Betrayed by His Kiss
IN A CITY OF SHADOWS…Orlando Landucci knows all too well what darkness lies beneath Florence’s dazzling splendour. And when his beloved sister is torn from him he will stop at nothing to avenge her death.… ONLY A KISS CAN LIGHT UP THE DARKNESSBut from the moment he lays eyes on innocent Isabella Spinola something inside him shifts. She is the kin of his sworn enemy, yet he feels compelled to protect her. With every forbidden kiss Orlando’s sense of betrayal deepens – so when the time for vengeance comes will their bond be enough to banish the shadows for ever?
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That kiss had been like nothing else she had ever known or could even imagine.
The very ground beneath her feet had swollen like the wave of a flooding river and burst, drowning her, and surely nothing could be the same again. It was as if she'd glimpsed the emotions only evoked by paint or charcoal on canvas.
Yet then he had vanished. Disappeared as if he was one of her dreams—half-hidden, desperately sought, but always elusive.
She closed her eyes for an instant and in that darkness she saw again the way he'd looked at her after they'd kissed. The sadness and longing, the burning fire of passion that had made her want nothing more than to leap into those flames and be completely consumed.
She knew she couldn't have been fooled by that glow in his eyes. There had been no artifice there in that instant—only raw, burning life.
Yet there had been that fathomless darkness, too. The darkness that had frightened her the first time she'd met him, when she'd seen the depths of anger he held deep inside himself. That had been there as well, fighting with the light of desire.
THE TAMING OF THE ROGUE
‘McCabe sweeps readers into the world of the
Elizabethan theatre, delighting us with a lively tale and artfully drawing on the era's backdrop of bawdy plays, wild actors and thrilling adventure.’ —RT Book Reviews
RUNNING FROM SCANDAL
‘Including a darling little girl, meddling relatives and
a bit of suspense, McCabe's story charms readers.’ —RT Book Reviews
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.’ —RT Book Reviews
This book is for Kyle
‘I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.’ —Much Ado About Nothing
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>® Award, RT 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 www.riskyregencies.blogspot.com
Contents
Tuscany—1474
The church was silent and marble-cold. Candles were lit over the altar, sparkling on the gilded image of the Virgin Mary surrounded by saints and solemn angels, but everything else was in darkness. Orlando Landucci was alone.
Except for the woman who lay on her lonely bier before the altar steps. His sister, gone from him now.
He knelt beside her, his hands clasped before him, but he could not pray. Even in this holy place he couldn’t let go of the fierce anger burning inside of him.
Maria Lorenza’s face, so delicately pretty in life, was pale and still. Her blond hair was hidden by the white linen wrappings and her brown eyes were closed for ever. A rosary was threaded through her cold fingers. Perhaps she was at peace now, at last. Her torment had been so great for so long. Yet how could she be, when her murderer was still out there?
Matteo Strozzi had not held the poison bottle to her lips, but he had surely guided her hand as she swallowed. The memory of his betrayal haunted even after all those months. The deep-dyed villain.
She wouldn’t take Orlando’s help before, but he would give it to her now. He owed it to her for the sisterly love she had long given him.
As he tucked a small bouquet of spring flowers into her hands with the rosary, he remembered Maria Lorenza as she had once been. The two of them as children, climbing trees, chasing through the barley fields, laughing. Her whispered jests and giggles in their father’s chapel, when they were meant to be solemn. Her tears, the raw fear in her eyes, when Matteo Strozzi had betrayed her and she had only Orlando to turn to.
Maria Lorenza had been there as long as Orlando could remember. His sweet, beautiful baby sister. She never deserved the torment that had driven her to this.
A baby’s piercing cry suddenly broke the silence of the church. Orlando pushed himself to his feet and turned to see one of the nuns standing in the doorway. Maria’s new daughter was cradled in her arms, a fragile new life that bloomed in the face of her mother’s death. His niece, who had only him now to look after her. Who had lost her mother in the most horrible of ways. Maria had been so sure she could not look after her child, that the shame of having a bastard daughter would drown them both, and thus she had chosen to leave them all. She could bear the humiliation no longer.
