Bonus Scenes

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Bonus Snippet: “Captain”

Oftentimes I cut snippets of dialogue from scenes that don’t need those particular lines — usually when the lines are about something that, after writing the scene, I decide to reveal later in the story.  I has so much fun writing this bit of dialogue, then I discovered that the big word at the center of it wasn’t in common use until nearly a century later, so SNIP it went! 

The scene is from I Married the Duke, when Arabella in desperate straits meets Luc and blithely tells him her terribly inconvenient secret.  In the novel she doesn’t reveal this to him, instead when he discovers it accidentally he admires her all the more for her secret courage.  Arabella’s inconvenient phobia also led to one of the tenderest scenes I’ve ever written: the return crossing to England.  SPOILER ALERT: If you’ve not yet read the book, wait till you have to enjoy this snippet.

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Bonus Scene: Prologue – The Prince

I love prologues, and many of my books include them.  I adored writing this one.  Ultimately, though, I wanted to begin The Prince with Libby’s disguise, and her encounter with Ziyaeddin, and instead to reveal Ziyaeddin’s past much later in the story.  I’m so happy to offer my dear readers the prologue here now.

 

Kingdom of Tabir, 1808

“Awake, Ziya.”

The whisper roused Ziyaeddin from a dream of a sky all gold and saffron and fire and striped with migrating birds. The birds flew out of the flames toward a brilliant blue sea, in haste yet steadily, with the great rhythmic flapping of a thousand wings.

Ziyaeddin rolled away from his sister’s voice to reclaim the image, mumbling to her to hush, that she mustn’t be here, that she took too great a chance always coming to borrow his books while his tutor slept nearby.

“Awake, brother,” Aairah whispered again, more furtively. “Men with torches come. They are shouting in Turkish. Mother says we must go at once.”

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Bonus Scene: “She is a governess”

This scene from I Married the Duke occurs shortly after Luc, Cam and Tony check into the inn in Saint-Nazaire.  I adored writing these three friends together (which is why I couldn’t resist writing Kisses, She Wrote and The Scoundrel and I too!).   This scene, though, wasn’t necessary for telling Luc and Arabella’s love story, so I removed it from the book.  I’m so happy to share it here.

 

“Captain Andrew, now are we, Lucien?” Cam said as Luc approached the table in the crowded brasserie. “You are a greater dog than I had imagined even before.”

On the table before Cam and Tony were only a bottle of wine, bread and pickles as yet. But a server was winding his way through the closely packed chamber, carrying a tray of roasted birds stuffed with leeks and garlic.

Luc settled on the bench beside Tony and accepted a glass of wine from his friend while the server laid the covers on the table. The dinner smelled better than anything he had eaten in weeks, even aboard the Victory. But he had no appetite.

Not for food.

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Bonus Scene: “Desire is different from wanting”

I removed this short scene from I Married the Duke because of chronology: in the final edit of the novel, the story’s timeline didn’t allow for Eleanor, Ravenna and Princess Jacqueline to be in London all at once with Arabella before the wedding.  But the scene reveals bits of character about Eleanor and Ravenna that I especially like, so I’m delighted to share it here. 

 

“He does not want me.” Arabella stared into the trees above, trying to imagine herself back in their father’s house in Cornwall, or at the chateau in France, anywhere else, and failing. There was nothing left in her imagination but the handsome sailor-turned-nobleman. The man it seems she had finally succeeded in pushing away forever.

“Of course he wants you.” Ravenna tossed a ball across the green and Beast loped lazily after it.

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Bonus Scene: “A Singular Girl”

When I first finished writing The Duke, it included scenes in which Amarantha and Gabriel weren’t together. There are still a few of those in the published novel: they travel great distances to find each other, after all. But to reunite them as speedily as possible after their separation — while remaining true to their appearances in The Rogue and The Earl — I ended up cutting some scenes of Amarantha searching for Gabriel across Scotland.

One of those scenes takes place when Amarantha has just reached Scotland, and she happens upon young Miss Elizabeth Shaw. First seen in The Rogue and then later in The Duke, utterly unconventional Libby Shaw gets her own love story in The Prince.

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