Rebels, Rakes & Rogues Read online

  Rebels, Rakes and Rogues

  Sweet to Spicy Romance

  Cheryl Bolen

  Kimberly Cates

  Tanya Anne Crosby

  Lauren Royal

  Devon Royal

  Contents

  Copyright

  Preface

  Alexandra

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Epilogue

  Author's Note

  About Lauren & Devon

  More Sweet Rakes

  The Earl’s Bargain

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  About Cheryl

  More Sweet & Spicy Rogues

  To Catch a Flame

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  About Kimberly

  More Sizzling Rebels

  Kissed

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Part 2

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  More Sizzling Rogues

  A Heartfelt Thank You!

  1st Edition, November 4, 2015

  Alexandra Copyright © Lauren Royal & Devon Royal

  The Earl’s Bargain Copyright © Cheryl Bolen

  To Catch a Flame Copyright © Kimberly Cates

  Kissed Copyright © Tanya Anne Crosby

  Published by Oliver-Heber Books, LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used or reproduced or transmitted in any manner whatsoever, electronically, in print, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of both Oliver-Heber Books and the authors, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  PUBLISHER'S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Your reading pleasure is important to us. If you see typos or mistakes, please take a moment and write the authors [email protected]

  Preface

  Ranging from Sweet to Spicy, the following novels all have one thing in common: They’re full of rakes, rebels and rogues! Oh my! For this purpose of this set, the following ratings apply:

  Spice level: Sweet

  Subtly sexy, with sweet undertones and the bedroom door stays closed. Alas, you must wait outside.

  Spice level: Spicy

  Sexier, bolder, the love scenes pull no punches. You might find yourself needing a fan...

  From all of us to all of you—Enjoy!

  Alexandra

  by Lauren Royal & Devon Royal

  Sweet

  Prologue

  Summer 1812

  Cainewood Castle, the South of England

  It was almost like touching him.

  Lady Alexandra Chase usually sketched a profile in just a few minutes, but she took her time today, lingering over her work in the darkened room. Standing on one side of a large, framed pane of glass while Tristan sat sideways on the other, she traced his shadow cast by the glow of a candle. Her pencil followed his strong chin, his long, straight nose, the wide slope of his forehead, capturing his image on the sheet of paper she’d tacked to her side of the glass. Noticing a stray lock that tumbled down his brow, she hesitated, wanting to make certain she caught it just right.

  Someone walked by the open door, causing Tris’s shadow to flicker as the candle wavered. “Are you finished yet?” he asked from behind the glass panel.

  “Hold still,” she admonished. “Artistry requires patience.”

  “It’s just a profile.”

  Alexandra flushed, though she knew better than to take offense. He was simply impatient. He’d always been an admirer of her work.

  As well he should be. Alexandra made excellent profile portraits.

  ”You promised you’d sit still,” she reminded him, injecting authority into her girlish voice. “Just this once before you leave.” She’d been asking Tris to sit for her for months, but he never seemed to have the time. This would be her only chance.

&n
bsp; “I’m sitting,” he said, and although his profile remained immobile, she could hear amusement in his tone.

  She loved his good-humored forbearance, just like she loved everything about Tris Nesbitt.

  She’d been eight when they first met. Her favorite brother, Griffin, had brought him home between school terms. In the six years since, as he and Griffin completed Eton and then Oxford, Tris had visited often, claiming to prefer his friend’s large family to the quiet home he shared with his father.

  Alexandra couldn’t remember when she’d fallen in love, but she felt like she’d loved Tris forever.

  Of course, nothing would come of it. Now, at fourteen, she was mature enough to accept that her eminent father, the Marquess of Cainewood, would never allow her to marry plain Mr. Tristan Nesbitt.

  But that didn’t stop her from wishing. It didn’t stop her stomach from tingling when she heard his voice, didn’t stop her heart from skipping when he looked at her with his silver-gray eyes.

  Not that he looked at her often. After all, as far as he was concerned she was little more than Griffin’s pesky younger sister.

  Knowing Tris couldn’t see her now, she skimmed her fingertips over his silhouette, wishing she were touching him instead. She’d never touched him, not in real life. Such intimacy simply didn’t occur between young ladies and gentlemen. Most especially between a marquess’s daughter and a commoner.

  The drawing room’s draperies were shut, and the low light seemed to enclose them together—alone!—in the room. She desperately wanted to say something clever or diverting, something he would remember after they parted. But she could think of nothing. ”Where are you going again?” she asked instead, although she knew.

  Let him think she’d barely noticed he was leaving.

  “Jamaica.” He sounded excited. “My uncle wishes me to look after his interests there. I’m to learn how his plantation is run.”

  “Is that what you wish to do with your life?”

  “He doesn’t mean for me to stay there permanently. Only to acquaint myself with the operation so I can manage it from afar.”

  “But do you wish to become a man of business? To manage property? Or would you rather do something else?”

  He shrugged, his profile tilting, then settling back into the lines she’d so carefully drawn. “He paid for my education. Have I any choice?”

  “I suppose not.” Her choices were limited, too. “How long will you be gone?”

  “A year or two at the least. Perhaps more.”

  Everything was changing. Griffin would leave soon as well—their father had bought him a commission in the cavalry. Although Griffin and Tris had spent much of the past few years away at school and university, these new developments seemed different. They’d be oceans away. It wasn’t that Alexandra would be alone—she’d still have her parents, her oldest brother, and her two younger sisters—but she was already feeling the loss.

  “Two years,” she echoed, knowing Griffin would likely be gone even longer. “That seems a lifetime.”

  Tris’s image shook as he laughed aloud. “I expect it might, to one as young as you.”

  He seemed so much older, already twenty years of age. Alexandra could scarcely imagine being two decades old. And young boys experienced more of the world than girls, leaving home as adolescents to pursue their educations. They spent time hunting at country houses and carousing about London while girls stayed at home with their mothers.

  She was counting the months until she’d finally turn sixteen and have her first London season. She used to spend hours dressing up in Mama’s old gowns and playing with her younger sisters, imagining the balls, the finery, and the grand young lords who would sweep them off their feet. One of those charming gentlemen would be her entrée to a new life as a society wife. And she would love her husband, she was certain, although right now she could hardly imagine loving anyone but Tris.

  “Will you bring me something from Jamaica?” she asked, startling herself with her boldness.

  “Like what? A pineapple or some sugarcane?”

  It was her turn to laugh. “Anything. Surprise me.”

  “All right, then. I will.” He fell silent a moment, as though trying to commit the promise to memory. “Are you finished yet?”

  “For now.” She set down her pencil and walked to the windows, drew back the draperies, and blinked. The room’s familiar blue-and-coral color scheme suddenly seemed too bright.

  She turned toward him, reconciling his face with the profile she’d just sketched. She wouldn’t describe him as pretty. His jaw was too strong, his mouth too wide, his brows too thick and straight. As she watched, he raked a hand through his hair—tousled, streaky dark blond hair that always seemed just a bit too long.

  Her fingers itched to touch it, to sweep the stray lock from his forehead.

  “It will take me a while to complete the portrait,” she told him as she walked back to where he sat beside the glass, “but I’ll have it ready for you before you leave.”

  “Keep it for me.”

  She blew out the candle, leaning close enough to catch a whiff of his scent, smelling soap and starch and something else she couldn’t put her finger on. “Don’t you want it?”

  He rose from the chair, smiling down at her from his greater height. “I’ll probably lose it if I take it with me.”

  “Very well, then.” She’d been hoping he’d say she should keep it to remember him by. “I wish you a safe journey, Mr. Nesbitt.”

  She’d called him Tristan—or Tris—for years now, but suddenly that seemed too informal.

  His gray gaze remained steady. “Thank you, Lady Alexandra. I wish you a happy life.”

  A happy life. She could be married by the time he returned, she realized with a shock. In fact, if he were gone two whole years, she very likely would be.

  Her heart sank at the thought.

  But at least she’d have his profile. When it was finished, she’d have a perfect likeness of his face, black-on-white in an elegant oval frame. And she’d been alone with him while making it.

  As he walked from the room, she peeled the paper off the glass and hugged it to her chest.

  Chapter 1

  June 1815

  RATAFIA PUFFS

  Take halfe a pound of Ground Almonds and a little more than that of Sugar. Make it up in a stiff paste with Whites of five Eggs and a little Essence of Almond whipt to a Froth. Beat it all well in a Mortar, and make it up in little Loaves, then bake them in a very cool oven on Paper and Tin-Plates.

  I call these my magical sweets…my husband proposed directly after eating only one!

  —Eleanor, Marchioness of Cainewood, 1728

  Cainewood Castle, three years later

  “Not all of it!” Alexandra Chase made a mad grab for her youngest sister's arm. “We're instructed to add a little more sugar than almonds. ”

  Corinna stopped grating and frowned. “I like sugar.”

  “You won’t like the ratafia puffs if they’re all sugar,” their middle sister, Juliana, said as she took the cone-shaped sugar loaf and set it on the scarred wooden table in the center of Cainewood Castle’s cavernous kitchen.

  “Here, my arm is tired.” Alexandra handed Corinna the bowl of egg whites she’d been beating, then scooped a proper amount of the sugar and poured it into another bowl that held the ground almonds. Stirring them together, she shook her head at Corinna. “You really are quite hopeless with recipes. If you didn’t look so much like Mama, I’d wonder if you’re truly her child.”

  A sudden sheen of tears brightened Corinna’s brilliant blue eyes. She quickly blinked them away. “She always made good sweets, didn’t she?”

  “Excellent sweets,” Juliana said in a sympathetic tone, shooting a look at her older sister.

  Alexandra felt abashed and maybe a little teary herself. She looked away, her gaze wandering the whitewashed stone walls of the kitchen. She’d meant only to tease her sister, not remind her of their
mother. Mama had been gone less than two years, and memories could still be painful.

  But the time for sadness was over…after years of loss and mourning, Alexandra and her sisters were finally wearing cheerful colors and ready to face the world again. In Alexandra’s case, she was more than ready to put the sorrow behind her and get on with her life.

  During her first London season, she’d received many excellent offers of marriage. But at her father’s sudden death, all thoughts of a wedding had been abandoned, and she’d missed the rest of the season while mourning him. Shortly thereafter her dear mother had passed, followed by her oldest brother, and she’d missed this year’s season in yet another anguished period of mourning.

  All of the marriage-minded gentlemen who’d courted her had long since found other brides. But Alexandra wasn’t sure she could endure another season, with all the attending frivolity, competition, and intrigue. She just wanted to be someone’s wife. She wanted to forget past hardships and start over, to feel settled and secure in a new place and a new situation.

  As for her younger sisters, they’d yet to be presented at court and were beside themselves at the thought of finally having a season. It seemed all Juliana and Corinna could talk of were parties, balls, breakfasts, dances, and soirees.

  “I can hardly wait for next spring,” Corinna said, echoing Alexandra’s musings.

  Juliana added a few drops of almond extract to the egg whites. “If Griffin has his way, we’ll all be married long before spring. We’ll never have a season.”

  “He cannot get you both matched up so quickly.” Alexandra idly stirred the almonds and sugar. “You two will have your seasons. He’ll have to be content with my marriage for now.”

  “If the 'magical’ ratafia puffs do their job.” Corinna handed the bowl of eggs back to Alexandra. “Here, now my arm is tired. This is hard work.” Mopping her forehead with a towel, she looked pointedly through an archway to where a scullery maid stood drying a towering stack of dishes. “I cannot understand why you won’t ask her—”