Seven Wicked Nights (Turner #1.5)

“I can’t. Don’t you see? Everything’s different now. I’m different now. I’m not that dashing, immortal youth who kissed you in the garden all those years ago.”


She stroked his cheek. “I’m not the giddy, moonstruck girl you kissed. I’m a woman now, with my own fears and desires. And a heart that’s grown stronger than you’d credit. Strong enough to contain four years’ worth of love.”

He cleared his throat and studied the wood paneling. The whorls of grain twisted and churned as he blinked. “You should have saved it for someone else.”

“I’ve never wanted anyone else.” She tugged on his chin until he met her gaze. “Luke. Fight for me.”

He shook his head. “I’m done with fighting.”

“And I’m done with waiting,” she said. “If you walk away from me again…”

“We’re finished. I know.” Tenderly, he hooked a wisp of her hair with his fingertip and slowly tucked it behind her ear. “Marry Denny.”

She stared at him, lips parted in disbelief. “What a liar you are. You keep insisting you’ve changed, but you haven’t changed one bit. Toying with my affections one moment, callously discarding them the next. I can’t decide whether you’re deceiving me or just lying to yourself.”

“Don’t overthink it, Cecy.” Turning aside, he tugged casually on each of his cuffs. “You said it best last night. I’m an arrogant, insufferable cad.”

He stepped away, stretching the taut thread of silence between them.

Long moments passed before she spoke. “Very well,” she said numbly. “I’ll speak with Denny today.”

“Cecily! Merritt! There you are.” Portia burst into the room, clearly too full of excitement to notice Cecily’s mussed hair or Luke’s skewed cravat, much less the tension hanging in the air. “I’ve been searching this whole blasted house for you.”

Thank God for rambling old estates. If Portia had found them a few minutes earlier…

“Come quickly, both of you. Denny’s gamekeeper found—” She made an impatient gesture and ran to Cecily’s side, taking her arm. “I’ll give you the details on the way. We’re off to the woods, all of us.”

Cecily shot Luke a strange glance before turning to her friend. “What is it, Portia?”

“Why, the werestag, of course.”





Chapter Five





“SO YOU’VE DECIDED TO JOIN US THIS TIME,” Denny said.

Luke shrugged. “Didn’t want to miss the entertainment.”

Together the men covered the sloping green in long, easy strides. Luke glanced over his shoulder at Cecily, who walked between Portia and Brooke. Her pale blue muslin gown caught the late-afternoon breeze, pulling against her soft, feminine curves, and he damn near sighed with longing. Things might be finished between them—they had to be—but he’d be damned if he’d let her wander loose in that forest a second time. The devil only knew what fearsome creature she might meet with, or shed her stocking for, next.

“We’re going another way this time,” Denny explained. “There’s a cottage tucked deep in the forest there.” Shading his eyes with one hand, he indicated the direction with the other. “My gamekeeper uses it from time to time, and he found something suspicious there this morning.”

“Not suspicious,” Portia objected, as the other group joined them at the trailhead. “Gothic and intriguing.”

“Please,” said Brooke. “A discarded stocking is neither gothic nor intriguing. It’s laundry.”

Luke’s eyes shot to Cecily. “He found the stocking?” He swallowed. “Your stocking?”

“So it would seem.” She clasped her hands together. “It was…soiled.”

“Crusted with blood, you mean.” Portia’s dark eyes widened as she touched Luke’s arm. “Werestag blood. It’s positively chilling. He truly must be the most fearsome, violent sort of creature. I tell you, Lord Merritt, if you could have seen the mincemeat he made of that boar…” She shuddered. “No one who witnessed that scene could doubt Cecily’s rescuer was half wild beast.”

All eyes turned to Cecily. Denny laid a hand on her pale blue sleeve, and Luke felt a possessive fury surge through his veins.

Let it go, he told himself. Let her go.

“Portia, he saved my life.” Cecily’s voice was indignant, and she shrugged off Denny’s touch. “Unarmed and unaided, he killed a ferocious boar that would have gored and devoured me. Yes, it was messy. Battles to the death often are. Stop speaking as though he took pleasure in it.”

“Your defense is most stirring, Miss Hale.” Luke deliberately adopted a formal, detached tone that he knew would only inflame her anger. “You seem to have developed a rather personal attachment to this man-beast.”

Tears glittered in her eyes as she glared at him. Tears, and accusations. “He fought for me.”