Get Lost in Historical Romance with a Twist from Katharine Ashe

Historical romance… with a twist.

The one that got away…

Six years ago, Tacitus Everard, the Marquess of Dare, made the worst mistake of his life: courting vibrant, sparklingly beautiful Lady Calista Chance—until she broke his heart.

Is the only one she wants.

Six years ago, Calista Holland made the biggest misstep of her life: begging handsome, wealthy Lord Dare to help her run away from home—then marrying someone else.

Now, trapped by disaster in a country inn, Calista has one day to convince the marquess she’s worth a second chance, and Dare has one goal, to steer clear of déjà vu. But when the day takes an unimaginable twist, what will it take to end up in each other’s arms?

EXCERPT from Again, My Lord

    He stood before her, soaked by the sheets of rain that perfectly matched his beautifully intense gray eyes. Still as stone and severe of jaw and stance, he stared at her without speaking as water streamed off the brim of his hat and the cape of his coat. Even with rain washing across his features, he was as handsome as ever: tall and dark and broad-shouldered, with the sort of jaw a woman longed to stroke and lips that stole her reason. And as stiff as a steel rod.

    “I beg your pardon,” he said across the rain. “Is he all right?”

    “Yes, sir!” Harry volunteered. “Grand horse you’ve got there, sir!”

    “Yes, well, he’s a goer.” He looked at her. “Forgive me, madam. I was … That is …” He scowled.

    Calista grasped her son’s slippery hand. “Come now, Harry. We must dry you off before you depart.” She drew him back into the inn as he craned his neck.

    Evelina stood in the doorway. “It’s him.”

    “Who?” Harry said.

    Calista glared at her sister. “No one.” Going to her sodden knees in the foyer she dusted raindrops from her son’s coat, and removed his hat and shook it out.

    “But, Mama—”

    “Harry,” she said firmly.

    Her son’s lips shut tight. “Yes, Mama.”

    Her heart twisted anew. Despite the Chance spirit he’d been born with, he had learned to be docile from necessity.

    Ignoring every lesson about stalwart strength in the face of adversity that she had taught her son over the past five years, she wrapped her arms around him again and pressed her face into the crook of his shoulder.

    “I will miss you, my darling,” she whispered fiercely.

    “I’ll miss you too, Mama.”

    She drew away. “Now, listen to your aunt and Grandmama this month.”

    “And to Cook,” he said.

    “Yes, and to Cook, so she will bake your favorite biscuits and allow you to taste the bread as soon as it is out of the oven,” she repeated the comforting words she had been telling him the entire journey to this tiny inn in this little village where Richard had instructed her to leave him in her sister’s care. She looked into his sober face that had never resembled her husband’s, rather featured the Chance black hair, blue eyes, and defiant chin. Harry would be better off at Dashbourne than at home, free to be a boy. It was she who would hate every day of this month apart. She stroked his cheek, then stood.

Lord Dare filled the inn doorway, his coat dripping, knees and boots muddy, and face inscrutable. A scar now cut across his jaw, lending an air of danger to his male beauty.

    “My lord,” she bit through tight lips.

    His attention shifted to Harry at her hip.

    “Do you know him, Mama?” her son whispered in the comically voluble whisper of the young.

    She reached down and clasped his little fingers. “He is Lord Dare. Bow to him now, darling.”

    Harry cut a neat little bow, his eyes remaining wide.

    “Why doesn’t he come in out of the rain?” His whisper filled the foyer.

    “Because he is a peculiar man,” she said. “Peculiar men who are very wealthy do anything they want.”

    “Even stand in the rain?” Harry asked skeptically.

    “You should see me when it snows,” Lord Dare said, and stepped into the foyer. His voice was as deep and velvety as it had been years ago. Adorned with a caped greatcoat and tall crowned hat, his presence dominated the small space. Were he atop a mountain, Calista thought, he would still seem to command the peaks with his quiet authority and stormy eyes.

Meet Katharine

Katharine Ashe is the bestselling, award winning author of historical romances that reviewers call “intensely lush” and “sensationally intelligent,” including 2015 RITA® Award Finalist My Lady, My Lord. A professor of history, she writes romance because she thinks modern readers deserve grand adventures and breathtaking sensuality too.

Website: www.katharineashe.com

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Where you can find: Again, My Lord

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E.E.: What’s your favorite cartoon character?

Katharine: Flynn Rider from Disney’s Tangled. He’s a rogue with a heart of gold, my favorite sort of hero.

E.E.: What’s your favorite movie of all time?

Katharine: Moonstruck. 

E.E.: Who’s your favorite villain?

Katharine: It’s a tie between Captain Barbossa in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, because he’s so spectacularly funny and tragic, and Angelus from Buffy Season Two because HE BROKE MY HEART.

E.E.: Be honest, when reading...do you put yourself in the heroine’s role?

Katharine: Yes. And also in the hero’s role. I fall in love – hard -- every time I write a novel, but with the couple. He’s perfect for her, ideally fashioned to be the other half of her heart. And vice versa. When I fall in love it’s with them together. I think I actually fall in love with their love.

E.E.: What’s something you’d like to tell your fans?

Katharine: That I love them. That I’m grateful for them. That their appreciation for my stories allows me to do the work I love to do the most--every day--and I cannot thank them enough for that gift.

E.E.: If you couldn’t be a writer anymore, what profession would you take up?

Katharine: Sitting in the corner of a dark room and weeping. Wait, that isn’t a profession. Could I make it one? WHY HAVE YOU ASKED ME THIS QUESTION!?! Actually, I used to be a full-time academic, and I still teach history part-time at university. Teaching is a delight and infinitely inspiring.

E.E.: Tea or Coffee? And how do you take it?

Katharine: Tea when it’s rainy or cold or late at night or I have the sniffles or when there are petit fours and tiny sandwiches nearby. Coffee with heated milk to open my eyes to the day, and with a pastry later in the morning. (Pastries loom large in my daily reality.)

E.E.: What is your hero’s “kryptonite” – in other words, what will bring him instantly to his knees?

Katharine: The touch of Calista’s hand.

QUESTION FOR OUR LOVELY READERS

What would you do with a single day if you could live it over again and again until you got it right?

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