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How to
Plan a Wedding for a Royal Spy
Renegade
Royals # 3
By: Vanessa Kelly
Releasing January 6th, 2014
Zebra / Kensington
Whether as
spies or lovers, the Renegade Royals—illegitimate sons of England’s Royal
Princes—are bold, skillful, and a force to be reckoned with…
A war hero returned from Waterloo should be able to
indulge in a bit of bad behavior. Instead, Captain William Endicott is summoned
by his father, the Duke of York, to investigate an assassination plot. The
unlikely suspect: William’s former sweetheart. Will can’t believe that innocent
Evie Whitney could be mixed up in anything so nefarious. Then again, almost
everything about Evie has changed—except for his body’s instinctive response to
hers…
Just as Evie’s life is finally coming together, Will
saunters back into it. Should she slap him—or seduce him? Even as she tries to
decide, scandal pushes her toward marriage with a man she can neither trust nor
resist—and into the heart of a deadly conspiracy…
Evie Whitney watched in admiration as her
sister’s arrow flew straight and true, landing with a satisfying thud in the
center of the target.
“Well done,” she said to her twin. “It still amazes me how accurate you are,
even though your eyesight is as bad as mine and you refuse to wear spectacles.”
Eden flashed a satisfied smirk and handed
her the bow. “That’s because you think
about it too much, Evie, just like you do about everything. All I do is aim for the big red circle and
fire away.”
It was more than that, of course, and they
both knew it. Eden—or Edie, as she was
known to friends and family—excelled at almost every activity she took up,
despite the curse of dreadful eyesight.
She had learned to compensate for her poor vision with an array of
little tricks. It also helped that she
was naturally graceful and confident, and adept at smoothing over awkward
moments that might arise, say, from failing to recognize a friend from across
the room.
Lacking her sister’s talent and grace,
Evie couldn’t count the times she’d walked into potted plants or offended an
acquaintance when she breezed right past them unawares. Finally, when she turned twenty, she’d stood
up to her mother and insisted on acquiring a pair of spectacles. Though they placed her even more firmly in
the wallflower category, at least she was no longer in danger of falling down
stairs or giving the impression that she was rude.
Evie notched her arrow in the
bowstring. Taking a deep breath, she
enjoyed the drift of the soft breeze across the back of her neck. It was a gorgeous, late September day, when
summer slowly melted into fall and the sky seemed to shimmer with gold around
the edges.
She glanced across the lawn to the back of
Maywood Manor, her family’s gracious old house.
Lady Polk and her daughters, who’d been enjoying the late afternoon sun
on the terrace, had gone indoors, no doubt in anticipation of the gong. Other guests, who had been strolling on the
lawns or had joined Evie and Eden in the impromptu archery contest, had also
drifted away to their rooms to change.
Evie and her sister should be going up too, before their mother came out
to scold them for being late.
Not that Mamma would dream of scolding
Eden. She would just smile and chuck
Eden under the chin, calling her a naughty puss before delivering a stern
lecture to Evie. It was the natural
state of affairs in their family, and had been for as long as Evie could
remember.
“Are you going to shoot or just stand
there all day like some kind of looby?” her sister said, stripping off her
leather gloves. She dropped into one of
the wrought iron chairs under the canopy that sheltered the refreshments
table. “Mamma will have our heads if
we’re late for dinner, so you’d better make this shot your last.”
“You mean she’ll have my head, don’t
you? You could set the house on fire and
she’d find some way to excuse you.”
Her
sister’s face twisted with sympathy.
“It’s beastly, isn’t it?”
Evie stretched the bowstring and took
aim. “It’s not your fault, pet. It’s just the way she is.” She loosed the arrow and followed its
flight.
Eden leaned forward, squinting. “You almost hit the bullseye that time.”
“I’ve been practicing. Maybe one of these days I’ll be as good as
you.”
“Dream on, Sister dear,” Eden retorted as
she came to her feet, lazily stretching her arms in front of her. “When it comes to—”
“When it comes to what?” Evie asked
absently, retrieving her bonnet from where it had blown under the table. Her mother would scold if she saw her
bareheaded outdoors, but the day was warm and fine and she liked the feel of
the breeze on the back of her neck.
Plopping the hat on her head, she turned to see her twin peering toward
the house.
And felt as if the earth had just dropped
away beneath her feet.
“Someone’s coming,” Eden said, “but I
can’t make out who it is, confound it.”
Evie struggled to form the impossible
words. “It’s…it’s Will. Endicott.”
Her twin’s mouth dropped open. “Wolf?
Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure.” Evie blinked several times, as if that would
somehow make Will disappear. “Do you
think I could ever forget what he looks like?”
“Here, hand me your spectacles,” Eden
said. Before Evie could answer, she
snatched them from her nose and held them before her eyes. Then she let out a low whistle. “Well, I’ll be damned. It is Wolf Endicott. But who’s that delicious looking fellow he’s
got with him?”
Evie retrieved her spectacles. “I don’t know and I don’t care. What I do want to know is what that…that…”
Words often failed her, but never more so
than today.
“Bounder?
Poltroon?” Eden helpfully supplied.
Evie could only give her head a
despairing shake in response.
At one time, Will Endicott had meant the
world to her. She’d told him all the
secrets of her soul and had adored him with the fervent passion that only a
young girl could feel for her first love.
And she’d thought Will felt the same way, equally devoted to her and
equally determined that they’d grow up and grow old together.
What
a silly little fool she’d been.
Vanessa
Kelly is an award-winning author who was named by Booklist, the review journal
of the American Library Association, as one of the “New Stars of Historical
Romance.” Her Regency-set historical
romances have been nominated for awards in a number of contests, and her second
book, Sex and The Single Earl, won the prestigious Maggie Medallion for Best
Historical Romance. Her current series,
The Renegade Royals is a national bestseller.
Vanessa also writes USA Today bestselling contemporary romance with her
husband, under the pen name of VK Sykes.
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