most delicate porcelain. Slowly, as if to give her time to draw away, he lowered his lips to hers.
But Thalia had absolutely no desire to turn away. Indeed, she could think of nothing at all—nothing but the feel of his mouth on hers, the slide of his caress along her cheek.
Amanda McCabe wrote her first romance at the age of sixteen—a vast epic, starring all her friends as the characters, written secretly during algebra class. She’s never since used algebra, but her books have been nominated for many awards, including the RITA®, Romantic Times BOOKreviews Reviewers’ Choice Award, the Booksellers Best, the National Readers’ Choice Award, and the Holt Medallion. She lives in Oklahoma, with a menagerie of two cats, a pug and a bossy miniature poodle, and loves dance classes, collecting cheesy travel souvenirs, and watching the Food Network—even though she doesn’t cook. Visit her at http://ammandamccabe.tripod.com and http://www.riskyregencies.blogspot.com
Previous novels by the same author:
TO CATCH A ROGUE*
TO DECEIVE A DUKE*
*Linked to TO KISS A COUNT
TO KISS A COUNT
Amanda McCabe
MILLS & BOON
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Prologue
Sicily
‘Oh, Miss Thalia! We’ll never be able to leave tomorrow, there’s still ever so much to do.’
Thalia looked up from the books and papers she was packing away to see her maid Mary dashing around the chamber, her arms filled with gowns. Open trunks dotted the floor, half-full. Clothes and shoes spilled from the armoire and drawers.
‘Really, Mary,’ Thalia said with a laugh, ‘we have been moving about so much of late, I’m surprised you don’t have the packing down to an exact science.’
‘Well, we’ve never left in such a hurry before, either. There is no time to do things properly!’
Thalia agreed with her there. Her father, Sir Walter Chase, was not usually one to rush his travels. They had moved leisurely through Italy, seeing all the sites and meeting all Sir Walter’s scholarly correspondents before coming to rest in Sicily. But now his work here was nearly done. His ancient town site was thoroughly excavated, studied, and turned over to local antiquarians. Thalia’s older sister Clio was married to her true love, the Duke of Averton, and off on her honeymoon to lands east.
Sir Walter himself was now married again, to his longtime companion Lady Rushworth, and ready to see new places. They were headed to Geneva for the summer, along with Thalia’s younger sister Terpsichore, called Cory. It had been assumed that Thalia, too, would go with them. But after all that had happened in the last weeks, all that she had seen and felt and done, she was weary of new places. So, she was for home. England.
Her eldest sister, Calliope, Lady Westwood, was expecting her first child, and her recent letters were uncharacteristically plaintive. She asked when they would return home, when she would see them again. Thalia suspected Calliope would prefer Clio’s company. As the two oldest of the Chase Muses, they were very close. And no one was stronger, more capable than Clio.
But Clio was gone, and Calliope would have to make do with Thalia. Thalia, the one they all thought of as so flighty and dramatic. Perfectly adequate for visits to the modiste or amateur theatricals, but not for delivering babies.
Not for catching villainous thieves.
Thalia caught sight of herself in the dressing-table mirror. The Sicilian sunlight poured from the windows, turning her loose hair to the buttery shade of summer jonquils. Her heart-shaped face and wide blue eyes, her roses-and-cream skin, were pretty enough, she supposed. They certainly gained her admirers, silly, brainless suitors who wrote her bad poetry. Who compared her to porcelain shepherdesses and springtime days.
Her own family seemed to share that view. They praised her prettiness, smiled at her, indulged her, yet they seemed to think there was nothing behind her blue eyes. Nothing but ribbons and novels. Cal and Clio were the scholars, the heirs to their father’s work; Cory was a budding great artist, a serious painter. Thalia was an amusement, the one their mother used to call her ‘belle fleur’.
Oh, they never said that to her, of course. They applauded her theatricals, indulged her writing. But she saw it there when they looked at her, heard it in the tone of their words.
She was different. She was not quite a Chase.
Thalia turned away from the mirror, tugging her shawl closer around her shoulders, as if the thin cashmere offered some armour. Some protection against disappointment.
She had hoped that the strange events of the last weeks would change their minds. Would show them her true strength, what she was really capable of. When Clio had come to her and asked for her help in catching Lady Riverton, who had stolen a rare and sacred cache of Hellenistic temple silver, Thalia was overjoyed. Here at last was something useful she could do!
Something