The Art of Seducing a Husband

Today at Romance Writers Weekly we are sharing our current works in progress. I am so excited to be sharing with you The Art of Seducing a Husband! It has been a long wait, because I needed to introduce a few other characters who play important roles in this book to the hero and heroine, but here we are, finally.

The Are of Seducing a Husband came about, because a secondary character in Marked For Love was so adamantly against the hero marrying the heroine, that I needed to take a deep dive into why he had such strong opinions. Come to find out, he lost his mother when he was nine, just at the time when he had vivid memories of her and he put her on a pedestal. Then to add to his issues, his father had questions about whether his son was legitimate, so his father spent all of his time drilling the importance to a “proper English wife” into our hero’s head. Needless to say, he is looking for a paragon that doesn’t exist.

He does however think he has found his unicorn in our heroine. A woman who due to a tragedy was sent at the age of 12 to be raised at a nunnery. She is as niave and uneducated about being a wife as they come. That does not mean she doesn’t have her own ideas about what marriage is. Her parents had a love match and she wants what they had, in fact she thinks that was normal, because she never saw any other married couples.

Our hero, bless him thinks he can remain aloof and not engage his emotions when it comes to our heroine, but finds his attraction is not something he can contain.

Our heroine on the other hand, knows there is so much more for her marriage and sets out figure out how to obtain her goal of living a life of love with her new husband.

Throw in a band of women, determined to help her bring her husband to tow as they did all their

husbands, oh and did I mention a retired courtesan? Needless to say my poor hero is in for some rough waters ahead.

I am only in chapter 4 of my current WIP, so I don’t have any big scenes yet to share with you, but here is an excerpt to whet your appetite. If you would like to get updates, and free excerpts when I have them. Join my newsletter here! Hope to see you in your inbox.

The Art of Seducing a Husband:

Excerpt from chapter 4:

The tears once again sprang to the edges of her eyes only held back by what he just realized were obscenely long thick eyelashes which framed the lightest blue eyes he had ever seen. Had he noticed her eyes when they met? He shrugged mentally, because her eyes made no matter in anything he was sure. Eyes were eyes. Or were they? “No, my lord, Lady Sutton had to leave to attend to her own duties before the butlers came for their interview. I thought after sitting with Lady Sutton, I had things well in hand. Clearly that was not the case, I cannot believe—” Anthony walked up to her and placed a hand on her shoulder which stopped her ramblings, punctuated by a ragged breath. “I am not condemning you, I am merely wondering what led you to choose Lambert.” She looked up at him, and for the second time in their short marriage he was close enough to realize how petite and fairy like she was. The urge to pull her into his arms forced him to let go and step back. “I, ah, he had a letter of reference from a duke, stating that he had a desire to such a post, however they did not have an opening and didn’t see one anytime soon, so they were allowing him to search for a post while still keeping him employ with the duke. I thought that showed the duke felt he would be a good candidate.” She stood, waiting for Anthony to comment. Her reasoning was sound, other than the fact they didn’t even have one butler to help train him, and Anthony was beginning to think he had more ambition than training which could prove problematic, since Jemima had no experience with butlers, and Anthony had no experience managing staff. In the silence, Jemima’s stomach grumbled. “Are you hungry?” He asked amused. She turned pink instantly, “Oh, my I guess I am. I do believe I missed luncheon today, in the flurry of new staff and trying to learn so much.” “There is nothing in your daily chores that would ever require you to not eat.” He frowned at the idea she felt she needed to fore-go eating to please him. “Tis fine my lord, many times at school the nuns would withhold a meal if we still needed time to work on something, or as a punishment. I am quite used to a growling stomach. I am just not used to others being present to listen to it.” He did step into her space then and take her by the shoulders. “No one in my care goes hungry. Not the lowliest of farmer, and definitely not my countess.” He knew his passion against using simple life necessities to gain a desired affect was over flowing. He cleared his throat and stepped back. “I— I didn’t mean to upset you my lord.” “You didn’t upset me. The fact that people were put in charge of your care saw fit to withhold a basic life need are the ones who upset me. Now, before I am able to put myself in that category, let us go see what we can do in way of a meal.” He offered his arm and she took it without pause. He knew just what to do. They both needed to get out of the manor and have room to breathe. It just so happened he was still in his riding clothes which gave him an idea.

Next up we have A.S. Fenichel I can't wait to read what she is working on right now! And check out her new release, Misleading a Duke