I haven’t read Most Eagerly Yours yet, but I’m really looking forward to doing so. Especially after Rowena’s review and this awesome excerpt. Check it out…
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Setup for excerpt: Aidan and Laurel have given into temptation and made love outdoors, on the grounds of a ruinous abbey in the Cotswolds. But despite their powerful attraction, they grapple with the reality that their lives are pulling them in opposite directions… Before they part, Aidan has a request…
His soft laughter infuriated her. How dare he find humor when all she wanted to do was bury her face in the nearest pillow and sob until her chest and throat and eyes ached more than her breaking heart?
It wasn’t his fault. He was correct in ending what should never have begun . . . but he seemed intent on making it as difficult and as painful as possible.
Especially now, as he took her in his arms and pressed her cheek to his chest, and the tears she hadn’t known were falling began to soak his shirtfront.
“I’m sorry,” she said between sobs. “I am not usually like this.”
“It’s been a long day. But before it ends, I have a request.”
She lifted her face and swiped her hands across her cheeks. “Yes?”
“A dance.”
“What? Here?”
“What more perfect place? You and I have danced beneath the stars before, Laurel. Don’t you hear the music now?”
“Don’t be silly. I hear only the breeze.” She paused to listen. “And the stream and crickets and a creaking branch . . .”
“Yes, and there is music in all of it.” His hand a warm and steady guide at her waist, he moved her away from the carriage and twirled her. Over the grassy terrain he swept her backward, forward, to the side, and back. At first she stumbled along, but by some miracle they fell into the graceful pattern of a three-count rhythm. He held her close and softly murmured the beats into her hair.
“Listen closely,” he whispered. “The strings, pianoforte, now the woodwinds. Let yourself hear it, feel it. Let it flow through you. . . .”
Suddenly the sensuous notes of a waltz drifted through her mind, enveloping her in sound, sensation, a thrilling sense that the world was hers—theirs—to command and shape. She felt alive, exhilarated . . . invincible.
“You hear it, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Now look up.”
As he whirled her in dizzying, glorious circles, she obeyed, lifting her face to the twinkling constellations and waiting for the next miracle.
“The stars, Laurel. They’re dancing. The bear, the wolf, the hunter. The virgin. Do you see them?”
Oh, they were, whirling and whirling in time to the music, to a beautiful waltz that only she and Aidan and the stars could hear.
And then the whirling stopped and all went still, the music coalescing into one long, beautiful, lingering note as Aidan bent his face over hers. At first she thought he would kiss her, but he only smiled into her eyes with longing and sadness and steely-edged resolve.
Her heart overflowed with all the love they would never share. “Why did you do that?”
“So that years from now it will be what you remember of this day. Not the disappointments or the heartache or my wretched failings, but the glory of commanding the earth to sing and the sky to dance. For you, Laurel. All for you.”
And she realized that though he might not be offering her a happily-ever-after, he had already given her more than she had ever imagined.
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Allison is giving away a copy! Go check out her awesome guest post on strong heroines to find out how you can win.
This book is available from Signet Eclipse. You can buy it here or here in e-format.
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