Smitten by Books

A day late but not a dollar short in this case.  Instead of Excerpt Thursday, I’m giving you a special Excerpt Friday, which means it’s time to ‘Get Hooked’. Today, we have the talented Jackie Barbosa, who is giving us a peek from brand new release–as in today—GRACE UNDER FIRE. Let me know if you were hooked.

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London, 1795

While most of Society views Lady Grace Hannington as a clumsy laughingstock, Atticus Stilwell and Viscount Colin Fitzgerald see their perfect partner—a woman who is more than enough for not just one man, but two. She is well-bred enough to be the wife Colin needs, with a blossoming sensuality both men cannot wait to taste.

But Grace will also need strength to withstand the ton’s scrutiny if she agrees to their scandalous arrangement. Can Atticus and Colin show her enough wicked pleasure to convince her to become theirs forever?

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GRACE UNDER FIRE by Jackie Barbosa
Available April 1, 2011 from Harlequin Spice Briefs

“Here you are, my lady,” Mr. Dimpled Cheek said, turning the knob and swinging inward the door to the retiring room.

“Thank you, s-sir,” she acknowledged, stepping inside the small chamber furnished with a dressing table and chair, a settee, and a privy screen. Unfortunately, she saw nothing to aid her in her current plight. Perhaps she would just hide for the remainder of the night. No one would miss her anyway, least of all Aunt Georgie, whose snores were likely loud enough by now to be heard over the music.

She turned to close the door and found her rescuer had followed her inside. Along with his friend.

Alarm and something else—was it excitement?—tingled along her skin. “I’m sorry, but I don’t believe I invited you to join me.” How she got all those words out without a single stutter was beyond her, but the exultation curling through her veins made her bold.

“I know,” Mr. Dimpled Cheek said, “but we have a matter of some importance to discuss with you. Privately.”

Oh dear. Her stomach flip-flopped at the way his eyes went dreamy and his voice dropped low when he said the word “privately.”

This was bad. Very bad.

So why wasn’t she afraid?

Sir Blue Eyes shut the door and locked it before leaning against it.

Her eyes widened a fraction, and her heart lurched irregularly. She was trapped. About to be ravished. But instead of finding the prospect horrifying, she burned with anticipation…and curiosity.

She didn’t know precisely what it meant to be ravished—except that no respectable gentleman would ever marry her afterward, but it wasn’t as if she’d been getting any interest from respectable gentlemen up to now, was it?—but she suddenly wished she did. Wished she knew what they would do to her in the privacy of this room that would ruin her for life. Because the dark, intense look in these men’s eyes didn’t make her feel threatened. And for once, she wasn’t too tall, too buxom, too red-haired, too clumsy Grace, but a woman worthy of the desire of not one, but two, of the handsomest men she had ever seen.