My Lady's Choosing: An Interactive Romance Novel(64)

She turns to you, at once serious and businesslike.

“However, my dear, Kamal is right. I don’t expect you to follow me into danger, peril, and possible dismemberment. Please, feel free to rest here with Kamal. I have adventured solo before, and it is no matter for me to do so again.”

She reaches out and gently strokes your cheek. You thrill to her touch, and also to the thought of danger the likes of which you have never faced before.





It’s decision time.

Do you throw caution, decorum, and all other respectable nouns to the wind in order to follow Lady Evangeline into the unknown? If so, turn to this page.

Or do you value your limbs still being attached to your body and decide to sit this one out? If so, turn to this page.





“What are you doing, lass?” Mac asks, desire sparking in the depths of his voice. You ache for him, the shape of him so impossibly long and large and near you. His eyes wish to be taken. His eyes wish to be taking.

“Trying to wash myself clean,” you venture breathlessly. Taking a tender, tentative step toward you, he raises his massive hand to his sublimely thick neck and, almost imperceptibly, works a few buttons loose, sending you to madness at the sight of his fine, fiery pelt being slowly revealed.

“Of what, lass?” Another step closer, more buttons undone.

“Dirt,” you answer. “And desire.”

Mac strips the shirt from his shoulders as if he were a mountain shedding its treeline. Moonlight sneaks in through the leaves of the trees, through the glass in the pane, to touch him as you wish to, to drip down the ripples and curves of his body, to pool in the V of his pelvic muscles. He holds your gaze, and just barely bites his bottom lip, catching you as you drop to your knees.

“Can I help you?” he rasps. You peel his breeches from him, unveiling a haggis so impressive it would keep you sated for days.

“Please,” you respond and proceed to lick him. He moans, lifting you up with one hand to kiss him, full on the mouth. Then, with the other hand, he neatly pulls up your skirts and you wrap yourself around him, making sure not to slip. The steady stream of water you have rigged to fall on you serves only to enhance his already enticing body as you make rhythmic love underneath the fall of artificially induced rain.

He dips you back low as he sends you to ecstasy, and for one sublime moment you are washed clean of all sins, all worries, all fears.

But as the afterglow passes, and the water grows cold, you regard your ragged lover with your own measure of hauntedness. You must know the truth.

“Who is Constantina?” you ask.

“My greatest regret,” he whispers, shaking the dream-rain from his hair. You grip his wrist with your infinitely smaller hand, a sparrow lifting an elm.

“More,” you say.

“You know nothing of such things,” Mac says, and he attempts to shake his wrist loose. Your grip tightens.

“I know of regret,” you say, keeping your voice low. “I loved and lost before, too. My childhood love, Ollie Ruston, died at sea. I never could tell him how I truly felt. I understand heartbreak. I have wanted others, never to have them. I understand, Mac. You can tell me if she was a woman you loved and lost.”

“Loved?” Mac asks, his voice as wounded as his eyes. “Constantina wasn’t the woman I loved. She was the woman I killed.”





Do you flee? Because murder! The note was right! If so, turn to this page.

Or do you sit it out with him? We’ve all done things we regret, and you’re still a bit, ah, damp from your interlude. If so, turn to this page.





You throw yourself between the two men. Cad hesitates, if only for a second, and you seize the opportunity to talk sense into him.

“What is it you intend to do?” Your voice could cause frostbite. “Murder your own half brother? Your own half brother who is a member of the aristocracy?”

“He’s not a—” Cad attempts to blurt out, but you cut him off.

“We know, Cad. We know that your mother’s first husband is alive in Bedlam. We know that her marriage to your father was illegal and bigamous. We know Benedict is the rightful heir.”

“Oh? And who will believe a fanciful little wretch such as yourself?” Cad bites back, expecting you to cower—which you do not.

“Indeed, the ton may very well dismiss the word of such a girl.” You speak without bitterness, for you are long accustomed to your station. Cad appears unnerved by your calm, and so you press on. “However, the ton will believe the respectable Lady Evangeline!”

“You’re dashed right there!” Lady Evangeline rushes back in. You turn to Cad in triumph.

“They will also believe the warden of Bedlam, who will attest that poor Mr. Caddington is one of the inmates.”

“You best believe I bribed that old—”

“Men can be re-bribed,” Lady Evangeline says simply.

Cad looks around in horror. You raise your chin and stand firm.

“Face it, Cad. You’ve lost.”

Cad’s powerful frame sags in defeat. He turns a pair of dazzling angel-blue eyes to you.

“What are you going to do? What am I going to do?”





If this entire incident has solidified the notion that Benedict is indeed the only man you will ever love, turn to this page.