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by Lynsay Sands
“‘It gives me wings like those of a dove.’” Lord Prudhomme’s voice quavered with passion . . . or possibly just old age; Clarissa wasn’t sure which. Truly, the man was old enough to be her grandfather. Unfortunately, that didn’t matter to her stepmother, Lydia. The woman had promised to John Crambray that she’d see his daughter well married if it killed them both. Lord Prudhomme was the last of the few suitors still bothering with her. At this point, it looked like they were safe from dying. However, Clarissa was in imminent danger of finding herself married to the elderly gentleman kneeling on the floor before her and waving his arms wildly as he professed undying love.
“‘I shall vow my’ . . . er . . . ‘my’— Lady Clarissa,” Lord Prudhomme interrupted himself. “Pray, move the candle closer if you please. I am having trouble deciphering this word.”
Clarissa blinked away her ennui and squinted toward her suitor. Prudhomme was a dark blob in her vision with a round, pink blur of a face topped by a silvery cloud of hair.
“The candle, girl,” he said impatiently, all signs of the charming suitor momentarily replaced with irritation.
Clarissa squinted at the candle on the table beside her, picked it up, and leaned dutifully forward.
“Much better,” Prudhomme said with satisfaction. “Now, where was I? Oh, yes. ‘I shall vow my undying . . .’” He paused again and his nose twitched. “Do you smell something burning?”
Clarissa sniffed delicately at the air. She opened her mouth to say yes, actually she did, but before the words left her mouth Prudhomme released a shriek. Pulling back with surprise at the sound, she watched in amazement as the man suddenly leaped to his feet and began to hop madly about, his blurry arms flying and appearing to thrash at his head. Clarissa didn’t understand what was happening until the white blur that was his wig was suddenly removed and beat furiously against his leg. She blinked at the pink blob that was his head, then at his actions, and realized she must have held the candle too close—she’d set his wig aflame.
“Oh, dear.” Clarissa set the candle down, not releasing it until she knew it was safely on the table surface. Her vision blurred and her sense of distance beggared, she nearly knocked the little man over as she leaped up to help him.
“Get away from me!” Prudhomme yelled, shoving her backward.
Clarissa fell back in her chair and stared at him in blind amazement, then glanced sharply toward the door as a rustling announced the arrival of someone.
Several someones, she amended, squinting at the array of colors and shapes standing just inside the door. It looked as if every servant in the house had heard Prudhomme’s shrieks and come running. No doubt her stepmother was there as well, Clarissa thought, and heaved a small sigh at the subsequent shocked silence. She couldn’t see well enough to know if those by the door were staring at her with pity or accusation, but she didn’t need eyesight to guess at Prudhomme’s expression. His rage was a living thing. It reached out to her across the few feet separating them, and then he exploded with verbal vitriol.
He was so angry, most of what Prudhomme said ran together into one mostly incomprehensible rant. Clarissa managed to decipher bits here and there—“clumsy idiot,” “bloody disaster,” and “danger to society” amongst them—but then, in the midst of his rant, she saw his dark arm rise and descend toward her. Clarissa froze, afraid he might be lashing out, but she wasn’t at all sure. It was so hard to tell without her spectacles.
By the time his fist got close enough that Clarissa could see that he was indeed attempting to strike her, it was too late to avoid the blow. Fortunately, the others had apparently suspected he was winding up, and had moved closer while he spoke. Several of them descended on the man midswing, preventing the blow. There was a blurry blending and shifting of color before her as they struggled. Clarissa heard Prudhomme’s curses and a grunt from one of the shapes, whom she suspected was Ffoulkes, the butler. Then there was much cursing as the kaleidoscope blur of bodies began to shift toward the door.
“Fie! Shame on you, Lord Prudhomme,” Clarissa’s stepmother cried, her voice clearly distressed as her lilac blur followed the mass of other colors to the door, then she added anxiously, “I hope once you calm down you shall see your way clear to forgiving Clarissa. I am sure she did not mean to set your wig on fire.”
Clarissa sank back in her chair with a sigh of disgust. She couldn’t believe that her stepmother would still hope to make a match with the man. She’d set his wig on fire, for heaven’s sake! And he’d tried to hit her! Though Clarissa should have known better than to think that would put Lydia off making a match. What did her stepmother care if she ended up married to an abusive mate?
“Clarissa!”
Sitting up abruptly, she turned to peer warily around as the lilac blur that was Lydia reentered the room and slammed the door behind her.
“How could you?”
“I did not do it on purpose, Lydia,” Clarissa said at once. “And it would never have happened at all if you would just let me wear my spectacles. Surely being graceful, even with spectacles, will get me more suitors than—”
“Never!” Lydia snapped. “How many times have I to tell you that girls with spectacles simply do not find husbands? I know of what I speak. It is better to be a little clumsy than bespectacled.”
“I set his wig on fire!” Clarissa cried with disbelief. “That is more than a little clumsy, and really, this is beyond ridiculous now. ’Tis becoming dangerous. He could have been badly burned.”
“Yes. He could have. Thank the good Lord he was not,” Lydia said, sounding suddenly calm. Clarissa nearly moaned aloud. She had quickly come to learn that when her stepmother went calm, it did not bode well for her.
About the Author
LYNSAY SANDS is the nationally bestselling author of the Argeneau/Rogue Hunter vampire series, as well as numerous historicals and anthologies. She’s been writing since grade school and considers herself incredibly lucky to be able to make a career out of it. Her hope is that readers can get away from their everyday stress through her stories, and if there are occasional uncontrollable fits of laughter, that’s just a big bonus.
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By Lynsay Sands
Hunting for a Highlander
The Wrong Highlander
The Highlander’s Promise
Surrender to the Highlander
Falling for the Highlander
The Highlander Takes a Bride
To Marry a Scottish Laird
An English Bride in Scotland
The Husband Hunt
The Heiress
The Countess
The Hellion and the Highlander
Taming the Highland Bride
Devil of the Highlands
The Loving Daylights
Immortal Born
The Trouble With Vampires
Vampires Like it Hot
Twice Bitten
Immortally Yours
Immortal Unchained
Immortal Nights
Runaway Vampire
About a Vampire
The Immortal Who Loved Me
Vampire Most Wanted
One Lucky Vampire
Immortal Ever After
The Lady Is a Vamp
Under a Vampire Moon
The Reluctant Vampire
Hungry For You
Born to Bite
The Renegade Hunter
The Immortal Hunter
The Rogue Hunter
Vampire, Interrupted
Vampires Are Forever
The Accidental Vampire
Bite Me if You Can
A Bite to Remember
Tall, Dark & Hungry
Single White Vampire
Love Bites
A Quick Bite
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and ar
e not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Excerpt from Love is Blind copyright © 2006 by Lynsay Sands.
hunting for a highlander. Copyright © 2020 by Lynsay Sands. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers. For information, address HarperCollins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007.
Digital Edition JANUARY 2020 ISBN: 978-0-06-285538-1
Print Edition ISBN: 978-0-06-285537-4
Cover design by Patricia Barrow
Cover art © Chris McGrath
Avon, Avon & logo, and Avon Books & logo are registered trademarks of HarperCollins Publishers in the United States of America and other countries.
HarperCollins is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Publishers in the United States of America and other countries.
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