Sabrina Jeffries newest novel is out as of today! Yes I know you are wanting to know if you won a copy! And I know. But really our Valenduckie event has been so swell, much do to the ever amazing round robin styling of Sabrina we have no choice but to go out on high note by giving away her new release.

Until then, if you haven’t already gone and picked up the book… here is a reason why you should

EXCERPT: Let Sleeping Rogues Lie by Sabrina Jeffries



Anthony gaped at Miss Prescott, unsure what to make of her proposal. And what the bloody devil was a rakehell lesson, anyway?

“Rakehell lessons!” Mrs. Harris retorted. “You suggest that I let the fox into the henhouse to corrupt our girls?”

Oh, for God’s sake— “I don’t ‘corrupt’ children. Why should I, with plenty of already corrupted grown women to choose from? Virginal schoolgirls with pistol-packing papas and insecurities are far too much trouble. I prefer women who know what they want and aren’t ashamed to take it. From me.” He scowled down at Miss Prescott. “Which is why I’d have nothing of use to teach your pupils.”

“You’d be surprised,” the petite teacher persisted. “Surely the techniques of seduction are the same for any woman. You’re rumored to have enjoyed the . . . . er . . . favors of several widows. You must have used some tricks to entice them, the sort a less scrupulous man might use to seduce an innocent.” Miss Prescott flashed him a guileless smile that made her creamy skin glow. “Unless you’re claiming that women fall into your arms simply because of your dashing air.”

“It’s as good a reason as any,” he shot back, annoyed by the teacher’s clear immunity to his “air.” “I have no idea why women choose me for a lover. Perhaps you should ask them.”

“Give me a list, and I will.” When he blinked, the woman cast her employer a quick glance and added in a warning tone, “Though such an investigation could considerably lengthen the process of getting your niece enrolled here.”

Was the woman trying to help him circumvent her employer? If so, it must be for reasons of her own. He’d met enough teachers in his endless trek through London’s schools to know they were all eager to escape their miserable existence.

And yet …

She seemed different. For one thing, she was far prettier. For another, she dressed like someone who actually enjoyed what she did. No gray woolens for Miss Prescott. Her cheery gown of yellow spotted muslin complemented her fair coloring and skimmed her petite form in all the right places.

Some might deem Mrs. Harris the more beautiful of the two because of her exotic red hair and blue eyes, but the widow’s stiffness put him off. He found Miss Prescott’s open and honest manner more appealing. She reminded him of a country dairymaid, with her honey-gold curls and apple cheeks.

Except for those unusual amber eyes. Cat’s eyes. Temptress eyes. Yet remarkably, eyes that assessed him as one might a fascinating sculpture, without flirtation or censure. Women never looked at him like that. It made him wonder if she really was trying to help him and Tessa.

Not that it would do any good, given the absurdity of her proposal. “I wouldn’t know how to give these lessons. I’m not conscious of using any ‘tricks.’”

Miss Prescott let out the unfettered laugh of someone who’d never been coached by a society mother. “Forgive me, but didn’t you once say ‘where there’s a widow, there’s a way’? That does imply a certain polished skill with women.”

He tensed. The idiotic comment he’d made to his friends while foxed had dogged him for years. How clever of her to use it to make him sound like a calculated seducer. Granted, he was no saint, but he wasn’t like his friend, the Marquess of Stoneville, bedding women just to prove he could. Perhaps she was more critical of his character than she let on. Perhaps she was like everyone else.

Deliberately, he let his gaze linger on her pretty mouth. “Touché. Although, for the sake of my pride, I hope you’ll admit that some of my talent with women comes from my natural charms.”

The chit didn’t so much as blush. “Certainly. If you will admit that some men are better at attracting a female and keeping her interest than others, regardless of looks. Just as some women are better at attracting men.”

She faced the wary Mrs. Harris. “Our young ladies know how to attract men. But if they could hear how men entice women—especially from a man who excels at it—they might learn to recognize when men who court them aren’t sincere.”

“Men like me, you mean,” he drawled, still unsure what to make of her. “Do you think me insincere?”

“Actually, my lord, you’re rather famous for shocking people with your honest and outrageous opinions.” She arched an eyebrow. “Though I suspect you’re more circumspect with women you wish to seduce.”

He stared at her. “That depends on the woman.”

“Exactly,” she said. “And that alone would be a good lesson for our girls—how a rakehell can tailor his seductions to particular women.”

His eyes narrowed. So that’s she meant by rakehell lessons. But why press her employer for them? Just because of the few things he’d said about Tessa?

Shoving his hand in his pocket, he suddenly encountered the paper mache snuff box his niece had “specially made” for her “favorite uncle.” It hadn’t occurred to her that he never took snuff, and he hadn’t enlightened her, especially after seeing the charmingly awful miniature of herself she’d painted on the lid.

She’d given it to him their last Christmas before Wallace’s untimely death. The last time they’d all been together. The last time he’d seen her smile.

He stiffened. Miss Prescott’s proposal might be odd and rather insulting, but he could put up with that if it saved Tessa from even one day of suffering.

“If his lordship were to give these lessons,” the prickly Mrs. Harris asked, “how would that prove his acceptability as a guardian?”

Good question. He glanced expectantly at Miss Prescott.

“Why, it will allow us to observe how he treats them. We’ll see firsthand if he can restrain his language around them and behave like a gentleman. We’ll see if he can be discreet, which seems to be your main concern.”

Mrs. Harris sighed. “While I admit that the idea has merit, Madeline, it also seems a little dangerous.”

For him, perhaps. Aside from wasting his time if nothing came of it, one of their silly girls could claim he’d made untoward advances. Marriage to a virginal chit scheming to become his viscountess wasn’t in his plans, especially since the ensuing scandal would scotch his chances of gaining guardianship of his niece.

They were talking about Tessa’s future. Perhaps he shouldn’t risk it, especially when they’d given him so few assurances.

“I will oversee the lessons myself,” Miss Prescott told her employer. “I’ll make sure his lordship adheres strictly to the rules of the school, and that—”

“Look here,” he broke in, “if I’m to make a fool out of myself before your young ladies, I’ll need more than some vague hope that you’ll agree to my niece’s enrollment. I daresay no other applicant has to go through such nonsense.”

“I turned away four wealthy young ladies last week, sir,” the headmistress said in a haughty voice. “As I told you, I have no openings available for this year’s sessions. If I were to take your niece, I’d have to make room for her, no small feat during our busy Easter term. And we’ve just lost our cook—”

“I’m sure his lordship could help us find another.” Miss Prescott shot him a sidelong glance. “Just as I’m sure Mrs. Harris will promise to write a letter supporting your petition for guardianship if she’s pleased with your lessons.”

He fixed his gaze on Mrs. Harris. “Is that true? Would you make such a promise?”

“That depends. Miss Prescott assures me that your niece will be mistreated if put into her relations’ care. Do you honestly believe that?”

He nodded. “I’ve been sure of it ever since I watched my aunt bully the girl at my brother’s funeral to make her stop crying.” He’d hoped his aunt had softened with age, but her behavior to Tessa had dashed that hope. It reminded him too painfully of his own boyhood.

To his surprise, sympathy flashed over Mrs. Harris’s face. “Very well,” she said gruffly, “two weeks are left in this session, during which you will offer rake lessons for an hour a day under Miss Prescott’s supervision. If, at the end of that time, we are satisfied with your behavior and you’ve managed to avoid being discussed in the newspapers for a change, I’ll enroll your niece for the Easter term and write a letter to the court supporting your petition. Are we agreed?”

He hesitated to put himself at the mercy of a woman whose high-minded notions reminded him of his detestable aunt, and he was wary of being under the “supervision” of a woman as difficult to read as Miss Prescott. How he wished he could tell them to take their “rake lessons” and shove them into the nearest privy.

But then Tessa would have no school. The courts would decide that she’d be better off spending her days in the home of a God-fearing couple than in the home of a profligate, and that would be the end to his being her guardian.

The last letter Tessa had been allowed to send had chilled him, since it had been so obviously coached by Aunt Eunice. Ever since the girl could hold a pen, she’d been writing him—he knew her style. It was not the style of that letter. And the very fact that Aunt Eunice was overseeing her correspondence terrified him, for it made him wonder what his niece might have written otherwise.

How much worse would it be if Aunt Eunice gained free rein as Tessa’s legal guardian? What sort of horrors might the old bitch inflict if she could do so unchecked? He well remembered the hours his cousin Jane had spent standing with her face to the wall just for smiling at a handsome boy. And that had been an easy punishment compared to—

He shuddered, absently rubbing the ridged scar across his wrist. He would do anything to keep Tessa from enduring what he and Jane had. And he could use a letter supporting his petition from a woman as upstanding as Mrs. Harris.

Forcing a smile, he thrust out his hand. “Agreed, madam.”

As Mrs. Harris shook it, the weight that had lain on his shoulders since his brother’s death settled more heavily upon him. Damn Wallace for dying, and laying this responsibility at his door. Damn the man!

Given his brother’s dim-wittedness, Wallace had probably set fire to the blasted inn himself with a cigar. And now Anthony, after years of fighting to ignore how the man drove the family estate into the ground, had to clean up the mess Wallace and his extravagant fool of a wife had left behind.

He ruthlessly squelched his twinge of guilt at the unkind thought. If Wallace hadn’t died, he would shoot the man himself. How dared the idiot not make sure that Tessa had a suitable guardian? If anyone other than the Bickhams had wanted to raise the girl, Anthony would have given them his blessing. But letting Aunt Eunice and Uncle Randolph raise his beloved niece—

Not them. Never. The poor confused child would just have to be stuck with her rogue of an uncle until she could marry. And that meant he was stuck with the superior schoolteachers, for a while anyway.

Ah, but it would be a damned trying while, judging from the rules Mrs. Harris began dictating for their outrageous enterprise.

Rule One: He was to arrive by horseback, so as not to rouse gossip among the locals with his carriage.

Rule Two: He must enter the school through the same door the staff used.

Rule Three: He wasn’t to speak of this enterprise to anyone in society.

Speak of it—was she mad? If word got out that he’d agreed to teach young ladies how to avoid seduction, he’d be the laughingstock of London.

“And you must never contrive to be alone with the girls,” Mrs. Harris said.

For God’s sake, this grew more ridiculous by the moment. “Must I? Such a pity. I’d hoped to work my way through them one at a time, sullying their virtue and ruining all their hopes for the future. Are you quite sure you won’t allow that?”

The startled look on Mrs. Harris’s face didn’t please him nearly as much as Miss Prescott’s hastily smothered sputter of laughter.

“Lord Norcourt—” Mrs. Harris began in a warning tone.

“No being alone with the girls. I understand.” The wicked devil in him made him add, “What about being alone with the head of the school? Is that allowed? I could bring some champagne, a few strawberries—”

“Oh, Lord,” the widow said with a roll of her eyes. “Heaven help us, Madeline, he will have the girls falling in love with him before the week is out.”

“All the better to prove our lesson,” Miss Prescott retorted. “That a rakehell can be charming and still not mean a word of it.”

“Or that rakehells are more fun to be around,” he quipped,

That gained him a scowl from both women. He must stop letting his tongue run away with him. Provoking the pompous played well at the club with his friends, but not so well with schoolmistresses.

Mrs. Harris turned to Miss Prescott. “What are we to tell the parents about this? They won’t approve.”

“Why tell them anything?” Miss Prescott said. “We’re doing nothing wrong.”

“But the girls might mention it.”

“Yes, I suppose we must at least explain it to them.” The teacher tapped her chin. “We’ll say that Lord Norcourt’s niece will soon be attending the school, so he’s offering cautionary lessons as a courtesy. If his lessons don’t meet with your approval, we’ll simply claim he changed his mind about enrolling Miss Dalton. Either way, by the time the parents hear of it and protest—if they do—the matter will be resolved. It’s hardly enough time for anyone here to connect Lord Norcourt with the notorious Mr. Anthony Dalton.”

“You did,” he pointed out.

“Exactly,” Mrs. Harris said. “And the girl shares his surname, Madeline.”

“The parents send their children here precisely because our curriculum is unusual. If you explain that the lessons are supervised and appropriate to a young lady’s ears, I doubt they will care.” Miss Prescott slid her delicate hand in the crook of his arm. “Come, my lord, let me give you a tour of the school.”

“Certainly, Miss Prescott,” he said, wondering at her eagerness to hustle him from the office. “I’d be delighted.”

Mrs. Harris’s eyes narrowed, but she said nothing as her protégé hurried him out, then walked briskly down the hall ahead of him in full expectation that he would follow.

And follow he did, though at a more leisurely pace to allow him a good look at her small but shapely bottom, made for cupping and fondling and squeezing. No doubt that would rouse a blush in her fair cheeks—

Stop that, you randy arse! he told himself. You can’t seduce Miss Prescott, not if you want Tessa to attend here.

Besides, naturalist or no, she was still a schoolteacher, which made her the marrying sort, not the take-a-tumble-with-a-rake sort. And she was probably as virginal as a nun, too, which ruled her out entirely.

He did have scruples—he’d never ruined a woman before and didn’t mean to start now. It was the surest way to end up trapped into wedding some virtuous and suitable female, which could only lead to disaster. Let other men hunt that elusive creature—the happy marriage. Although occasionally he allowed himself the sweet luxury of imagining himself in one, he knew it could never happen. Men like him didn’t dare to marry.

But that didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy looking at the unattainable, he told himself as his practiced gaze drank in the pretty curve of Miss Prescott’s back, the small but obstinate shoulders, and the bouncing yellow curls.

As if she’d read his wicked mind, the young lady turned on him a good distance from the office. “See here, Lord Norcourt, if this is to work, you must be guided by my advice. When I tell you to wait for me, I have a reason.”

“To gossip about me with Mrs. Harris? I hardly think that helped my cause.”

“You’re certainly not helping it by saying outrageous things to her. With every rash remark, you make it more difficult to persuade her to keep you.”

“Keep me!” He eyed her askance. “You seem to have mistaken me for a lapdog, sweetheart.”

“I am not your sweetheart, drat it!” She cast a furtive glance in the direction of Mrs. Harris’s office. “And that’s precisely the sort of rash remark I’m talking about. My employer is generally amiable, but men of your kind annoy her.”

“My ‘kind,’” he echoed.

“Rakehells. You know what I mean.”

“Forgive me, I’m still trying to imagine Mrs. Harris being ‘amiable.’”

With a sigh, Miss Prescott continued down the hall. “You must understand,” she explained as he kept pace with her, “in her youth, she eloped with a dashing rogue who turned out to be quite the fortune-hunter as well. Is it any wonder she dislikes that sort of man?”

“And how do you feel about rogues and rakehells, Miss Prescott?” he asked, watching to see her reaction.

“Having only met my first one today, I can hardly voice an opinion.”

“That doesn’t stop most people.”

“Most people have seen a rakehell in his natural habitat. I have not.”

“Natural habitat?” He laughed. “You are a lover of science.” Stepping in front of her, he blocked her path. “But I know you have an opinion. Everyone does. You won’t wound my feelings if you voice it.” Then he’d know where he stood with her.

A sigh escaped her lips. “Very well then.”

Ah, now we get to the truth. And the lecture.

“From what little I know, rakes seem a fascinating species, well deserving of study.” Sidling neatly past him, she continued down the hall.

He closed his slack jaw long enough to hurry after her. A “fascinating species”? “Deserving of study”? Was she serious?

Seconds later, they emerged into the foyer where he’d earlier been admitted. Sounds of girlish chatter cascaded down the impressive central staircase. The Elizabethan-era building had apparently been a private residence before being adapted for use as a school, and the high ceilings only amplified the noise.

Miss Prescott halted outside a door painted white. “Why don’t I show you the dining room before the girls come down for afternoon tea?” She spoke as if she hadn’t just made the most bizarre pronouncement he’d ever heard. “Then I can bring you up to see the classrooms while the girls aren’t engaged in lessons.”

“All right.” He followed her into a spacious room with a mahogany dining table that easily seated twenty. “Tell me, Miss Prescott. Why in God’s name would you think we rakehells deserve study?”

With a shrug, she strolled along the table, straightening chairs. “Because of your reckless way of life, I suppose. I want to understand how you can stomach it.”

“I want to understand why you think it reckless,” he countered, not sure if she was trying to insult him.

“Don’t you fight duels?”

Ah, that was the sort of thing she meant. “Absolutely not. You have to get up at dawn for those, you know.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t you race your phaeton?”

His smug smile faltered. “I don’t own a phaeton.” But he did race his curricle from time to time. No point in mentioning that.

“And I suppose you don’t drink strong spirits either.”

“Well, yes, but—”

“It isn’t good for the constitution, you know. Otherwise, it wouldn’t make generally healthy men suffer from headaches the morning after or cast up their accounts in the street. Surely you see that such reactions tax the body unduly.”

He held out his arms. “Do I look as if I’m teetering on the edge of death?”

Miss Prescott skimmed him with blatant nonchalance. “Not now, but I daresay you look quite different on the mornings after your carousing.”

“I can handle my liquor perfectly well,” he remarked, unaccountably peeved by her logical observation. “I certainly wouldn’t call my ‘carousing’ reckless.”

“Fine.” She strode off toward a door across the room. “Do you gamble?”

“Of course.” This had to be the oddest conversation he’d ever had with a woman.

“Surely you consider that reckless. Given the odds of winning versus losing, any good mathematician can tell you it’s rare for someone to increase their annual income by gambling. Yet rakes insist upon risking the loss of their property.”

“It isn’t a risk if you know the mathematical odds and play accordingly. The odds of winning at loo are about 5 to 1. Of course that depends on whether you’re playing three or five card loo, but when you factor in what trump the Eldest Hand plays to start, it can vary from 5 to 1 to 10 to 4. According to my calculations.”

Her look of shock rapidly changed to one of admiration, and that warmed him as no woman’s ever had. He’d always excelled at mathematics—that’s why he’d been able to supplement his small allowance so effectively with investments—but women weren’t usually impressed by a man’s skill with maths.

To have her look at him through new eyes full of interest roused his rakehell instincts. How easy it would be to step close and kiss that enticing, lushly proportioned mouth…

Now that would be reckless. “The point is, Miss Prescott, I’m well aware of the odds, so I never risk more than I can afford.”

Setting her hand on the door handle, she frowned. “But why risk anything at all? You don’t have to gamble to enjoy playing cards.”

He laughed. “My fellow club members wouldn’t share your opinion, I assure you.”

A thundering noise overhead made her start. “The girls are coming. Quick, through here. We don’t want to be inundated by questions and curious glances.”

With a nod, he followed her into a ballroom. He paid no mind to the oak floors that stretched an impressive distance beneath a crystal chandelier or the rows of simple white chairs that flanked walls covered with elegant green fabric. He was much more interested in why Miss Prescott, with her apparent disapproval of reckless rakehells, had proposed that he give lessons to her charges.

“We have dancing lessons three times a week in here,” she said in the tone of the impersonal guide. “Every Saturday night we hold an assembly for the girls, and once a month we invite local young men to attend so our students can practice their skills with gentlemen.”

“Do you dance, Miss Prescott?” he probed, hoping to learn more about her.

“When I can.” Circling the room, she headed out through the open French doors onto a gallery that afforded a fine view of well-laid-out gardens teeming with roses and lilacs. When she halted beside the marble balustrade, the sheen of gold cast by the afternoon sun over her glorious curls made him itch to touch them.

“I’m surprised that you don’t find dancing to be reckless,” he said, trying not to imagine her slender hips swaying, her pert breasts pushed high in an evening gown until they rose and fell fetchingly with her exertions. She was the marrying sort, remember?

“I suppose dancing can be reckless.” She tipped up her chin at him. “If it leads a man and woman to do other things.”

At last they got to the heart of the matter. Not that he was surprised. He had known she would eventually raise the subject of morality, especially in relations between men and women. The marrying sort always did.

“What ‘other things,’ Miss Prescott?” he drawled, the devil in him determined to force her into speaking the words aloud.

She eyed him as if he were a fool. “You know what I mean. Swiving.”

“Swiving?” He burst into laughter. “You have an interesting vocabulary for a schoolteacher.”

“The word comes from Shakespeare,” she said defensively. “It’s perfectly acceptable.”

“Perhaps for a tavern in Spitalfields, but gentlewomen don’t discuss swiving.”

“Oh, but they should! Then they’d learn the dangers of it. Indiscriminate swiving is the most reckless activity of a rake. It spreads disease, it provokes characters like that Harriette Wilson with her Memoirs to blackmail gentlemen with the threat of ruin, and it can result in the siring of illegitimate children—”

“Disease,” he broke in, incredulous. “Blackmail and illegitimate children. These are what concern you about the indiscriminate swiving of rakehells.”

“Of course.” She eyed him with clear surprise. “What else?”

“Virtue? Morality?”

She snorted. “Those are what make indiscriminate swiving so reckless in the first place. The woman bears the brunt of it, you know. Aside from losing her position and possibly her home, she risks finding herself with child and cast out by a society that dismisses her as ‘immoral’ to excuse its not protecting women from—”

“Men like me?”

“Well … yes.”

The thinly veiled accusation unnerved him. It was true that women could plummet from respectable to disreputable in society’s eyes very easily, even when the man was to blame for it, but he’d never let that little inequity bother him. His lovers had either been soiled doves or widows—having fun with him was entirely their choice. Neither seemed to need much protecting.

With his young niece’s future to consider, however, he couldn’t look at the average woman’s prospects in quite the same way. And that disturbed him. Deeply.

Then it annoyed him. It wasn’t as if he were ruining respectable women right and left. And he was trying to do right by Tessa, damn it, even though it could mean years of enduring long nights alone in his bed, unable to chase away the darkness with drink or whoring.

The thought of what he was giving up—the sacrifice she didn’t even heed—goaded him into looming over her. “Some people, even women, find the pleasures of ‘swiving’ well worth the risks, Miss Prescott.”

Though she caught her breath, she didn’t edge away. “I can’t imagine why.” Her clean, sweetish scent engulfed him as she met his gaze. “You were sincere about behaving as a gentleman while here at the school, weren’t you?”

He started to point out that he’d only agreed to be a gentleman to her pupils. But nothing had changed—she was still the wrong sort of woman to seduce.

With what he considered admirable restraint, he drew back. “I don’t have much of a choice,” he bit out, still chafing over that truth.

“Everyone has a choice, sir.”

“Even those of us born wicked?”

“Don’t be silly,” she chided. “Wickedness is just a pattern of bad behavior, a habit cultivated over time. One merely has to break the habit.”

“Ah, but we both know that habits are hard to break.” Awareness dawned. “Is that what you’re worried about? That I can’t keep from exercising my bad habits around your charges?”

His bluntness brought a shadow to her wholesome features. She dropped her gaze. “What I have heard of you suggests you were telling the truth about your preference for experienced females.”

“And as a naturalist, you really want to trust in that.” He searched her face. “But part of you still worries that the temptation of so much young female beauty will be too much for my … er … habit of seducing women.”

When she met his gaze, her answer plainly showing in her expression, he stiffened. “Don’t worry, Miss Prescott,” he said wearily. “My seduction habits are limited to women. I’m no debaucher of children. You can trust me to behave with perfect propriety around your girls.”

“Good,” she said, relief shining in her face. “I need this position, you know, and if you were to attempt to seduce even one of my pupils—”

“Or you?”

The words were out before he could stop them, and for the first time that afternoon, a flicker of uncertainty deepened her eyes. She masked it with a shaky laugh. “You may attempt to seduce me as much as you please. It would be pointless. I’m too aware of the risks. Besides, such things don’t tempt me.”

The bloody devil they didn’t. “Then you’d best watch your step around me, sweetheart,” he said softly. “Or I will prove you wrong.”

Copyright © 2008 Sabrina Jeffries, LLC