Lord Ryderbourne has chosen a bride for himself. Wealthy,
powerful and handsome as sin, he has no doubt that his
future wife will accept him with giddy delight -- until she
doesn't. Humiliated and rejected, Ryder gallops off for
home in a fearful rage. With thoughts of his chosen's
rejection still in his head, Ryder reins in his horse at
the edge of the sea overlooking the bay. A chill spreads
through him as he realizes the small object he's been
watching is a dinghy floundering in the water. Ryder urges
his horse through the waves and discovers a half-naked
woman lying in the bottom of the boat. Semi-conscious and
badly beaten, she's still one of the most handsome women
he's ever encountered.
Ryder gets her safely to shore and demands to know who left
her to die in such a heinous fashion. Despite her
pronouncements that she doesn't need rescuing, he wraps her
in his cloak and speeds off to an inn where she can be
properly seen to. Once at the inn, warm and fed, the two
begin a conversation, which Ryder believes will reveal her
identity and the events that led to her being beaten and
abandoned. Instead, what begins is a slow seduction of the
honorable Lord Ryderbourne. Although he initially resists
temptation, not wanting to take advantage of a traumatized
woman, he eventually succumbs to her advances. What follows
is a night of unabashed passion. While he assumes she's a
wife, mistreated and cast off by her husband, she is, in
fact, a renowned courtesan named Miracle Heather.
Miracle reveals nothing of herself to Ryder. No pertinent
information, that is. She allows him to think what he will,
knowing she'll be gone before he wakes the next morning.
When Ryder awakens after their night together and finds
she's disappeared and the only thing left behind is a white
satin slipper, he vows he'll ride to the end of the earth
to find her. Miracle knows full-well there can be no future
for herself and a member of the nobility and rides on the
back roads to avoid not only him, but the dangerous man
who's pursuing her. Very soon Ryder catches up with Miracle
and insists on accompanying her and assisting her escape.
The two agree not to be lovers, but only to travel together
as companions. But desire and the memory of one perfect
night together continue to bedevil the runaways, and it may
be that they can never run far or fast enough.
Delightfully erotic, GAMES OF PLEASURE is a must read for
fall. Ross continues her winning streak with this original
novel featuring an unconventional heroine and a hero who's
tired of always being "the good brother/son."
Hiding a terrible secret, Miracle Heather has no desire to
be rescued--especially by a virile young aristocrat. Yet
upon seeing Miracle in a foundering boat, Lord Ryderbourne
drags her to shore and carries her to a nearby inn, where
he insists on taking care of her. A skilled courtesan, she
knows of only one way to repay his gallantry, and Ryder is
helpless to resist her seduction. The ensuing night of
passion shakes them both to the core. No honorable future
is possible for a duke's son and a lady of the night, so
they agree to travel north together on England's hidden
byways as comrades, not lovers. Yet even as their journey
leads them both into the unknown, desire threatens to
defeat principle.
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