Spotlight & Giveaway: The Pursuits of Lord Kit Cavanaugh by Stephanie Laurens

Today, HJ is pleased to share with you Stephanie Laurens’s new release: The Pursuits of Lord Kit Cavanaugh

#1 New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Laurens continues to explore the enthralling world of these dynamic siblings in the eagerly anticipated second volume in her captivating series.

Bold and clever, THE CAVANAUGHS are unlike any other family in early Victorian England.
 
A Gentleman of Means

One of the most eligible bachelors in London, Lord Christopher “Kit” Cavanaugh has discovered his true path and it doesn’t include the expected society marriage. Kit is all business and has chosen the bustling port of Bristol to launch his passion—Cavanaugh Yachts.

A Woman of Character

Miss Sylvia Buckleberry’s passion is her school for impoverished children. When a new business venture forces the school out of its building, she must act quickly. But confronting Kit Cavanaugh is a daunting task made even more difficult by their first and only previous meeting, when, believing she’d never see him again, she’d treated him dismissively. Still, Sylvia is determined to be persuasive.

An Unstoppable Duo

It quickly becomes clear there are others who want the school—and Cavanaugh Yachts—closed. Working side by side, Kit and Sylvia fight to secure her school and to expose the blackguard trying to sabotage his business. Yet an even more dastardly villain lurks, one who threatens the future both discover they now hold dear.

Enjoy an exclusive excerpt from The Pursuits of Lord Kit Cavanaugh: 

Someone hammered on the outer door.
Startled, Kit looked up—in time to see the door flung open and a neatly dressed lady storm in.
She halted, saw him, and skewered him with a scorch¬ing glare.
Tall, with a willowy figure and svelte curves, garbed in a violet-blue walking dress over a white silk blouse, her wheat-blond hair drawn back from an arresting face carved from alabaster—
Recognition slammed into him and scrambled his brain.
Sylvia Buckleberry?
At his stupefied reaction, her eyes narrowed even fur¬ther. She whirled and shut the door, then, with a furious swishing of skirts, marched through the outer office.
She stepped into his inner sanctum and let fly. “I might have known!” Her tone dripped acid; her bosom swelled as she drew breath. “Of all the cities in Eng¬land, you had to choose this one, and, of course, you think nothing of trampling over whomever and whatever stands in your way.” She locked her eyes on his as she halted on the other side of the desk, then dramatically flung her arms wide. “I can just imagine the reactions of the Dock Company directors. Yes, my lord. No, my lord. Three bags full, my lord.” Indigo sparks flared in the periwinkle-blue of her eyes. Her lush lips set in a thin line, she glared at him accusingly. “I’m quite sure that’s how it went.”
She railed on, but while Kit’s brain registered her words, he wasn’t really listening.
Instead, he could only stare, grappling to make sense of the transformation of Sylvia Buckleberry that had manifested before him.
The first and last time he’d seen her—just weeks ago at Rand’s wedding, where, courtesy of Sylvia being one of Felicia’s bridesmaids and Kit being one of Rand’s groomsmen, Kit had been Sylvia’s partner—she’d treated him to a very effective cold shoulder. More, she’d given every indication of being a rigidly buttoned-down, haughtily dismissive, and chillingly distant sort of lady.
The lady before him was anything but.
This Sylvia Buckleberry was all fire and passion and life.
Blatantly driven by determination and willpower, she was a force of nature done up in a very attractive pack¬age.
On an intellectual level, he was aware that he’d no¬ticed her physical attributes before, but at the time, their impact had been negated by her attitude. Now, however, this Sylvia Buckleberry was fixing his attention in a much more avid way.
She had, quite literally, transfixed his senses and scat¬tered his wits.
And his lack of response to her tirade was making her seethe.
The glare she leveled at him was all hellfire and brim¬stone. “I’m well aware that London rakes cannot be ex¬pected to care in the slightest over a dockyard school, but why couldn’t you remain in London? Why did you have to come here and spoil everything? Do you have any notion of how much damage you’re likely to do to the fabric of local society?”
Those words finally penetrated the haze fogging his brain. He blinked, then frowned. “What the devil are you accusing me of?”
The look she bent on him was all dismissive scorn. “As if you don’t know.”
His own temper rising, he narrowed his eyes back. “I have absolutely no idea—” He broke off as several facts coalesced in his brain, and he realized what the Dock Company men hadn’t told him. “Wait.” He held up a hand as he rapidly replayed various exchanges, and suspicion hardened to fact. He refocused on her. “The charity using the warehouse is a school?”
“Yes!” Fists clenched, Sylvia wanted to rage on, but the look on his face—the open chagrin—took the wind from her sails.
It was patently obvious that he hadn’t known his leas¬ing of the warehouse meant the eviction of a school. He could be acting, but she didn’t think he was—that he would bother. She frowned. “The Dock Company didn’t tell you?”
“No. They didn’t.” The words were clipped and boded ill for whomever had omitted to mention the fact. “In¬deed, they took great care to avoid doing so.”
She wanted to cling to her anger, to the strength of the fury that anger had converted to during the short walk to his office, but if he hadn’t known about the school…
Aside from all else, it seemed that, instead of being the indolent, care-for-naught hedonist she’d labeled him, he was actually trying to establish a business that would bring jobs to the struggling docklands.
While such an action was the last thing she would have expected of him, the evidence was too definite to doubt.
Her anger drained in a rush, taking her righteousness with it. Her shoulders fell; dejection loomed.
She was vaguely aware of his sharp gaze on her face, then he waved her to one of the chairs angled before the desk.
“Please—sit down. I need to know more about this school.”
Kit waited until she’d subsided onto the chair, then drew up the admiral’s chair he’d earlier pushed back and sat. Her expression had shuttered, her attention seem¬ingly turned inward—to him, her retreat felt like the withdrawing of a source of warmth. But having once laid eyes on the real Sylvia Buckleberry, he wasn’t about to let her hide away behind a wall of chilly disdain. He caught her eyes. “Tell me all—all about this school.”

Excerpt. ©Stephanie Laurens. Posted by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.
 
 

Giveaway: 1 print copy of THE PURSUITS OF LORD KIT CAVANAUGH by Stephanie Laurens (entrants limited to North American mailing addresses)

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Meet the Author:

New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Laurens originally began writing as an escape from the dry world of professional science. Her hobby quickly became a career; she has been writing historical romance novels for more than 20 years. Currently living outside Melbourne, Australia with her husband and two cats, she spends most of her days writing new stories in her signature ‘Errol Flynn meets Jane Austen” style. Visit her online at www.stephanielaurens.com. Website | GoodReads |

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