Get Lost in Regency Magic with Rebecca Paisley

A Basket of Wishes is magical. Seriously, magic. There's this fairy, you see...
Well, I'll let you read for yourself.

From Amber House Books

 Can love’s tender spell melt the icy heart of a duke?

      Jourdian Amberville, the Duke of Heathcourte, is looking for the perfect bride. A practical and staid companion who will fit into his perfectly ordered life and never tempt him to fall in love. What he is not looking for is a violet-eyed sprite who tumbles right out of the sky to knock him off his horse.

     Jourdian doesn’t know that Splendor is an actual fairy princess seeking the human mate she is destined to love. After they are forced to wed to avert a scandal, Jourdian realizes his new wife is no ordinary duchess, but a tender-hearted temptress who talks to animals and weeps diamond teardrops. 
     The delightful chaos the mischievous beauty brings to his life threatens to make him lose not only his temper…but his heart.  
     If Jourdian is to keep Splendor, he must learn to surrender that heart to the strongest, most dangerous magic of all—the magic of true love.

In this morsel from A Basket of Wishes, Jourdian Amberville, the Duke of Heathcourte has just been unseated from his horse by a peculiar young woman who seemed to tumble right out of the sky…

     Jourdian saw a burst of silver light, then a flash of white before Magnus shied, bucked, and reared.

Unprepared for his horse’s sudden panic, Jourdian fell off the frightened stallion and toppled to the cold ground. Pain surged through his head; his thoughts swayed dizzily through his mind. He felt displaced, as if he wasn’t really there but was only watching what was happening from another place.

     He shut his eyes.

     Stars danced before him. Not unusual, considering the hard fall he’d taken. But why did he think he smelled spring wildflowers? The fresh fragrance was so real, it was almost as if he were lying amidst a bed of the fragile blossoms.

     May flowers in November? God, his fall must have been worse than he’d realized.

     He lay motionless, still watching stars twinkle. A moment later, he felt as though something pressed against his chest. It didn’t weigh much, but it was there, just like the scent of wildflowers that lingered around him.

     He opened his eyes and saw other eyes. Violet eyes, and they gazed at him with a combination of curiosity and pleasure. Full of sparkle and fringed with long, thick lashes, they were the sweetest, most mesmerizing eyes Jourdian had ever beheld, and he felt powerless to look away from them.

The owner of the pretty lavender eyes lay fully upon him, and it wasn’t at all difficult to discern her sex. The only thing she was wearing was the cloak of her copper hair, the alluring perfume of spring wildflowers…

     And stars. The tiny lights shimmered all over her.

     She looked like an angel.

     Disbelief slammed into him. “Am—am I dead?”

     She shook her head.

     An angel wouldn’t lie, Jourdian decided. He wasn’t dead. Closing his eyes again, he strove for a plausible explanation.

     Maybe he’d been knocked unconscious. Perhaps the naked, sweetly scented girl was but a dream, a figment of his senseless state. A real person wouldn’t go strolling through fields without clothes on—especially on a chilly November day. A dream would also explain her slight weight. After all, she was composed of nothing but his imagination and a myriad of silver stars.

     But he didn’t feel asleep. Indeed, he was fully aware of every sight, scent, and sound around him.

What the bloody hell was happening to him?

     He opened his eyes, looked at the girl, and again saw the sparkles swirling around her. Either she was a fantasy or a constellation had fallen from the sky into his arms. And since a fantasy was more believable, Jourdian realized then that he was definitely in the throes of a dream, the most realistic he’d ever experienced.

     “Hello,” she said.

     The fragile dream spoke, and Jourdian decided her voice was softer than the stirring of a bird’s wing. Her breath wafted across his chin, warm like a sunbeam, and her pale pink lips curved into a shy, lovely smile that wrinkled her small nose in a most enchanting manner.

     “Your scent is supremely pleasant,” she told him. “’Tis the sort one might come upon while meandering through the woods in the winter.”

     Ordinarily, Jourdian would not have returned a smile given him by a naked stranger lying on top of him, but since he was obviously out cold he felt perfectly free to participate in and enjoy his dream to the fullest. Not only did he smile back at her but he also lifted his hands from the ground and gently clasped her tiny, bare waist.

     She was warm and soft, and her scent of wildflowers flowed through his senses like petals drifting on a gentle breeze.

     “Oh,” Splendor whispered when he touched her. Strength began to trickle through her limbs. 
     Gradually the energy she’d lost during her chaotic flight across the meadow returned to her, and it was with great relief that she realized she would not be forced to shrink to fairy size to regain what little vigor she possessed.
     She shifted, lifting her head from the Trinity’s broad shoulder and trailing her fingers lightly across his temple. His pulse thumped beneath the tips of her fingers. A strong and steady beat, it reminded her anew of the power locked within his massive frame, and she understood then that the strength she felt flowing through her was not her own, but his.
     Excitement rushed through her. Her great-grandfather and father had been right! Just being close to a human bolstered a fairy’s vitality. 
     “You’ve wonderful eyes,” she told him, her gaze locked with his. “There are some who believe rain has no color, but I will tell you now that they are wrong. Rain is silver and iridescent, like the wing dust of certain butterflies and moths. When you rub those wings, the dust glistens on your fingertip. ’Tis a lovely thing to see. Your eyes are such a silver, like rain and the glistening wing dust, and I do not think staring into them for hour upon hour would be a difficult task.”
     Jourdian thought about what she’d said. No woman had ever commented on the color of his eyes before.
     “And your lips…” Splendor said. “Full and soft and slightly parted, and I have a glimpse of your teeth, which are as white as the water lilies that float in the pond where I bathe. You have no hair on your face. I am glad for that, for if you wore a beard I would nay have discovered the mole on your right cheek. ’Tis a mark I find quite dashing.”
     “You chatter,” he said, grinning.
     “Aye. I cannot help it. I have tried to help it, but there are so many, many things that occur to me that I fear I would burst if I could not somehow release them. Sometimes, however, I am as quiet as the flailing of a snowflake. Many believe me ill when I am so quiet, but I have only been ill once in my life. A cat scratched me. He was a black cat with eyes as green as poison. My skin is sensitive, and the cat scratch caused me such torment that I took to my bed and did not rise for a full fortnight. The cat would have eaten me alive, and I’m sure that there can be no death more horrible. I do not like cats. Not at all. I am fond of hens and rabbits, however, because they don’t chase me as cats do.”

     “Rabbits,” he echoed, his mind spinning with all the things she’d told him. “Cats chase you?”

     “Aye, but rabbits and hens do not.”
     He smiled again. He simply couldn’t help it. There was something so sweet, so good about her. “Sprite,” he said softly, touching one of her shimmering red curls.
     She frowned slightly. Did he already know of her Faerie origins? “Why do you call me so?”
     “Sprite? You remind me of one.”

     “You have seen sprites?”

     He smiled indulgently. “No, but I’m sure they look like you. Delicate. And shimmery, with impish smiles and whimsical ways about them.”

     He didn’t know what she was, she realized. Sprite was only a pet name. “I am supremely certain,” she said, “that you are the most beautiful creature ever to draw breath.” Her gaze caressing his face once more, she grinned at him.

     And no power on earth could have kept Jourdian from kissing that dreamy, dazzling smile. Drawn to her ethereal beauty and intrinsic goodness, he gently pressed his lips to hers and knew he had never encountered such sweetness. She tasted like warm honey—literally—as if she had just partaken of the luscious substance and it yet clung to her lips.

     “What—what is this you do?” Splendor whispered, her mouth still touching his.

     Jourdian ended the kiss and saw true bewilderment floating within her luminous eyes. Well, she was only an illusion, he reminded himself. A beautiful and innocent chimera who had no way of knowing what a kiss was.

     Far be it from him to allow her to end before he’d tutored her in the art of sensuality.

“It’s called a kiss, and we were kissing.”

     She thought about that for a moment, but could make no sense of it. “Why do you do it?”
     “You didn’t like it?”

     She looked at his lips again. “It didn’t repulse me in the slightest.”

     Her answer rankled. This was his fantasy, damn it all, and he would dream it the way he wanted, with her writhing in his arms.

     He clutched her slight shoulders and touched his lips to hers once more. A low moan escaped him as he drove his tongue into her mouth, seeking and finding more of her delectable sweetness.

     Surprised though she was by his strange actions, Splendor felt filled with such incredible strength that she was certain she could fly around the world. At the very least she felt she could remain human sized for several days without having to shrink.

     “Now how do you feel?” Jourdian asked smugly.

     “Strong! Why, I have never been this strong! ’Tis magnificent this kissing!”

     Strong? Jourdian repeated mentally. He’d rather hoped that his kiss would make her weak with desire.

     Slowly, he slid his hands up the sides of her body, then moved them over her chest. Her breasts barely filled his palms, but their size didn’t disappoint him in the least, for they were two handfuls of exquisite softness.

     And the sudden stiffening of her rosy nipples assured him he was making sensual progress. Gliding his hands downward again, he moved her hips so that they fit into the cradle of his.

     Splendor felt his loins pressing into her. Confused, fascinated, and curious, she rotated her hips over the thick, turgid feel of him. “You have become hard and hot, like sunbaked stone. And you grow in size. The way you have changed… ’Tis as if by magic.”

     “Magic?” He smiled. “No, sprite. It’s your beauty that brings about such changes.”

His statement made her forget to take her next breath.

     “You say I’m beautiful,” she whispered. “That can only mean that you have succumbed. You will now admit to your enchantment with me.”

     At her bold demand and imperious tone of voice Jourdian raised a brow. No one but the queen and a dream would dare to speak to him thus.

     “I am waiting,” Splendor said.

     He decided to indulge her. She was, after all, only a fantasy. “Very well, I am enchanted, miss,” he complied, smoothing his hands over the pale swells of her bottom. “Exceedingly so. But I hardly think that being enchanted with a dream will serve much purpose other than allowing me a small time of enjoyment before I wake up.”

     Splendor raised her head from his shoulder, her action spilling her thick hair over the side of his face. He thought her a dream? Sweet everlasting, how was she to convince him she was real?

Delicious solved the problem for her. The graceful swan descended from the sky, landed next to Jourdian’s head and, with one quick motion bestowed a stinging peck upon His Grace’s ear.

     “Bloody hell!” Jourdian shouted.

     “One cannot feel pain in a dream, can one?” Splendor asked, sliding her finger down the length of the great bird’s neck. “This is Delicious. I’m sure he gave you a love bite when he nipped at your ear, but I shall nay know for certain until I have a word with him later.”

     Jourdian’s ear stung viciously, and it came to him then that his head continued to throb, though only slightly now.

     He felt pain.

     This was not a dream! The naked girl was real, and he’d touched her breasts and derrière. He, the duke of Heathcourte, had lain in a field pawing a girl whose name he did not even know.

Meet Rebecca

Since her debut novel was published, bestselling author Rebecca Paisley has become known for creating her very own unique brand of magic on the page. She decided early in her career to write the sort of books she wanted to read. Her determination earned her a slot on the Publishers Weekly bestseller list and the Romance Writer's of America Honor Roll. She's been a RITA finalist, won the Romantic Times’ “Lifetime Achievement Award” and “Career Achievement Award,” a Reviewers’ Choice Award for “Historical Romance Fantasy” and a “Best Love and Laughter” Award.

Rebecca currently lives in North Carolina with her menagerie of beloved pets, still believes in magic, and still relies on the “pixie voices in her head” to inspire her as she works on a brand new book.

Visit Rebecca’s website http://www.rebeccapaisley.net
Join Rebecca on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/RebeccaPaisleyAuthor
Learn more about Rebecca's books at http://www.amberhousebooks.com

Follow her on Twitter: @Rebecca_Paisley

E.E.: What prompted you to write A BASKET OF WISHES?

Rebecca: I have a fascination with fantasy.  Anything magical.  I think that’s why I chose romance to write as well.  I have the precise sort of unbridled imagination needed to write A BASKET OF WISHES.  There were no rules.  No “That could never happen.  Please edit that out.”  Because everything COULD happen.  And it did.  I had more fun with WISHES than anything else I’ve ever written and am already working on another story very much like it.

E.E.: What is in your heroine’s reticule?

Rebecca: Nothing.  She’s naked for almost the whole book.  Fairies don’t wear clothes, a shocking fact that has the hero constantly trying to throw a robe or blanket on her.

E.E.: What is your favorite fairy tale?

Rebecca: Cinderella.  I think that story ribbons through every book I’ve written.  I realize women are perfectly capable of saving themselves most of the time, but I will never stop loving the thought of a powerful man rescuing a heroine who needs rescuing.  And, really, in all my books the heroine rescues the hero too. 

Also, I love the fairy tale in my own book, A BASKET OF WISHES.  Splendor is a very innocent, yet outrageous fairy with an aversion to clothes.  But her heart is the purest heart God ever gave to anyone.  (Yes, God takes care of His fairies too.)  Splendor’s hero, Jourdian, is a man who is sick to death of the wiles of the women who only want him for his fortune and the title of Duchess.  Splendor captured me from the first word of the book until THE END.  I miss her and still think about her all the time, which is why I want to write another magical book.

E.E.: What is your hero’s kryptonite? What brings him to his knees?

Rebecca: When the heroine gets her feelings hurt.  She doesn’t have to cry (like I do because I have a mini geyser inside of me), but if he sees even a tiny flash of hurt in her eyes - however fleeting - it will immediately make him want to take every smidegeon of hurt away from her.  And this is because my heroines are strong-minded.  The hero is used to her strong will.  So when he sees hurt on her face, he knows whatever hurt her is really, really bad.  Sometimes it’s the hero himself who has hurt her.  Sometimes it’s a mean secondary character.  Sometimes it’s a memory.  But whatever it is, the hero cannot rest until joy lights up her gaze once more.  And sometimes he struggles to make her hurt go away before he even likes her!

E.E.: Who is your favorite cartoon character?

Rebecca: Ummm…  Like TV cartoons?  That would probably be Frieda.  She was the girl with the naturally curly red hair in the Charlie Brown cartoons.  But while she loved her red curly hair, I hated mine.  I used to roll my hair with beer or coke cans to make it sort of straight.  I’d sleep with the cans on, which meant my head was about 4 inches off the pillow.  I’d have a raging headache in the morning, but at least my hair was kind of a little bit straight when I went to school.  But then by 2nd period (around 10 a.m.) it was all the way curly again, wild and probably laughing at my pitiful attempt to make it do what it didn’t want to do.  Now I love my hair because I don’t have to do anything to it.  No permanents, no rollers, no relaxing chemicals, nothing.  I just slap some leave-in conditioner on it, and it’s done.  Of course, it is still wild and my head looks like a red dandelion puff, but now I appreciate the hair God gave me.

E.E.: What sound do you love most?

Rebecca: When my children, Paisley and Emo, tell me they love me.  After those sweet words…  I think my kitty’s purring and my dogs wagging their tails on the floor.  I live near lots of horse pastures, and I love to hear the horses neigh and whinny, and the sounds of their hooves beating the ground when they run makes me feel so good.  Non-alive sounds I love are beach waves, rain, and the quiet nothing of snow.

E.E.: What feeds your creativity?

Rebecca: I like to watch unusual people.  I like accents and the stories people tell about most anything. Old things fascinate me.  Recently I went through a stage that had me seeking very old chimneys.  They were usually in the woods, the houses they’d once been in long gone.  I sat on or near those old chimneys.  Old things tell stories if you allow them to do so.  I saw an old chimney one time that had a very loose brick.  It was almost falling out, and I wondered why.  Because the rest of the chimney was very strong.  So why was that one precise brick about to fall out?  My imagination did a jig, and ideas started coming to me instantly.  My creativity is never satisfied with normal things.  It takes a normal thing and turns it into something quirky.  I can’t write about normal things.  I’ve tried, but just cannot do it.

E.E.: What book is up next? 

Rebecca: I have several started.  One is a contemporary that I am having a very hard time with.  I don’t think contemporary stories match with the way I think and feel.  I have also begun an historical that deals with a lot of animals and my feelings about those critters who are unwanted.  There is some magic in that story that keeps my creativity happy.  A third book has to do with a piece of metal.  We see the piece of metal in very odd places throughout the course of the book.  That, too, allows my imagination complete freedom with no fences.

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