Finished my second book last week, so have a sample of RUINED (which is getting a new title, but it’s not quite official yet). In which the hero is helping the heroine out of her wet clothing. Rainstorms in England can be so inconvenient (or not, depending on your point of view), and sodden stay lacing is the worst: His breath feathered along her neck, rhythmic little wafts of warm air that increased in tempo as he worked. Something deep inside clenched at the realization. He was reacting. He wanted just as badly. Perhaps needed… Any moment now, he might give into the temptation and press his lips to the pulse that fluttered just beneath her ear.  

Scheduling this one far in advance, because I’m flying home from Chicago and the Spring Fling conference today. So if, by chance, there’s some kind of glitch, you’ll know what happened. This is a random six sentences my brain conjured while I was waking up the other morning. Somehow I managed to retain them and wrote them down. I don’t know if they’ll actually fit anywhere. As Isabelle Marshall, she had known dandies, men who spent hours deciding which topcoat went with which pantaloons, men who drove their valets to distraction until their cravats were tied just so. Narcissists. Men whose best friend was the mirror. Men who were just as shallow and flat as that best friend. Something about Upperton struck her as different. With him, the emphasis on appearance was mere façade.

Another snippet from RUINED, because I’m pushing to finish it in the next few weeks. Here, the hero has come across a sketch of himself, and he’s not sure he likes what he sees. Was this how the world saw him then? Nothing but a useless dandy whiling away the summer and autumn months until the fashionable returned to town and he could go back to sleeping off the days and haunting the gaming hells at night. But then that was exactly the sort of man his father wanted him to be. Shallow. Dissolute, if not quite debauched. George had been nothing, if not a dutiful son.

Sometimes I wonder about my sense of humor. I needed my hero and heroine to visit an older lady, and somehow she turned into the Regency equivalent of an internet spammer. And really, her name can’t be anything other than Mrs. Cox. From RUINED: “They think no one will catch on they’re having troubles if you know what I mean.” “Now see here.” He would have advanced on her, but she stood guard over her doorstep like Cerberus at the gates of the underworld. “I am not having troubles of a personal nature.” She crossed her arms beneath her considerable bosom. “That’s what they all say.” Hmm… and on Easter Sunday, no less.