We normally do a ‘raw and unedited’ excerpt with Lisa but it dawned on me last week that Mz Kleypas is already editing this so while this isn’t a final copy and still subject to change… it isn’t ‘raw and unedited’ (all the more reason we should get one for the next book even sooner yes *eg*)

Lisa said to think of it as ‘medium rare‘ . I don’t have the cover yet but as soon as we do we will put it up.  REMEMBER this doesn’t come out until summer of 2010 – read at your own risk ;).

Everything below does not belong to us but copyrighted to Lisa Kleypas & posted at TGTBTU with permission.  Enjoy!

This scene was actually deleted from Chp.23 of Tempt Me At Twilight, and is now part of the opening of Married By Morning.

Leo, Lord Ramsay, has just uncovered a secret about Catherine Marks, the family governess and companion:

Leo stared at Catherine Marks’s downbent head, trying to absorb the information. The sense of being duped, betrayed, ignited a bonfire of rage. “There could be no good reason,” he said, “for such information to have been kept secret.”

“The situation is complicated.”

“Why have neither of you said anything before now?”

“You don’t need to know.”

“You should have told me. You were obligated.”

“By what?”

“Loyalty, damn you. What else do you know that might affect my family? What other secrets are you hiding?”

“It’s none of your business,” Catherine shot back, now twisting in his grip. “Let me go!

“Not until I find out what you’re plotting. Is Catherine Marks even your real name? Who the hell are you?” He swore as she began to struggle in earnest. “Hold still, you little she-devil. I just want to–ouch!” This last as she turned and jabbed a sharp elbow in his side.

The maneuver gained Marks the freedom she sought, but her spectacles went flying to the ground. “My spectacles!” With an aggravated sigh, she dropped to her hands and knees and began feeling for them.

Leo’s fury was instantly smothered by guilt. From the looks of it, she was practically blind without the spectacles. And the sight of her crawling on the ground made him feel like a brute. A jackass. Lowering to his knees, he began to hunt for them as well. “Did you see the direction they went in?” he asked.

“If I did,” she said, fuming, “I wouldn’t need spectacles, would I?”

A short silence. “I’ll help you find them.”

“How kind of you,” she said acidly.

For the next few minutes the two of them traversed the garden on their hands and knees, searching among the daffodils. They both chewed on the gristly silence as if it were a mutton chop.

“So you actually need spectacles,” Leo finally said.

“Of course I do,” Marks said crossly. “Why would I wear spectacles if I didn’t need them?”

“I thought they might be part of your disguise.”

“My disguise?”

“Yes, Marks, disguise. A noun describing something that serves to conceal someone’s identity. Often used by clowns and spies, and now apparently governesses. Good God, can anything be ordinary for my family?”

Marks glared and blinked in his direction, her gaze not quite focused. For a moment, she looked like an anxious child whose favorite blanket had been set out of reach. And that caused an odd, painful twinge in Leo’s heart.

“I’ll find your spectacles,” he said brusquely. “You have my word. If you like, you can go into the house while I keep searching.”

“No, thank you. If I tried to find the house on my own, I’d probably end up in the barn.”

Seeing a metallic glimmer in the grass, Leo reached out and closed his hand around the spectacles. “Here they are.” He crawled to Marks and faced her in an upright kneeling position. After polishing the lenses with the edge of his sleeve, he said, “Hold still.”

“Give them to me.”

“Let me do it, hardhead. Arguing comes to you as naturally as breathing, doesn’t it?”

“No, it doesn’t,” she said immediately, and colored as he gave a husky laugh.

“It’s no fun to bait you when you make it so easy, Marks.” He placed the spectacles on her face with great care, running his fingers along the sides of the frame, viewing the fit with an assessing glance. Gently he touched the tips of the earpieces. “They’re not fitted well.” He ran an exploring fingertip over the upper rim of one ear. She was remarkably pretty in the sunlight, her gray eyes containing glimmers of blue and green. Like opals. “Such small ears,” Leo continued, letting his hands linger gently at the sides of her fine-boned face. “No wonder your spectacles fall off so readily. There’s hardly anything to hang them on.”

Marks stared at him in bewilderment.

How fragile she was, he thought. Her will was so fierce, her temperament so prickly, that he tended to forget she was only half his size. He would have expected her to slap his hands away by now–she hated being touched, especially by him. But she didn’t move at all. He let his thumb brush the side of her throat, and felt the tiny undulation of her swallow. There was something unreal about the moment, something dreamlike. He didn’t want it to end.

“Is Catherine your real name?” he asked. “Will you at least answer that?”

She hesitated, fearful of yielding any part of herself, even that insignificant scrap of information. But as his fingertips slid along her neck, the light caress seemed to disarm her. A bloom of color rose from her throat.

“Yes,” she choked out. “It’s Catherine.”

They were still kneeling together, her skirts having billowed and settled everywhere. Folds of flower-printed muslin had been caught under one of Leo’s knees. His body reacted strongly to her nearness, heat sliding beneath his skin and gathering in inconvenient places. Muscles tightened, thickened. He would have to put an end to this, or he was going to do something they would both regret.

“I’ll help you up,” Leo said brusquely, making to rise. “We’ll go inside. I warn you, however, I’m not through with you yet. There’s more I–”

But he broke off, because as Marks had tried to struggle upward, her body had brushed against his. They went still, caught front to front, their breath mingling in uneven surges.

The dreamlike feeling intensified. The two of them were kneeling in a summer garden, the air weighted with the perfume of hot crushed grass and pungent daffodils . . . and Catherine Marks was in his arms. Her hair shimmered in the sunlight, her skin petal-smooth. Her upper lip was nearly as full as the lower, the curves as delicate and smooth as a ripe persimmon. Staring at her mouth, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck lift in reflexive excitement.

Some temptations, Leo decided hazily, should not be resisted. Because they were so persistent that they would only keep returning, time and again. Therefore such temptations absolutely had to be yielded to–it was the only way to get rid of them.

“Damn it,” he said raggedly, “I’ll do it. Even knowing I’ll be annihilated afterward.”

“You’ll do what?” Marks asked, her eyes huge.

“This.”

And his mouth descended to hers.

©2009 Lisa Kleypas