Title: Brazen
and the Beast
Author: Sarah
MacLean
ISBN: 9780062692078
Price: $7.99
On-Sale
Date: 7/30/19
Cover Copy:
New York Times Bestselling
Author Sarah MacLean returns with the next book in the Bareknuckle Bastards
series about three brothers bound by a secret that they cannot escape—and
the women who bring them to their knees.
The Lady’s Plan
When Lady Henrietta Sedley declares her twenty-ninth year her own,
she has plans to inherit her father’s business, to make her own fortune, and to
live her own life. But first, she intends to experience a taste of the pleasure
she’ll forgo as a confirmed spinster. Everything is going perfectly…until she
discovers the most beautiful man she’s ever seen tied up in her carriage and
threatening to ruin the Year of Hattie before it’s even begun.
The Bastard’s Proposal
When he wakes in a carriage at Hattie’s feet, Whit, a king of
Covent Garden known to all the world as Beast, can’t help but wonder about the
strange woman who frees him—especially when he discovers she’s headed for a
night of pleasure . . . on his turf. He is more than happy to offer Hattie all
she desires…for a price.
An Unexpected Passion
Soon, Hattie and Whit find themselves rivals in business and
pleasure. She won’t give up her plans; he won’t give up his power . . . and
neither of them sees that if they’re not careful, they’ll have no choice but to
give up everything . . . including their hearts.
Author Bio:
A life-long
romance reader, Sarah MacLean wrote her first romance novel on a dare, and
never looked back. She is the New York Times and USA
Today bestselling author of historical romances and a columnist
for The Washington Post, where she writes about the romance genre.
She lives in New York City. Visit her at www.sarahmaclean.net.
Excerpt:
Chapter
One
September 1837
Mayfair
In
twenty-eight years and three hundred sixty-four days, Lady Henrietta Sedley
liked to think that she’d learned a few things.
She’d
learned, for example, that if a lady could not get away with wearing trousers
(an unfortunate reality for the daughter of an earl, even one who had begun
life without title or fortune), then she should absolutely ensure that her
skirts included pockets. A woman never knew when she might require a bit of
rope, or a knife to cut it, after all.
She’d also
learned that any decent escape from her Mayfair home required the cover of
darkness and a carriage driven by an ally. Coachmen tended to talk a fine game
when it came to keeping secrets, but were ultimately beholden to those who paid
their salaries. An important addendum to that particular lesson was this: The
best of allies was often the best of friends.
And
perhaps first on the list of things she had learned in her lifetime was how to
tie a Bosun knot. She’d been able to do that for as long as she could remember.
With such
an obscure and uncommon collection of knowledge, one might imagine that
Henrietta Sedley would have known precisely what to do in the likelihood she
discovered a human male bound and unconscious in her carriage.
One would
be incorrect.
In point
of fact, Henrietta Sedley would never have described such a scenario as a
likelihood. After all, she might have been more comfortable on London’s docks
than in its ballrooms, but Hattie’s impressive collection of life experience
lacked anything close to a criminal element.
And yet,
here she was, pockets full, dearest friend at her side, standing in the pitch
dark on the night before her twenty-ninth birthday, about to steal away from
Mayfair for a night of best-laid plans, and…
Lady
Eleanora Madewell whistled, low and unladylike at Hattie’s ear. Daughter of a
duke and the Irish actress he loved so much he’d made her a duchess, Nora had
the kind of brashness that was allowed in those with impervious titles and
scads of money. “There’s a bloke in the gig, Hattie.”
Hattie did
not look away from the bloke in question. “Yes, I see that.”
“There
wasn’t a bloke in the gig when we hitched the horses.”
“No, there
wasn’t.” They’d left the hitched—and most definitely empty—carriage in the dark
rear drive of Sedley House not three-quarters of an hour earlier, before hiking
upstairs to exchange carriage-hitching dresses for attire more appropriate for
their evening plans.
At some
point between corset and kohl, someone had left her an extraordinarily
unwelcome package.
“Seems we would’ve
noticed a bloke in the gig,”
“I should
think we would have,” came Hattie’s distracted reply. “This is really just
awful timing.”
Nora cut
her a look. “Is there a good time for a man to be bound in one’s
carriage?”
Hattie
imagined there wasn’t, but, “He could have selected a different evening. What a
terrible birthday gift.” She squinted into the dark interior of the carriage.
“Do you think he’s dead?”
Please,
don’t let him be dead.
Silence.
Then, a thoughtful, “Does one store dead men in carriages?” Nora reached
forward, her coachman’s coat pulling tight over her shoulders, and poked the
dead man in question. He did not move. “He’s not moving,” she added. “Could be
dead.”
Hattie
sighed, removing a glove and leaning into the carriage to place two fingers to
the man’s neck. “I’m sure he’s not dead.”
“What are
you doing?” Nora whispered, urgently. “If he’s not dead, you’ll wake him!”
“That
wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world,” Hattie pointed out. “Then we could
ask him to kindly exit our conveyance and we could be on our way.”
“Oh, yes.
This brute seems like precisely the kind of man who would immediately do just
that and not immediately take his revenge. He’d no doubt doff his cap and wish
us a fine good evening.”
“He’s not
wearing a cap,” Hattie pointed out, unable to refute any of the rest of the
assessment of the mysterious, possibly dead man. He was very broad, and very
solid, and even in the darkness she could tell that this wasn’t a man with whom
one took a turn about a ballroom.
This was
the kind of man who ransacked a ballroom.
“What do
you feel?” Nora pressed.
“No
pulse.” Though she wasn’t precisely certain of the location one would find a
pulse. “But he’s—”
Warm.
Dead men
were not warm, and this man was very warm. Like a fire in winter. The kind of
warm that made someone realize how cold she might be.
Ignoring
the silly thought, Hattie moved her fingers down the column of his neck, to the
place where it disappeared beneath the collar of his shirt, where the curve of
his shoulder and the slope of…the rest of him… met in a fascinating
indentation.
“Anything
now?”
“Quiet.”
Hattie held her breath. Nothing. She shook her head.
“Christ.”
It wasn’t a prayer.
Hattie
couldn’t have agreed more. But then…
There. A small flutter. She pressed a touch more firmly. The flutter
became firm. Slow. Even. “I feel it. She said. “He’s alive.” She repeated
herself. “He’s alive.” She exhaled, long and relieved. “He’s not dead.”
“Excellent.
But it doesn’t change the fact that he’s unconscious in the carriage, and you
have somewhere to be.” She paused. “We should leave him and take the curricle.”
Hattie had
been planning for this particular excursion on this particular night for a full
three months. This was the night that would begin her twenty-ninth year. The
year her life would become her own. The year she would become her own.
And she had a very specific plan for a very specific location at a very
specific hour, for which she had donned a very specific frock. And yet, as she
stared at the man in her carriage, specifics seemed not at all important.
What
seemed important was seeing his face.
Clinging
to the handle at the edge of the door, Hattie collected the lantern from the
upper rear corner of the carriage before swinging back out to face Nora, whose
gaze flickered immediately to the unlit container.
Nora
tilted her head. “Hattie. Leave him. Let’s take the curricle.”
“Just a
peek,” Hattie replied.
The tilt
became a shake. “If you peek, you’ll regret it.”
“I have to
peek,” Hattie insisted, casting about for a decent reason—ignoring the odd fact
that she was unable to tell her friend the truth. “I have to untie him.”
“Not
necessarily,” Nora pointed out. “Someone thought he was best left tied up, and
who are we to disagree?” Hattie was already reaching into the pocket of the
carriage door for a flint. “What of your plans?”
There was
plenty of time for her plans. “Just a peek,” she repeated, the oil in the
lantern catching fire. She closed the door and turned to face the carriage,
lifting the light high, casting a lovely golden glow over—
“Oh, my,”
she said.
Nora
choked back a laugh. “Not such a bad gift after all, perhaps.”
The man
had the most beautiful face Hattie had ever seen. The most beautiful face anyone
had ever seen, she imagined. She leaned closer, taking in his warm, bronze
skin, the high cheekbones, the long, straight nose, the dark slashes of his
brows and the impossibly long lashes that lay like feathers against his cheeks.
“What kind
of man…” she trailed off. Shook her head.
What kind
of man looked like this?
What kind of man looked like this and
somehow landed in the carriage of Hattie
