The Illicit Love of a Courtesan
Pure, unadulterated romance. Best Chick Lit.comIn the eyes of the ton, Ellen Harding lives a charmed life – she is the beautiful, exquisitely adorned mistress of Lord Gainsborough.But on the inside, behind her glamorous façade, she is empty – a vessel – deaf to the voice of morality and blind to shame. Unable to escape the gilded cage she has been trapped within.Kind, gentle Edward Marlow could prove to be her salvation… With one look he gives her hope. With one touch he sets her senses alight.Lose yourself in the passionate intensity of this stunning debut from exciting new talent Jane Lark.
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The Illicit Love of a Courtesan
Jane Lark
A division of HarperCollinsPublishers
www.harpercollins.co.uk
Contents
I love writing authentic, passionate and emotional love stories.
I began my first novel, a historical, when I was sixteen, but life derailed me a bit when I started suffering with Ankylosing Spondylitis, so I didn’t complete a novel until after I was thirty when I put it on my to do before I’m forty list.
Now I love getting caught up in the lives and traumas of my characters, and I’m so thrilled to be giving my characters life in others’ imaginations, especially when readers tell me they’ve read the characters just as I’ve tried to portray them.
“Jane Lark has an incredible talent to draw the reader in from the first page onwards.”
Cosmo Chick Litan Book Reviews
"Any description that I give you would not only spoil the story but could not give this book a tenth of the justice that it deserves. Wonderful!"
Candy Coated Book Blog
"This book held me captive after the first 2 pages. If I could crawl inside and live in there with the characters I would."
A Reading Nurse Blogspot
“The book swings from truly swoon-worthy, tense and heart wrenching, highly erotic and everything else in between.”
Best Chick Lit.com
“I love Ms. Lark's style—beautifully descriptive, emotional and can I say, just plain delicious reading? This is the kind of mixer upper I've been looking for in romance lately.”
Devastating Reads BlogSpot
Perfectly positioned to view one of the ton’s fairest sons, Ellen’s eyes were drawn from Lord Gainsborough’s playing cards to the man seated across the table—Lord Edward Marlow, the second born son of the tenth Earl of Barrington. He was newly in town and therefore a novelty, an enigma. Every mistress and courtesan in the room had been watching him all evening and she was no exception.
Lord Edward’s long, manicured fingers moved, poising above his cards. Ellen openly stared, the low light in the room and its stale hazy air, thick with tobacco smoke, hiding her scrutiny from the watching crowd.
His hair was dark brown and gentle curls tumbled from his crown, licking his forehead and the high collar of his black, tailed evening coat, Brutus style. In the candlelight thrown by the chandelier above, his hair glistened with a variety of rich, roasted coffee bean shades.
His head lifted and she indulged her eyes with his severe yet perfect, profile. He exuded authority. The man was sleek strength and sophistication. The muscle of his jaw tight, his lips rose as if to smile, but hesitated as though some thought stopped him, and she saw doubt or indecision pass across his expression. Then his eyelids lifted and his dark, intense gaze clashed with hers, a pale blue, more like slate-grey.
Embarrassed and a little flustered, Ellen’s appraisal fell to his hands.
His fingers teased out a card and threw it to the table while she felt his gaze burn into her.
Desire stirring, she pictured the pleasure those fingers could give a woman and the air in the room was suddenly hot and thick, despite the cool winter night outside.
Ellen lifted her open fan and fluttered it gently to cool her skin as her gaze drifted back to his face. He was still watching her. One dark eyebrow rose and his broad lips smiled. Her gaze hovering on his, she mirrored his smile, her heart pounding as though she was already coupling with him. She imagined his mouth on hers and a hot blush touched her skin. The sweeps of her fan increasing, her imagination drifted on towards indecency—impossibility—picturing tangled limbs and warm flesh.
Light caught the jet-black pools in his eyes, as though he saw the pictures forming in her thoughts and his captivating smile twisted with implied agreement. It turned his features from handsome to utterly devastating.
A hot flush spread like a caress down her throat to her breasts and lower, racing across her skin.
“I shall raise you a hundred, Marlow. Will you match me?” Lord Gainsborough’s brusque challenge sliced through the silent communication she shared with Lord Edward.
His gaze tore away, his blank expression cutting her, apparently dismissing their flirtation. Instead it focused upon Lord Gainsborough.
Ellen stood behind Lord Gainsborough and slightly to his side, in her protector’s shadow, oppressed. Oppression was Lord Gainsborough’s pleasure and Lord Gainsborough’s pleasure was her life. Her gaze fell to the seam at the centre of the back of his black evening coat. The pressure of his bloated body strained it. Excess was another of his passions.
Revulsion stirred. She despised the man—her protector. Yet preference was irrelevant. She was tied to him, trapped by him. He had blackmailed her into obedience five years ago and now here she stood, her soul and conscience dead while her body lived on, fulfilling his dissolute desires. She was empty, a vessel, deaf to the voice of morality and blind to shame.
