Giveaway: The Duke who ravished me - Diana Quincy

It has been a while since I had something like this on my blog so I felt it was time for a giveaway :=D

You can find the rafflecopter at the end!

Excerpt #2

Incredulous, Sunny rounded on the butler. “In my playroom?” He all but roared the words. Dowding seemed to visibly shrink in the face of his wrath. “Tell me you haven’t put those striplings in my private pleasure salon.”

The butler darted a glance in the direction of Sunny’s playroom. “I most certainly did not put them there, Your Grace.”

Sunny struggled to contain his temper. “But that’s where they are, is it not?”

Dowding looked miserable. “Unfortunately, Your Grace. We discovered their whereabouts just a short while ago.”

“What are they doing in there? You are the butler, are you not?” It was all he could do not to shout. “You are supposed to be in charge of ensuring this household runs smoothly. And this”—he gestured wildly toward the closed door—“is anything but smooth.”

“Your Grace, there was a miscommunication.”

Before he could ask what in Hades Dowding meant by that, the door opened and Sunny found himself staring down into the wide silver eyes of one of the interlopers.

“Hullo, Your Grace,” Prudence or Patience piped up. “May we call you Uncle Adam?”

“What?” He grimaced. “No, absolutely not. I am Your Grace to you. You may also call me Duke or simply Sunderford.” Until he found them a suitable home, the less familiarity between them, the better. Besides, he’d always addressed his own father as Your Grace, and the brats could certainly do the same.

“Sunderford?” She sucked three fingers into her mouth. “That’s an awfully long name. Uncle Abel lets us call him uncle.”

“Yes, well bug—” Catching himself, he let the remainder of the expletive die on his tongue. “Where is your sister?”

She grinned, baring a large gap in her upper row of teeth that made her look like a Seven Dials beggar. “Prudie is on your swing.”

“She’s what?” He suppressed a groan and stepped past the urchin. Her sister, in a snow white dress, clutched the ropes with her pudgy hands while pumping her little legs to and fro, trying to propel the swing higher.

Behind him, Patience clapped her hands with delight. “Higher, Prudie,” she urged. “Higher!” Pan dashed around the swing barking as if it was all such good fun.

Sunny winced at the sight of the child on his swing. The last time he’d laid eyes on the contraption, two naked strumpets had been perched upon it. “No,” he snapped. “Do not go higher. Come down off there at once.”

Prudence’s eyes rounded and her lower lip trembled. “Beg your pardon, Your Grace. I thought we could play in here.”

Horror gripped him. Was she about to weep? He hadn’t the first clue about how to deal with a sniveling female child. He turned to the footman and muttered under his breath, “John, what in Hades are these imps doing in my den of iniquity?”

“Why can’t we play in here?” Patience tugged on the hem of his tailcoat to draw his attention. “It’s a playroom, isn’t it?”

Sunny resisted the urge to swat her hands away. Had no one taught the child to keep her grasping little fingers to herself? “Who told you that?” he asked her. “Who told you this is a . . . erm . . . playroom?”

Patience pointed at John. “He did.”

Sunny’s head swung around toward the footman. Red suffused the man’s face. “Not exactly, Your Grace,” John stammered. “She overheard one of the maids telling me she needed to dust and air out your playroom in anticipation of your return.”

“Of all the—” Sunny closed his eyes and took a deep breath to bring his temper under control. “Where is their nursemaid? Why isn’t she watching over them?”

“The governess?” Dowding asked. “Miss Finch is out walking.”

“Out walking?” It vaguely occurred to him that ladies of quality went out walking with gentlemen who wished to court them. Was it the same with governesses? “With whom?”

“Why can’t we play in your playroom?” Patience, the imp who’d tugged on his coat, wanted to know. She stared up at him with barely banked defiance in her eyes. “Why do you have a playroom if children cannot play in it?”

He gritted his teeth. “It is not that kind of playroom.”

Prudence, the urchin on his swing, chose that moment to find her tongue. “What kind of playroom is it then?”

He swung around to look at her. “Why are you still on that contraption?” he snapped. “Did I not tell you to get off that thing?” He immediately regretted his harsh tone because the child’s round eyes watered and her hopeful smile turned downward.

“What kind of playing do you do in here?” the child at his side pressed, picking up where her sister had left off.

He exhaled loudly through his nostrils. “Why must you ask so many infernal questions?” These little upstarts did not know their place. Clearly the nursemaid wasn’t doing her job when it came to teaching them matters of decorum. He was a duke. He was the one who asked any questions that needed answering.

Besides, he could hardly tell her the truth. That this was the place he used for cavorting with tarts, where they all engaged in scandalously pleasurable activities that little girls should know nothing about.

“Patience? Prudence?” The governess’s assertive voice rang out from where she stood on the threshold, a plain straw bonnet partially obscuring her face. “What are you doing in here?”

Relief poured through Sunny. The harridan would take the little terrors in hand. He rounded on her. “I was just about to ask you the same thing.”

Her cool gaze went to him, her marked nose tilted upward, as if sniffing for something malodorous. “I see you have returned. From your less-than-pleasant countenance, may I assume your trip did not yield the results you’d hoped for?”

He stiffened. By God, the dragon grated on his nerves. “You may assume anything you like as long as you enlighten me as to why your charges have trespassed into my private rooms.”

Finch untied her bonnet. She wore another of her drab, uninspired gowns. “Girls, why are you not in the nursery?”

“It’s boring there,” Patience said. “And when I heard the duke had a playroom, I thought it was for Prudie and me.”

“Look,” Prudence added, “it even has a swing.”

The governess blinked and looked around, as if truly taking in the chamber and all of its accoutrements for the first time. Her eyes widened. “What is this place?”

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THE DUKE

WHO RAVISHED ME

By Diana Quincy

On Sale April 17 | Ballantine/Loveswept