Excerpt from A STROKE OF LUCK by Andrea Pickens
The Duke of Prestwick was brought back to consciousness by yet another cold wave splashing over his face. How deucedly odd, he thought. Surely he shouldn’t be feeling such a sensation if his lifeless body was lying at the bottom of the sea.
“W-what the devil!” he sputtered, groggily aware that the taste on his lips was not that of salt but of brandy. And a rather decent brandy at that.
Before he could say anything more, another slap—this one a good deal more solid than mere liquid—hit against his cheek, the force of it causing his eyes to water.
“Hell’s teeth!” he sputtered
“That did it, Zara! Looks like he’s finally coming to!”
The duke unscrewed his eyelids enough to catch a peek at the face hovering over his.
Good Lord. With windspun tresses framing her delicate features, the young lady appeared as ethereal as a Nereid. However, she certainly packed the wallop of an Amazon.
A quick flinch allowed him to narrowly avoid a third blow.
“Finally awake, are you?” She leaned back slightly, her sea-green eyes studying his dripping features and bedraggled locks with an unsettling intensity.
“S-Stump,” he choked out between coughs. “S-Stump.”
“If you are referring to your companion with the missing hand, he’s safely aboard, too,” she replied.
Prestwick was suddenly aware of the pitch and rock beneath his waterlogged body. A boat. So, he was not buried in a watery grave, but alive and afloat. And though a cursory glance showed it was not nearly as fancy as his own polished yacht, the little craft was at least keeping its deck above water.
“We fished him out right after we had hauled you in.” The duke detected a slight rippling of her gaze, as if she disapproved of what she was seeing. “What were the two of you thinking to go out for a midnight swim in these conditions?”
“It was not exactly a planned pleasure dip.“ Unused to such blunt words, especially from a female, he responded in his most haughty ducal tone. “We, er, suffered an unfortunate slip.”
“Ah.” The young lady arched her brows. “No doubt you were thoroughly cupshot. In my experience, gentlemen usually are when they do something exceeding stupid.” A pause. “Like fall overboard.”
Prestwick would have liked to snap an equally caustic retort, but found his chattering teeth would not allow it.
“Well, you might as well have another draught of spirits to warm you up,” she continued briskly. “Nonny! Give the gentleman another swallow, then hurry and help Perry with the mainsheet.” Above the howl of the gusting gale, the distant pounding of surf against rock could be heard. “If we trim the sails, we may be able to weather the cliffs without changing course.”
The finely tailored garments and polished patrician accent left little doubt that the younger fellow they had fished out of the raging sea was a Gentleman of Quality, reflected Zara as she gripped the tiller.
In other words, just the sort of person she loathed.
Since the death of her father, she had come to discover that such men, who paid lip service to the notions of duty and honor, were as much charlatans as the fortunetellers who promised true love, or the medical quacks who peddled eternal life in a bottle.
Still, Zara supposed she couldn’t in good conscience simply toss the fellow back into the sea, no matter that he had been insufferably arrogant to her and her two young brothers. Why, there had not even been a dratted word of thanks for rescuing him! He was probably so used to people groveling at his feet that the thought hadn’t occurred to him.
Well, he could sink from here to Hades before she would show him any deference.
A glance upward showed the clouds were lightening. She hoped that her mission of mercy hadn’t caused her to strayed too far off course from their final destination. Their funds were perilously low and she wished to avoid spending any more of their precious farthings than necessary for supplies. There was a journey by coach ahead, once they made landfall.
“Shoals on the port side!” came her younger brother’s cry from high in the rigging.
Zara shoved the tiller to the left, swinging the bow of the boat away from the danger. “Any other perils?”
“The way looks clear if you stay on this course.”
“Then come down for a moment and have a bite of breakfast.”
There was a rapid scrabbling in the tarred lines and a thump as the lad’s bare feet hit the deck.
“Sorry, Perry.” She shrugged an apology, needing both hands to steer through the rough water. “A wedge of stale bread hardly merits such enthusiasm.”
“Mmmpph.” He grinned. “Remember the time Papa got lost looking for the tomb of Queen Tetishiri? We marched up and down those rocky wadis for two days without a crumb. Even grape leaves and goat’s brains tasted delicious after that. Though I admit, the eyeballs didn’t look particularly appetizing.” He took a swig of cider. “We ran out of water, too. And it was hotter than Hell—”
“Pericles!” she warned, though it was difficult to be stern in the face of such good-humored resilience. “Hell is not a word that belongs in your vocabulary.”
“Parthenon says it.”
“Nonny is thirteen years old, not eleven.” Seeing the scrunch of his mouth, she quickly added, “However, that’s not the point. A gentleman, no matter his age, should refrain from swearing.”
“Bloody, BLOODY Hell!”
Repressing an oath of her own, Zara whipped around to see the duke rubbing at the back of his skull, having sat up without looking and cracked his head on the overhanging boom.
“Such language may be acceptable in your fancy clubs, sir!” she snapped. “But I must insist that you refrain from swearing in the presence of ladies and children.” She was gratified to see his cheeks darken with a dull flush. “For despite what you may think, my brothers and I are of respectable birth.”
“Your pardon,” he said stiffly, employing the same offensive drawl as he had used before. This time, however, the effect was made rather comical by the fact that the blanket had slipped from his grip, leaving him bare to the waist.
Seeing his baleful expression, she couldn’t help herself. She began to laugh.
His face now wore a black scowl. “One would not guess at your genteel origins from your execrable manners.”
“My manners!” Zara’s burble of amusement changed to squawk of indignation. “Why, you pompous prig! You have not deigned to utter so much as a peep of thanks for your rescue! Not only that, you have slept soundly through the night, snug in our only blankets, while my brothers and I have battled gale force winds and raging seas to keep this craft afloat—”
A jarring thunk and the ominous snap of splintering wood interrupted her harangue.
“Zara!”
Parthenon’s head suddenly appeared in the small cabin hatchway. “Water is coming up through the floorboards! Umm, quite a lot of it.”
© Andrea Pickens, Oliver Heber Books, 2025. Shared with permission of the publisher.
Intrepid Heroines #4
Sailing home to England with her two younger brothers, the intrepid Miss Zara Greeley plucks a half-drowned stranger from icy seas. The handsome man says he's a duke—a claim Zara is tempted to believe, for only a duke could be so impossibly arrogant, especially when their ship runs aground on a Scottish island during the storm, and they are forced to do manual labor in a brewer to earn their passage to the mainland.
Prestwick wants nothing more than to part ways with the sharp-tongued young lady and resume his life of genteel leisure. But Fate quickly plunges the pair into another encounter. Zara and her brothers have come to reclaim their inheritance from an unscrupulous cousin... and suddenly the duke finds himself caught up in the dispute—along with conflicting currents of duty and desire . . . and what really matters in Life.
Romance Historical [Oliver-Heber Books, On Sale: July 29, 2025, e-Book , / ]
Andrea Pickens is a graduate of Yale University, where she majored in art and intellectual history. She has a master's degree in graphic design from the Yale School of Art and Architecture, and is currently the creative director for two sporting magazines. A lifelong fan of Jane Austen, Ann Radcliffe, and the Brontes, she resides with her husband in Connecticut, where she's working on getting her golf handicap down to a respectable number.
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