A WICKED GAME – Kate Bateman, teaser exclusive excerpt for Fresh Fiction.
The carriage gave a jolt, and Morgan caught her eye.
“My business with Mister Crusoe might be done,” he said softly. “But there’s another matter between you and I that needs to be resolved. I seem to remember a certain bet we made, before I left for war.” He made sure to hold her stare. “Since I’m here, safe and well in London, I think it’s fair to say that you owe me three kisses.”
Harriet’s heart was pounding with a strange mixture of dread and relief.
At last.
She hadn’t stopped thinking about their foolish wager since the moment she’d heard Morgan was back in England. Or for any of the months before that, if she was being honest.
The secret, scandalous part of her had fantasized that he’d come to her immediately on his return. That he’d be so desperate for her kisses that he’d gallop up to Bloomsbury on his fastest horse, hammer on her door or clamber in through her window, and claim his prize.
That, of course, hadn’t happened. She didn’t live in a fairytale.
Morgan had been back for weeks now, and this was the first time he’d even mentioned the blasted subject.
She knew he hadn’t forgotten—no Davies would ever forget such a prime opportunity to get the upper hand over a Montgomery, or to flaunt their victory in the most humiliating way—so the omission was deliberate. It was a fiendish way to torture her and keep her on edge.
And it had worked.
She’d been a jittery mess when she’d seen him at Gryff and Maddie’s house party a few weeks ago. She’d tried to escape his notice by lurking at the perimeter of the ballroom, but he’d singled her out with unerring precision, just as he always did.
He’d asked her to dance. Well, demanded that she dance was more accurate. He’d simply held out his hand and said, “my dance,” and then swept her out onto the dancefloor without waiting for an answer.
Not that she’d minded. The wicked thrill of being in his arms, even at a perfectly respectable distance, had warmed her entire body.
She was a hopeless case. Morgan Davies was an irreverent tease who flirted with every woman in skirts. There was no man in London more unsuitable for her to be attracted to, but passion, apparently, paid no heed to logic. He’d held her heart hostage for years.
She’d been absolutely certain that he’d mention their scandalous bet during their waltz, but he’d merely made mocking comments about the other guests and told her that her dress looked like seaweed.
She’d been oddly . . . disappointed? Filled with a sense of anticlimax, certainly.
This, she suspected, was the same feeling a battle-hungry army might have at arriving at the designated field of combat only to discover the enemy had decamped overnight.
She’d been eager for battle to commence.
And he hadn’t obliged, the swine.
His goal—clearly—was to rouse her to a fever pitch of anticipation, obsessing over when he might call in his winnings. Which meant she’d spent weeks and weeks imagining what it would be like when he finally kissed her.
She’d never been kissed.
Not by him.
Not by anyone.
A hot flash of jealousy streaked through her. He’d probably been kissed hundreds of times. It wasn’t fair.
He was still looking at her from across the carriage, and Harriet realized she’d been silent for an unreasonably long time. Words, however, failed her. Morgan’s masculine presence was almost overwhelming in the close confines, and she was aware of every detail of his appearance, from the glint of the golden buttons on his navy coat to the way the muscles of his thighs shifted and flexed beneath his snowy-white breeches.
She dragged her gaze back upward.
Well, since he was studying her, she would return the favor. She would not be cowed or flustered by his regard. But her pulse fluttered in her throat as she let her eyes rove over his face—so familiar and yet subtly different from her memory.
Morgan at twenty-one had been unbearably handsome. This Morgan, the one who’d returned from war, was a different, more thrilling creature entirely. Two years of dangerous living had left their marks on his face. New lines crinkled the corner of his eyes: from laughter, or from squinting against the tropical sun. His face was tanned, his hair longer than it had been. A little too long for fashion, but the wild, windswept look suited him. Her fingers itched to touch the dark, rolling waves.
She clenched her hands into fists and forced her throat to work.
“Very well. I owe you three kisses.” She was pleased with how cool she sounded. “Never let it be said that a Montgomery reneges on a bet.”
At least they were somewhere private. There would be no chance of anyone witnessing her humiliation.
She sent him what she hoped was a challenging look, eyebrows slightly raised, and let out a long-suffering sigh. “Come on then. Let’s get this over with.”
She closed her eyes, pursed her lips, and leaned forward.
And waited, breath held, for her first kiss.
What she got was a rumble of laughter.
Her lids popped open and she glared at him in indignation.
“What’s the matter? Have you changed your mind?”
His eyes danced with merriment, even as he shook his head. “Oh, Harriet. You don’t honestly think I’ll let you off the hook that easily, do you?”
Her stomach did a strange little flip. His wicked expression suggested he was about to do something outrageous. Something quintessentially Davies.
“If I remember rightly,” he said, “the original wording of our bet was that you’d grant me three kisses, correct?”
She nodded.
His gaze roved over her face, from nose, to lips, to chin, then slid lower. Heat flashed over her skin as his attention lingered on the swell of her bosom. Her corset seemed inordinately tight.
“There was no stipulation about where those kisses would take place.”
She frowned. “You mean like in a ballroom? What’s wrong with here?”
He sent her a pitying look. “I don’t mean geographically. I mean physically. As in, ‘where on your body?’”
Harriet’s mouth dropped open in shock.
“Where on my body?” she repeated hoarsely.
Morgan’s eyes were bright with amusement, and something else, something hotter she was afraid to identify.
He nodded. “Three kisses on the lips isn’t much of a prize. Not when there are so many other, more interesting places I could put my mouth.”
“But—I—” Harriet could barely form a coherent thought. Her heartrate seemed to have tripled.
Where else was he thinking of kissing her?
Damn it all. When she’d conceived of this bet, she’d done so with the delightful expectation of kissing Morgan on the lips. She was desperate to know how his mouth would feel against her own. But now she might never get the experience. She wanted to punch him, the perverse creature.
“Can’t you start with my mouth?” she managed. “For the first one?”
His gaze dropped to her lips, as if he was considering the idea, and she bit the lower one in nervous response. He expelled an audible breath that sounded suspiciously like a groan.
“No, I’m afraid not. That would be too easy.”
“So where—? When—?”
His expression turned wicked. “I’m not going to tell you. It will be a surprise. Anticipation is half the fun in cases such as this, believe me.”
Harriet suppressed a growl of frustration. She should have expected something like this. She’d been a fool to underestimate the fiendish ways a Davies could twist a bet. Still, she had no doubt she was equal to whatever new challenge he presented.
“It can’t be anywhere public,” she said quickly. “You’ll ruin me.”
He flashed her an unapologetic grin. “It might be in a public place. There’s something rather thrilling about the risk of being caught.”
Harriet frowned, torn between irritation and insult. Was the thought of kissing her so boring that he needed to spice it up by adding an element of danger?
He spoke again before she could ask.
“But I do promise we won’t be seen. I think we can both agree that we don’t want this—” he swirled his finger between the two of them “—to get out.”
She shuddered at the thought. “Definitely not. But you can’t possibly guarantee we won’t be seen. No matter how careful you are, someone might come along and—”
“Are you refusing to pay?”
She glared at the accusation. “Of course not. But—”
“Then allow me some credit for greater experience. We won’t be seen.”
Harriet let out a disgruntled huff. This was not how she’d expected this conversation to go at all.
Morgan sat back and straightened his cuffs, then glanced out of the carriage window. “Ah, here we are. Hanover square.” He glanced back at her. “Will you be attending Maddie’s soiree on Tuesday evening?”
“I’ve been invited, yes.”
He sent her another wicked smile as the carriage rocked to a stop. “In that case, I’ll see you there.”
He pushed the handle to release the door and swung it wide.
“Will it be there?”
His smile was diabolical. “Maybe. Maybe not. You’ll just have to wait and see.”
Harriet could only stare after him in speechless frustration. The man was a born tease.
She watched him mount the steps of his handsome townhouse—the one he shared with his unmarried brother Rhys—and disappear behind the shiny black-painted door.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A Wicked Game Copyright Ó 2022 by Kate Bateman. All rights reserved.
A WICKED GAME by Kate Bateman
Ruthless Rivals
A teasing bet.
Shipwrecked and imprisoned thanks to an incorrect map, Captain Morgan Davies has returned to London to exact sweet revenge on the cartographer responsible for his suffering. He’s also vowed to claim the winner’s prize—three kisses—in the bet he made with his long-time nemesis, the prickly, smart-mouthed Harriet Montgomery. His incarceration has clarified his feelings for her, but convincing the infuriating woman he wants to marry her is going to be his greatest challenge yet. When Harriet’s revealed to be the very mapmaker he seeks, Morgan decides to combine revenge and seduction into one delightful package. . .
A dangerous enemy.
Harriet’s always wanted witty scoundrel Morgan, and now he’s back; as handsome and as taunting as ever. She has enough on her plate dealing with her father’s failing eyesight and a rival mapmaker copying her work to play wicked games with a dastardly Davies—however tempting he might be. But when a threat from Morgan’s past puts them both in danger, Harry discovers that she and Morgan might not be enemies at all . . .
Romance Historical [St. Martin’s Paperbacks, On Sale: December 27, 2022, Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9781250801586 / eISBN: 9781250801593]
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About Kate Bateman
Kate Bateman, (also writing as K. C. Bateman), is the #1 bestselling author of Regency, Victorian, and Renaissance historical romance. Her Renaissance romp, The Devil To Pay, is a Romance Writer’s of America 2019 RITA® Finalist, and her Regency-set A Counterfeit Heart (Secrets & Spies series) won the 2018 Book Buyer’s Best contest for Best Historical Romance.
Kate wrote her first historical romance in response to a $1 bet with her husband who rashly claimed she’d ‘never finish the thing.’ She gleefully proved him wrong. Her books feature her favorite intelligent heroines, (badasses in bodices!) wickedly inappropriate banter, and heroes you want to both strangle and kiss.
When not traveling to exotic locations ‘for research’, Kate leads a not-so-secret double life as a fine art appraiser and on-screen antiques expert for several TV shows in the UK, each of which has up to 2.5 million viewers. Before writing romance, Kate was director and valuer at her own UK Auction House, Batemans in Stamford, Lincolnshire. She currently splits her time between Illinois and her native England and writes despite three inexhaustible children and that husband. . . who still owes her that dollar.
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