His fingers were stroking the skin at the nape of her neck.
His mouth was curved into a smile that was blatantly sensual. It was there again in his eyes, that heat, and she was pretty certain it was there in hers too.
âIain, we are just pretending to be engaged.â
âAye, but there are other things weâve no need to pretend about. You know I still want you, Cordelia.â
âDid you have this in mind when you suggested our engagement?â
âNo, and I wonât change my mind if youâre not interested. I think you are, though.â Iain laughed softly. âKnowing that you want me as much as I want youâhave you any idea what that does to me?â His expression darkened momentarily. âI donât want you subservient to my desires, Cordelia, I want my desires to be yours. Yours to be mine.â
His words were a low, stomach-clenching growl. âMy desires to be yours?â she repeated, mesmerised.
âAnd yours to be mine. Admit it, we have unfinished business.â
Born and educated in Scotland, MARGUERITE KAYE originally qualified as a lawyer but chose not to practise. Instead, she carved out a career in IT and studied history part-time, gaining a first-class honours and a masterâs degree. A few decades after winning a childrenâs national poetry competition she decided to pursue her lifelong ambition to write, and submitted her first historical romance to Mills & Boon>®. They accepted it, and sheâs been writing ever since.
You can contact Marguerite through her website at: www.margueritekaye.com.
Previous novels by the same author:
THE WICKED LORD RASENBY
THE RAKE AND THE HEIRESS INNOCENT IN THE SHEIKHâS HAREMâ (part of Summer Sheikhs anthology) THE GOVERNESS AND THE SHEIKHâ THE HIGHLANDERâS REDEMPTION* THE HIGHLANDERâS RETURN* RAKE WITH A FROZEN HEART OUTRAGEOUS CONFESSIONS OF LADY DEBORAH DUCHESS BY CHRISTMAS (part of Gift-Wrapped Governesses anthology) THE BEAUTY WITHIN RUMOURS THAT RUINED A LADY
and in Mills & Boon>® Historical Undone! eBooks:
THE CAPTAINâS WICKED WAGER
THE HIGHLANDER AND THE SEA SIREN BITTEN BY DESIRE TEMPTATION IS THE NIGHT CLAIMED BY THE WOLF PRINCEâ¡ BOUND TO THE WOLF PRINCEâ¡ THE HIGHLANDER AND THE WOLF PRINCESSâ¡ THE SHEIKHâS IMPETUOUS LOVE-SLAVEâ SPELLBOUND & SEDUCED BEHIND THE COURTESANâS MASK FLIRTING WITH RUIN AN INVITATION TO PLEASURE LOST IN PLEASURE HOW TO SEDUCE A SHEIKH
In the Mills & BoonCastonbury ParkRegency mini-series:
THE LADY WHO BROKE THE RULES
and in M&B eBooks: TITANIC: A DATE WITH DESTINY
â linked by character *Highland Bridesâ¡Legend of the Faol
Did you know that some of these novels are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk
I live on the west coast of Scotland and work in a room that faces right out onto the River Clyde. While I write I see the ferries traipsing back and forth across the river, I see warships and nuclear submarines making their way to and from the naval base at Faslane, and I see huge cruise ships, tankers, trawlers and tiny creelers. In the summer months I also see the Waverley, the only surviving sea-going paddle steamer in the world, and it was the Waverley which provided me with the inspiration for my ship-building hero Iain.
Mind you, I suppose you could say that ship-building is in my blood. My paternal grandfather worked in some of the biggest yards on the Clyde during the Second World War, and in the 1960s was part of the team that built the Queen Elizabeth II. My maternal grandfather was a captain in the Merchant navy, and twice sunk during the same war (he survived both). When I first started to write I remember reading the mantra âwrite what you knowâ over and over in various âhow to writeâ books. Since Iâve never found my previous life in IT particularly romantic, I guess this story is as good as âwriting what you knowâ as Iâm going to get!
As ever with my books, the plot has gone through a whole series of changes as the characters developed. My dogged perusal of a learned tome called Money, Mania and Markets by R. C. Michie resulted in one fleeting reference to Cordeliaâs investment portfolio. The majority of the scenes that I had planned to set in Glasgow ended up on my virtual cutting-room floor, though Iâve used some of their ambience in the scene where Cordelia and Iain visit the Isle of Dogs. While Iâd set Cordelia up with some passing references in both THE BEAUTY WITHIN and RUMOURS THAT RUINED A LADY, to be honest, I had no more idea than her sisters of why she ran away and what her fate was. I started out putting her in a convent in Italy, then I set her up in business in Glasgow building hotels for young ladies, and at one point I gave her a child, which I killed off and then abandoned altogether.
What I did realise very early on was that she needed a very strong heroâa self-made man to match her self-made woman. Setting the story in the year of Queen Victoriaâs ascendancy followedânot only because I needed Cordelia to have packed a bit of experience under her belt, but because it was with Victoria that the meritocracy started to nudge the aristocracy out of power, and I was very keen that her blackguard of a father, Lord Armstrong, was dealt if not a mortal blow then a fairly serious wound to his power base.