The Marriage Knot

“I’d watch what I wore at midnight under a full moon, if I were you.”Letter to ReaderTitle PageAbout the AuthorDedicationPrologueChapter OneChapter TwoChapter ThreeChapter FourChapter FiveChapter SixChapter SevenChapter EightChapter NineChapter TenChapter ElevenChapter TwelveChapter ThirteenChapter FourteenChapter FifteenChapter SixteenChapter SeventeenChapter EighteenChapter NineteenChapter TwentyPrologueChapter OneCopyright

“I’d watch what I wore at midnight under a full moon, if I were you.”

As if to underscore his meaning, Delaney’s eyes traveled the length of Hannah’s pale silk wrapper—a slow and keen appraisal.

Hannah’s shoulders stiffened and her chin came up. “I’ll wear what I choose, Sheriff, and when I choose. How others react to that isn’t my concern.”

He shifted the shotgun slightly. The grim set of his mouth eased into a small smile. “That’s a fine notion, ma’am, and if you lived in a fairy-tale castle, I guess it would suffice. But you wander around like that here—” he angled his head, indicating her wrapper “—and you best be prepared to deal with the consequences.”

“Consequences!” Hannah was furious, rising from her perch on the railing as if it had caught fire. Why, the man was clearly accusing her of out-and-out seduction...!

Dear Reader,

Heroes come in many forms, as this month’s books prove—from the roguish knight and the wealthy marquess to the potent gunslinger and the handsome cowboy.

Longtime Harlequin Historical author Mary McBride has created a potent gunslinger-turned-sheriff in The Marriage Knot, and has given her hero a flaw: a wounded hand. With his smooth, almost shy demeanor and raw masculinity, Delaney is irresistible. He’s also reliable and in love (only he doesn’t know it yet), which is why old Ezra Dancer wills his house—and his young widow—to Delaney for safekeeping.

You must meet Will Brockett, the magnetically charming wrangler who uncharacteristically finds his soul mate in the tomboy who’s loved him from afar, in A Cowboy’s Heart by Liz Ireland. Fans of roguish knights will adore Ross Lion Sutherland and the lovely female clan leader he sets his sights on in Taming the Lion, the riveting new SUTHERLAND SERIES medieval novel by award-winning author Suzanne Barclay.

Rounding out the month is Nicholas Stanhope, the magnificent Marquess of Englemere in The Wedding Gamble, a heart-wrenching Regency tale of duty, desire—and danger—by newcomer and Golden Heart winner Julia Justiss.

Whatever your tastes in reading, you’ll be sure to find a romantic journey back to the past between the covers of a Harlequin Historicals^>® novel.

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

The Marriage Knot

Mary McBride

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MARY McBRIDE is a former special education teacher who lives in St. Louis, Missouri, with her husband and two young sons. She loves to correspond with readers, and invites them to write to her at: P.O. Box 4J1202, St. Louis, MO 63141.

For Joan C. Gunter

with affection and deep appreciation.

Prologue

Kansas, 1880

Until the morning Ezra Dancer shot himself, not much had happened in Newton. The railroad had come through in 1871, and for one wild summer the town was full of cowboys and longhorns, gamblers and quacks and whores. Newton was as sinful then as any Sodom or Gomorrah, but that honor—along with the cowboys and longhorns, the gamblers, quacks and whores—had long since passed west with the railroad to Dodge City.

Newton’s makeshift tents and rickety shacks had been replaced with painted clapboard and solid brick. Most of the saloons had given way to drier businesses—Kelleher’s Feed and Grain, the Merchant’s Bank, the First Methodist Church—and where Madam Lola’s canvas and cardboard brothel once had been, the citizens had built themselves a school.

As in most law-abiding towns, there was a jail for anyone who crossed the line, and there was a sheriff with a tough reputation to insure that nobody did.

Delaney.

His name was rarely spoken solo. Likely as not, it was mentioned in the same sentence as the Earps—Wyatt and Virgil and Morgan—and that reprobate dentist, Doc Holliday. But when the Earps and Holliday departed Kansas for the warmer clime and hotter prospects of Arizona in the autumn of ’79, Delaney stood alone.

Or, to be more exact, he lay alone on a cot in a back room of the U.S. Marshall’s office in Dodge City.

“Too bad you can’t come with us,” Morgan Earp had said in all sincerity, his eyes deliberately averted from Delaney’s wounded arm.

“He will, I expect, as soon as he mends,” Doc had said. “Isn’t that so, Delaney?”

Although he had nodded a grim yes to Doc, Delaney hadn’t followed them to Arizona after all, but had come—bad arm and a worse disposition—to Newton instead. And not a lot had happened in the six months since he’d taken the job of sheriff. There had been a brawl or two, and one domestic dispute that involved a horsewhip and a kitchen knife. But there hadn’t been a shooting until the morning Ezra Dancer put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger.