Surrender The Heart
Christopher Blanchard Was Everything She'd Ever Needed…Yet Didn't Want Ariane de Valmont prized her independence above all else, and to secure it, she'd struck a seductive bargain with a tantalizing American. Now she feared that in this heart's gamble, le beau sauvage , as Parisian society had named him, held all the cards… .The son of scandal, Chris Blanchard caused a sensation among the "beau monde," intending to settle old scores and quickly be gone again. Until he was caught by the gaze of Ariane de Valmont, whose eyes bespoke a forever kind of love… .
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Table of Contents
Her beauty was delicate, but there
was nothing fragile about it.
And she was not as cool and serene as she pretended to be, he decided. Her eyes, dark and restless, gave her away. There was passion beneath the cool exterior. And he wanted to be the one to discover it. It occurred to him that it had been a long time since he had wanted anything quite so badly.
“Bon soir.” Insolently he reached for her hand instead of waiting for her to offer it. “So you did remember that you’d promised me the first waltz.”
“I did not promise, Monsieur Blanchard. You demanded.”
“So?” A wealth of insinuation swung with that single word. “And you always give in to demands?” His tawny eyebrows curved upward wickedly. “I shall have to remember that.”
“On the contrary.” Temper darkened her eyes. “I do not deal well with demands at all…!”
Dear Reader
In Nina Beaumont’s new historical, Surrender the Heart, a brash American and an independent Frenchwoman make a dangerous bargain. He will court her to keep away unwanted suitors, and she, in return, will allow him the chance to seduce her. But the two are unprepared for the passionate love that develops between them in this sizzling story set in nineteenth-century Paris.
In Bogus Bride, by Australian author Emily French, a spirited young woman must convince her new husband that although he had intended to marry her sister, she is his true soul mate. And in Knights Divided by Suzanne Barclay, a medieval tale from one of our most popular authors, a young woman finds herself embroiled in a maelstrom of passion and deceit when she kidnaps the rogue whom she believes murdered her sister.
And in our final selection for the month, Judith Stacy’s heartwarming Western, Outlaw Love, a Federal Marshal on the trail of a gang of female outlaws doesn’t realize that the woman he’s falling in love with is their leader.
Whatever your taste in reading, we hope you’ll find a story written just for you between the covers of a Harlequin Historical novel. Keep a lookout for all four titles wherever Harlequin Historicals are sold.
Sincerely,
Tracy Farrell,
Senior Editor
Please address questions and book requests to:
Harlequin Reader Service
U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269
Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3
NINA BEAUMONT
is of Russian parentage and has a family tree that includes the Counts Stroganoff and a Mongolian khan. A real cosmopolitan, she was born in Salzburg and grew up in Massachusetts before moving to Austria, where she lived for twenty-five years.
Although she has relocated to the Seattle area, her European ties are still strong, so she plans to stick with the exotic settings she has had the opportunity to get to know firsthand.
Books and music are her first loves, but she also enjoys painting watercolors and making pottery.
To Loma and Ed Hudgens—
thank you for making me part of your family.
My heartfelt thanks to:
my editor, Tracy Farrell, and she and I know why;
my writer friends, Sonya Jorgensen, Suzanne Neel and Mike Miller, for their brainstorming help when I was in need.
Paris, October 1855
“Ariane, if you don’t take that bored look off your face, you’re never going to get a husband.”
Ariane de Valmont barely managed to suppress the temptation to roll her eyes in exasperation. Curving her mouth into the semblance of a smile, she shifted so that she faced the stage more fully. Perhaps, she thought, maman would not be able to see the expression on her face quite so precisely from this angle.
She refused to be amused, even though the catchy tunes of the Offenbach operetta tempted her to tap her foot and the antics of the very human Greek gods frolicking around on the stage were hilarious. Instead, she let her gaze wander around the audience.
The theater, charming despite its overabundance of gilt decorations and red velvet, was full and the lights had been only partly dimmed in deference to the fact that the audience itself was as much part of the entertainment as what took place on the stage. The ladies, either alone or in the company of parents, chaperons or, since this was Paris, after all, lovers, occupied the boxes. The men, who were either unattached or pretending to be so, were in the stalls. She might be the only one whose mood was not in tune with the gaiety that seemed to pervade the theater like the opulent scent of a sensual perfume, Ariane noted sullenly, but she was certainly not the only one whose attention was elsewhere than on the stage.
Smiles, flutters of fans, flirtatious looks flew back and forth with dizzying speed. It was just like a horse fair back home, she thought with a sniff. Men came from all around the area with their horses, the manes and tails braided with bright-colored ribbons, hoping to attract a rich buyer. The only difference here was that the price for a wife who was blue-blooded and rich or for a beautiful, accomplished mistress was infinitely higher—for the buyer and the seller both.
