Newsletter

May 2005

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Dear friends and family~

I'm so excited! I saw my very first review for LOST IN TEMPTATION
today. Marilyn at Historical Romance Writers
(www.HistoricalRomanceWriters.com) rated the book a 9 (out of 10), and
here are some snippets from the review: "...an amazing love
story...complete with a wonderful cast of colorful and intriguing
secondary characters and a marvelous plot, the pace was never
slow...Most importantly, the romance between the two protagonists was
absolutely divine with a sensual play as delicious as the recipes for
sweets...a deeply satisfying and original read." Whew! I'm always
nervous to see the early reviews, and this one made me very happy!

My new bookmarks have arrived! If you'd like a free LOST IN TEMPTATION
bookmark (or a few to share with friends!), send a self-addressed,
stamped envelope to me at P.O. Box 52932, Irvine, CA 92619. A longer,
business-size envelope is better than a shorter one, because that way I
don't have to fold the bookmarks.

April's LOST IN TEMPTATION winner is Merry Cross of Brooklyn, NY.
Congratulations, Merry! I'm giving away a blue cameo in a sterling
silver setting every month this year, so there are still many chances
to win. May's contest question is "Which of Alexandra's sisters is an
oil painter?" -- and almost everyone is getting it right so far, so I
don't think I need to give a hint this time. To find the entry form and
the excerpt, visit my site at www.LaurenRoyal.com and click "Contest"
on the menu.

On Saturday and Sunday, May 28th and 29th, I'll be signing books at the
Los Angeles Highland Games at the fairgrounds in Pomona, California. For
anyone who may not have already heard, this is the same festival that
used to be held every May at the Orange County fairgrounds in Costa
Mesa--the organizers have moved it. You'll find me at the Tea & Sympathy
booth in the vendor's area, and I'll have my new bookmarks with me, so
come by and say "hi" and ask for one! For more information about this
event and other ones planned for the future, please visit the
"Appearances" page on my site.

You'll find the fifth excerpt from LOST IN TEMPTATION at the end of
this message. If you're new to the newsletter and missed the first
four installments, you'll also find instructions below telling
where you can locate and read them. LOST IN TEMPTATION won't be in
stores until July 5, but if you'd rather pre-order than try to
remember the release date, there are links to online booksellers on
my website at www.LaurenRoyal.com. You can even order a
personalized, autographed copy.

Happy Reading!

Always, ~Lauren
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you're new to the list and missed the previous excerpts:
Excerpt #1 can be found at the bottom of my January 2005 newsletter archived at
http://www.laurenroyal.com/ml.pl?action=msg&msg=1105857475
Excerpt #2 can be found at the bottom of my February 2005 newsletter archived at



http://www.laurenroyal.com/ml.pl?action=msg&msg=1107500970 Excerpt #3
can be found at the bottom of my March 2005 newsletter archived at
http://www.laurenroyal.com/ml.pl?action=msg&msg=1111038857 Excerpt #4
can be found at the bottom of my April 2005 newsletter archived at
http://www.laurenroyal.com/ml.pl?action=msg&msg=1113722118

EXCERPT #5
(from LOST IN TEMPTATION by Lauren Royal, due in stores July 5, 2005)

Alexandra sat at her gold-and-white Chippendale dressing table,
fingering the oval cameo she'd dug out of the bottom of her jewelry box.
"It's pretty, isn't it?"

"Beautiful, my lady." The maid she shared with her sisters deftly pinned
up her hair. "I've never seen you wear it before."

"It's been put away for a long time."

Alexandra hadn't been able to find the note that had come with the cameo
that exciting day it arrived, about a year after Tris left for the West
Indies. But she'd read it so many times, the words were burned into her
memory. My dear Lady Alexandra, it said in a bold scrawl so distinct she
could picture it even now,

        Here is the gift I promised you from Jamaica. I expect it will
        arrive a year or two before myself, but I saw it in a shop and
        knew it for the perfect choice. The cameo reminded me of your
        profile portraits, and its subject reminded me of yourself. It
        is my wish that you'll wear it in the best of health and
        happiness.

               Yours,
                    Tristan Nesbitt

The cameo, set in a beautiful silver bezel, featured a girl carved in
profile on an oval of blue agate. She'd cherished it and been thrilled
to think the pretty, curly-haired young miss on it reminded Tris of her.
She must have read the words "My dear" and "Yours" a million times,
wishing there were some way he *could* be hers. But after a year had
passed, and then two, she'd given up those childish dreams and put both
the cameo and the note away.

After another year, she'd taken his profile portrait from her wall and
put that away, too.

And now, he wasn't even Tris anymore. He was Lord Hawkridge, a strange
and distant man.

On the other hand, now that he was a marquess, he was no longer
unsuitable. Perhaps she could--

"Are you ready yet?" Corinna called from the doorway.

"Almost. Come in a moment." As her sisters entered, she threaded a
ribbon through the cameos bale and quickly tied it around her neck.
Then she lifted a little pot of clear gloss. Watching in the mirror, she
slicked it on her mouth.

"A Lady of Distinction doesn't approve of lip salve," Corinna informed
her. "In 'The Mirror of the Graces,' she says--"

"A Lady of Distinction can go hang," Alexandra interrupted. "Do you
expect Lord Hawkridge might have stayed for dinner?"

Juliana straightened Corinna's yellow satin sash. "Oh, yes. Griffin has
asked him to stay the night, so he can assist him with some sort of
problem at the vineyard tomorrow morning."

So that was what Tris and Griffin had been so busy discussing while
Alexandra was trying to keep the ratafia puffs from Lord Shelton. If
Tris would be here through tomorrow, she thought with a little frisson
of excitement, perhaps she might have time to catch his interest. But
she was terribly inexperienced . . . did she have what it would take to
tempt a marquess?

"And has Lord Shelton departed?" she asked with not a little
trepidation.

His presence could ruin everything.

"Of course. He was invited only to take tea, after all." Corinna sat
carefully on Alexandra's blue damask bedcovering. "He hopes you'll feel
better soon."

"I am absolutely recovered," Alexandra assured her. Even more so now
that she knew she'd escaped the dreaded proposal. She handed her maid a
blue ribbon. "Lord Hawkridge didn't seem to mind staying?"

"Not at all." Juliana smiled at her in the mirror. "I don't mind
him staying, either. He's quite handsome, is he not? In a rugged
way, I mean."

"He's *gorgeous*." Corinna flung herself back on the bed. "I want to
paint him."

"He's mine," Alexandra said quietly.

The room fell silent.

"You cannot be serious," Juliana finally said. "You're marrying
Lord Shelton."

"I am not. I thought I made that clear this afternoon." Alexandra
turned from the dressing table and glanced up. "Thank you, Mary. That
will be all."

As her maid slipped from the room, Alexandra squared her shoulders. "I
mean to marry Lord Hawkridge if he will have me." Juliana gasped, but
Alexandra rushed on. "I hope you two will support me in this. I'm aware
it seems rash, but the truth is, I've been in love with him since I was
fifteen. Or years earlier. I'm not sure."

Corinna sat upright again, her eyes round as blue saucers. "Does he
know?"

"Of course not. Last I saw him, he was a grown man of twenty-one and I
was still in the schoolroom. He wasn't supposed to even notice me."

"He noticed us," Corinna disagreed. "He talked to us quite often, and he
used to tease us mercilessly."

Alexandra sighed.  "That wasn't the sort of noticing I was hoping for."

"In any case, he was a mere mister then," Juliana pointed out, "with no
prospects."

"I never cared."

Juliana smoothed her pink skirts.  "Father would have cared."

"I know.  And I accepted that then.  But now everything's changed--"

"Good evening, ladies." Griffin appeared in the doorway. "Father would
have cared about what?"

The sisters exchanged glances, then Juliana looked toward him and
smiled. "Father would have cared to see one of us wed to Lord
Hawkridge."

Griffin blinked. "Let us hear none of that. I didn't invite Tristan here
as a potential suitor."

"Why not?" Corinna asked. "You've invited every other unmarried man in
all of Britain."

"Not quite yet, but I'm working on it." He flashed her a crooked grin,
then nodded toward a book on Alexandra's night table. "Have you been
reading 'The Mirror of the Graces'?"

"Oh, yes. Every night," she assured him, ignoring her sisters' muffled
giggles. Griffin had given them each a copy of the etiquette manual,
authored by "A Lady of Distinction," in the hope that they would learn
to deport themselves in a manner conducive to winning fine husbands. He
was leaving no stone unturned in his quest to get them all married off.

"Excellent," he said.  "I trust you're feeling better now?"

"Much better, thank you.  Shall we go down to dinner?"

Somewhere in the house, she thought as she trailed her siblings out of
the room, Lord Hawkridge was waiting. Just realizing she would see him
again made a pleasant hum warm her body. And to think, only this morning
she'd considered feelings of love to be an unrealistic, childish
expectation.

# # #

Pretending indifference toward Lady Alexandra was one of the hardest
things Tristan had ever done. And years of practice didn't seem to be
making it any easier.

Dinner had been pure torture, chitchatting with Griffin about his
trouble with the vineyard while all the while he could feel Alexandra's
gaze on him. Now, their little party having removed themselves to the
music room, he was sipping his port at an impolite pace while Griffin's
sisters provided entertainment.

Corinna had a pretty voice, and the music Juliana coaxed from her harp
was nothing less than exquisite. But Tristan had eyes only for
Alexandra. She'd removed her gloves, and her bare fingers, long and
elegant, flew gracefully over the keys of the pianoforte. Though his
ears told him the resulting tune was proficient rather than inspired,
her playing had him enthralled.

She was wearing the cameo he'd sent her several years earlier, and he
found himself entirely too pleased about that.

"Would you care for more?"

Tristan looked up to find Griffin standing over him with the bottle of
port. "My thanks," he murmured, raising his glass.

Griffin settled beside him on the small gold brocade sofa. "Civilized,
aren't they?" He gestured toward his sisters, all seated primly on
dainty chairs with brocade seats and gilt backs. His chuckle was low
enough not be heard across the room. "Whoever would have thought they'd
actually grow up?"

Tristan smiled, but he'd always known Alexandra would turn out to be
something special. A rather gangly girl, she'd grown into her looks
during the years since he'd last seen her. Sweet curves now softened her
slender frame. Her sooty-lashed eyes, which had always reminded him of
warmed brandy, now peered out from a delicately featured face. Her
chestnut hair was the same as it always had been--so springy it seemed
alive, refusing to stay pinned primly atop her head.

Any man would find her alluring.

But there was something else about her--something harder to put his
finger on. Even as an adolescent she'd been responsible beyond her
years, accomplished and more than competent . . . and yet, underneath,
he'd sensed a melting romanticism, a yearning for love that the younger,
more idealistic Tristan would have given anything to fulfill.

Then, as today, he'd sometimes sensed his feelings were
returned--something in the way her eyes would soften when he caught her
looking at him. But there had been no sense in pursuing anything. From
the start, he'd known the Marquess of Cainewood would not allow his
high-born daughter to wed the son of a common drunkard.

And nothing was different now. True, his situation had changed, and the
old marquess and his first son had both died, leaving Griffin to inherit
the title. But Griffin had new reasons to reject Tristan's suit--reasons
even more damning than those his father would have objected to all those
years ago.

Alexandra glanced over at him again, watching through lowered lashes as
a gentle smile curved her lips. He looked away and sipped. He would have
to have a talk with her. He disliked discussing his circumstances, but
honor compelled him to explain.

"What is life like at Hawkridge?" Griffin asked quietly.

Lonely, Tristan thought. He hadn't realized how lonely until now. But he
wasn't looking for pity. "I keep busy," he said. "Doing very
ungentlemanly things."

"Are you implying you work?" Griffin asked in mock horror.

"Incessantly, I'm afraid."

Griffin's laughter brought Alexandra's head up once more, and she met
Tristan's eyes, her own melting in that way that threatened his resolve.

But he wouldn't allow her to pierce his armor. He couldn't stand the
pain . . . especially because, as her older brother, Griffin would see
that nothing ever came of it, anyway.

"Hawkridge's restored vineyards are only the beginning of my
improvements," he said, turning deliberately to Griffin. "I am building
a gasworks. And I've found that careful land management produces
significantly larger crops."

Griffin sipped slowly. "According to rumor, you've started a new
breeding program as well. Not just for horses, but common swine
and sheep."

"Yes, I'm importing stock from distant estates. I ascribe to the theory
that interbreeding produces weak animals."

"I look forward to learning more of this."

"I look forward to explaining it," Tristan told him with a smile.

Miraculously, it seemed that Griffin had remained his friend. Still more
reason to steer clear of Alexandra. It wasn't worth ruining such a
long-standing relationship over something that could never be.

The song came to an end, but instead of launching into another one, the
sisters held a short, murmured conversation. Tristan saw Juliana nod
before they all rose. As they started across the parquet floor,
Alexandra's hand went up to touch the cameo hanging from a ribbon above
her low neckline.

Yes, he had to explain things, difficult as that would be. Perhaps
feigning indifference wasn't the hardest thing, after all.

"That was very nice, girls," Griffin said.

Although he knew his friend used the term with affection, Alexandra no
longer struck Tristan as a *girl*. He looked away, staring blankly at
the large gilt-framed mirror that hung above the white marble fireplace.
The room seemed too hot. He tugged to loosen the cravat his valet had so
carefully tied early that morning.

"Are you overly warm?" Juliana smiled sweetly. "Perhaps a walk along the
battlements in the night air would help."

That sounded like an excellent idea. "I believe I shall take your
suggestion," he said, beginning to rise. He needed to get out of here.
He needed to think. He needed to plan carefully what he would say to
Alexandra. Out of sight of her, and her beautiful eyes, and the cameo
he'd given her dangling near her pert, filled-out breasts.

"I'm pleased you agree," Juliana said, still smiling. "Alexandra would
be happy to accompany you."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fall in love with a historical romance by Lauren Royal
LOST IN TEMPTATION ~ July 2005 ~ Signet Eclipse
Win a cameo at http://www.LaurenRoyal.com

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