Excerpt of The Wild Marquis by Miranda Neville

The first thing she learned about her visitor was that he
possessed a fine pair of boots.

Then he offered a hand. Disconcerted, she accepted the help
without thought. As she rose she had an immediate
impression of youth and elegance. Not that all book buyers
were old and unkempt. Bibliophilia gripped gentlemen of all
stripes. But Juliana knew most of the serious book buyers
in London by sight, and not one of them sported such
effortless masculine grace.

The impression made by his figure withered when she met a
pair of crystal blue eyes, scanning her from head to foot
with alarming intensity. His scrutiny raised a flush in her
pale skin and made her grateful for her high-necked black
gown and close fitting cap.

In the past, when alone in the shop, a man had occasionally
made an amorous advance. So Juliana dressed herself in
enveloping gowns of a particularly beastly cloth, which
managed to be both shiny and ineffably drab. Add the
sensible linen cap tied under the chin and covering every
strand of hair, and the problem had disappeared. She
resembled, she knew, a diminutive nun of more than common
virtue, or a small black beetle. Her forbidding appearance
was supposed to make book buyers see her as a well-informed
bookseller and forget she wasn’t a man.

With this visitor it wasn’t working. His gaze told her he
saw through her disguise and knew she was young, blonde and
female. Lord, she wouldn’t be surprised if he saw through
her garments. She’d never encountered a man who exuded such
raw seductive potency.

With little knowledge of the species, she had no difficulty
recognizing a member of it. This was a rake.