Thursday, February 22, 2018

Featuring DEVIL'S RUN by Beverley Oakley

Devil's Run

A rigged horse race - with a marriage and a lost child riding on the outcome.

This is book 3 in the Scandalous Miss Brightwells series, though it can be read as a stand-alone.
Can the matchmaking Brightwell sisters avoid scandal and disaster as they try to rescue two tortured souls and unite their passionate hearts?



When Miss Eliza Montrose’s extraordinary bravery wins her the respect of matchmaking queens Fanny and Antoinette Brightwell, the sisters and their bumbling brother decide they must find a worthier suitor for the young woman they’d initially disliked. But Eliza has her own reasons for agreeing to marry their odious cousin. Reasons that have nothing to do with love! When handsome, honorable horse owner Rufus Patmore proves Eliza's perfect match, the Brightwells secretly hatch a plan that involves their cousin and a horse called Devil's Run riding in the East Anglia Derby. A horse that is suddenly and unexpectedly inherited by Eliza. Despite having acted with the best of intentions, the Brightwells discover that fixing the outcome of the race has unintended consequences. Book 1: Rake’s Honour (Just an FYI, the Kindle version is free for a limited time) Book 2: Rogue’s Kiss Book 3: Devil’s Run Book 4: The Accidental Elopement (preorder now)


What the reviewers say:
"Very intriguing Austen-esque novel with well-developed characters and story line. The best historical romance novel I've read in a while." ~ Amazon reviewer
I started writing Devil's Run because I couldn't stop thinking about the infant with the sixth finger who was discovered in the basket in front of the foundling hospital in the previous book, Rogue's Kiss. There'd only been a brief mention of the mother who was clearly from a good family being forced by an older woman to leave her young son in the basket and this happens in the first scene in Rogue's Kiss (book 2), as she snatches her child from the basket and runs in front of the carriage in which Thea, my heroine, is travelling - thus setting up the meeting with Thea and her hero in that story. (The child, Jack, features only briefly in later pages of Rogue's Kiss.)
After finishing Rogue's Kiss, though, I began to wonder who this young woman was, and whether she'd ever be reunited with her child. Obviously, the answer had to be that she would, but the challenge was bringing her into the orbit of my Brightwell family - two matchmaking sisters and their sinister, conniving cousin George - around whom the story revolves.
Thus, Devil's Run begins with the self-contained Eliza Montrose visiting Quamby House where Matchmaking Queens Fanny and Antoinette Brightwell - who've made rags-to-riches marriages - live.
Fanny and Antoinette dislike her initially for being boring until she spectacularly rescues some children from drowning. This is when Eliza realises that one of these children - on account of his 6th finger - is her lost son. And that's why she's motivated to marry awful, conniving Cousin George so she can be close to her secret son. Fanny and Antoinette are determined that Eliza's too good for George, and of course Eliza's past and her motivations for marrying George are very secret, but when the Brightwells set up a matchmaking scheme with the very honourable Rufus Patmore who's arrived to buy a horse, the real action begins.
Here's an excerpt:
Chapter One
“And there’s nothing else you’d like, my dear? No?” George Bramley found it an effort to keep the syrup in his tone as he straightened up after receiving the polite rebuff.
His bride-to-be had not even looked at him as she’d declined the piece of marchpane he’d been certain would win him at least a smile.
Hovering at her side, he weighed up the advantages of a gentle rebuke, then decided against it. Until yesterday, he’d thought her quiet demeanour suggested a charmingly pliant nature. Now, he was not so sure. In fact, suddenly, he was not sure of anything.
“A glass of lemonade perhaps, my angel? Or a gentle stroll?”
“I would prefer to be left alone.” Miss Montrose waved a languid hand, while she continued to gaze at the still lake beside which their picnic party had situated itself.
George blinked and tried to mute his anger. The languid hand wave had not even been accompanied by a demure thank you as subtle acknowledgement of her gratitude, that not only had Mr Bramley, heir to a viscountcy, stepped in to rescue Miss Eliza Montrose from impoverishment, he was prepared to treat her publicly as if she were as fine a catch as he could have made.
A soft titter brought his head round sharply, but the ladies behind him, bent over the latest Ackerman’s Repository, appeared occupied with their own gossip as they lounged on cushions beneath the canopy that had been erected to protect them from the sun.
Awkwardly, he looked for occupation as he continued to eye his intended with a mixture of irritation and desire—both lustful desire, and the desire to put her in her place.
The idea of the latter made him harden. She was beautiful, this quiet, apparently retiring, young woman who said so little, but whose eyes spoke such volumes. The afternoon sun added a rich gloss to her hair and imbued her porcelain skin with a warm glow. The skin that he could see at any rate.
He pushed back his shoulders. On their wedding night in three weeks, when he’d at last taken possession of her, he’d rip that modesty to shreds. The skin she was so at pains to hide would be his, not only to see, but to caress and taste. When she was his wife, the beautiful, distant Miss Eliza Montrose would no longer get away with paying George Bramley so little attention. No, he’d have her screaming and writhing at his command. He would make her like the things he did to her, or at least show him she did if she enjoyed harmony as much as she appeared to. None of this languid reclining like a half-drugged princess in his presence. He’d keep her on her toes, ready to leap to his bidding at the sound of his footstep. She’d learn to be grateful.
Feeling ignored and superfluous, he turned to his uncle’s detestable wife, Lady Quamby, and said with a smile, “Perhaps you and Miss Montrose would like to accompany me to the turret. Since you appear to have enjoyed this new novel, Northanger Abbey, so much, you might be interested to know there is an excellent view of the ruined monastery not far from here.”
He was just priding himself on being so attuned to the feminine inclination for pleasure, when Lady Quamby half turned and sent him a desultory smile. “Oh, I think Miss Montrose looks perfectly comfortable, and Fanny and I are having such a lovely little coze.” As if imitating Miss Montrose, she waved a languid hand in his general direction. “Why don’t you take Mr Patmore off to see it? The two of you can tell us all about it when you return.”
The fact that Miss Montrose didn’t deign to even speak for herself, much less glance in his direction, sent the blood surging to Bramley’s brain. By God, when he was married to Eliza Montrose, the limpid look of love so lacking now would be pasted onto her face every time he crossed her line of vision. She’d soon learn what was good for her.
He inclined his head, hiding his fury, and was on the point of leaving when Lady Quamby’s sister, Fanny—for he’d be damned if he’d accord the little strumpet the title of Lady Fenton—leapt up from her chair. She’d been poring over the latest fashions, but now she smiled brightly up at him.
“I’ll come with you, Cousin George. We’ll have an excellent view from the battlements of the children learning to row. I told Nanny Brown and the nursemaid they could take them in the two boats if the children had been good.”
Bramley fixed her with a dampening look. In fact, he was about to give up the idea of going up to the battlements altogether when his other guest, Rufus Patmore, suddenly rose and joined Fanny’s side with a late and unexpected show of enthusiasm.
“Capital idea!” declared Rufus.
George flashed them both a dispassionate look. He’d chosen to invite his betrothed, Miss Montrose—whose chaperone was currently tucked up in the green bedchamber nursing a head cold—to be his guest at his uncle’s estate, Quamby House, after receiving intelligence that Ladies Quamby and Fenton would be safely in London with their husbands and children. Instead, the brazen Brightwell sisters—as they’d infamously been called when he’d first made their acquaintance—had altered their plans, and were now in dogged attendance, reminding him as they always had, of some awful tenacious climbing plant, determined to find a foothold wherever they could in order to rise in the world.
Rufus, a last minute addition and acquaintance from his club, Boodles, was here because he’d purchased a horse from Bramley the night before. Now, Rufus was gazing at Lady Fenton with the same dewy-eyed fondness George was used to seeing reflected in the eyes of his uncle, the Earl of Quamby, who called the Brightwell sisters his precious rosebuds. To George, they were common dandelions! And now they had overridden Quamby House, the rambling Queen Anne manor house and estate that would have passed to George the moment his uncle quit this mortal coil, were it not for the snotty-nosed infant Lady Quamby had borne far too early in her marriage to George’s uncle.
George shook his head. He’d changed his mind. Only, there was Rufus already ten yards away, striding across the lawn with Fanny at his side, and George didn’t want to be seen as petulant for having offered the suggestion in the first place. Or have his snubbed and ignored status so much on parade, since the two remaining ladies—Miss Montrose and Lady Quamby—now had their heads bent together in deep discussion, with no apparent interest in seeking his company.
By God, he thought, clenching his fists as he set off after the other two at a brisk trot, theyΚΎd all rue the day they showed George Bramley so little respect.
About Beverley
Beverley Oakley is an Australian author who grew up in the African mountain kingdom of Lesotho, married a Norwegian bush pilot she met in Botswana’s Okavango Delta, and started writing historical romances to amuse herself in the 12 countries she’s lived as a ‘trailing spouse’ (in between working as an airborne geophysical survey operator, a teacher of English as a Second Language, and writing for her former newspaper). Her Scandalous Miss Brightwell series was nominated Best Historical Romance by the Australian Romance Readers Association.
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