Spotlight & Giveaway: VISCOUNT IN LOVE by Eloisa James

Today, HJ is pleased to share with you Eloisa James’s new release: VISCOUNT IN LOVE

Two eccentric orphans bring together a grumpy viscount and the free-spirited heroine who steals his heart in the first novel in Eloisa James’s new Accidental Brides series, in which haughty aristocrats find themselves married to the wrong women.

He wants a nanny, not a bride…

Suddenly guardian to twins, Viscount Dominic Kelbourne is luckily betrothed to a suitable lady—until she elopes. With no time to woo, Dominic decides to marry his fiancée’s unconventional sister. Torie isn’t perfect, but their kisses are so passionate that society thinks he’s actually chosen her.

She wants to marry for love…

Torie has never been able to make sense of words on a page, so she has turned her talents to art. She longs for a man who values her as she is… but marries for the sake of the twins. She doubts Dominic is capable of love, let alone respect, but as their heated debates turn into something more, Torie begins to imagine a life as a wife, not a nanny.

But when the arrogant viscount finds that his viscountess has stolen his heart, he’ll have to give all he has to win her love.

Enjoy an exclusive excerpt from Viscount in Love

CHAPTER 1

March 13, 1800
Lord Westcote’s Ball
Westcote House, London

“I’m so jealous of your sister,” the Honorable Miss Clara Vetry whispered, staring across the ballroom. “Torie, do you think a gentleman will ever adore me the way Leonora’s fiancé does her?”
“Absolutely!” But Miss Victoria Sutton felt compelled to add: “Though to be honest, I don’t think the viscount is in love, and neither is Leonora.”
Watching Viscount Kelbourne woo her older sister in the last months, Torie had seen no signs of rampant passion on either side. The viscount wore a glower, his customary expression. Leonora radiated triumph, which made sense since she had decided in the nursery to marry a mere viscount rather than a duke. Ladies of higher rank were dogged by reporters, and even back then, Leonora disdained gossip.
Romantic to the bone, Clara ignored this dampening observation. “Don’t you see the way Kelbourne is gazing at her? His eyes are blazing.”
Torie glanced across the dance floor to where Leonora was standing with her viscount, Lord Dominic Alston Augustus Kelbourne, who was just as rigid as his name implied. “His eyes are not blazing.”
“Don’t be silly, Torie. The latest gossip column in The Ladies’ Mercury named your sister’s match ‘the most romantic of the Season’! It couldn’t be romantic without Kelbourne being in love, could it?”
Torie made a mental note to ask her maid to read that column aloud. She couldn’t see any adoration in the viscount’s face. The two were standing together mutely, perhaps because Leonora disliked chitchat. In Torie’s jaundiced opinion, silence was an effective tool by which her sister promoted a serene and ladylike reputation.
Kelbourne would likely be surprised to meet the real Leonora, whose true temperament was akin to that of his notorious mistress, a volatile Italian lady who reportedly eschewed tea for pink champagne at breakfast.
“You aren’t imagining that Kelbourne will give up that opera singer, are you, Clara?” she whispered. “Because I assure you that he won’t.”
“Ladies ignore such unpleasantries,” Clara said, and promptly broke her own rule. “Did you hear that Lord Kelbourne’s sister, Lady Dorney, has left her husband and gone to live with her latest paramour?”
“That’s not true,” Torie said flatly.
“She left two children behind!” Clara added with relish.
“Lady Dorney and her husband dined with us last night to celebrate Leonora’s betrothal. I’m not saying the lady doesn’t have a lover, because she and her husband didn’t speak a word to each other, but they were there. Together.”
“Disappointing,” Clara remarked. Then she perked up. “Lord Kelbourne just spread his hand
across your sister’s back. I would die if he touched me like that. His hands are so large that they span her ribs.”
“Likely because she rarely eats more than a few leaves of lettuce. You do not want to be her.” Clara looked back at the dance floor. “I would nibble lettuce, if that would win me such a ravishing man.”
True, Kelbourne was strong and lean, with a jaw that appeared to be fashioned out of marble, and a tumble of dark hair. There was no denying that his broad shoulders and muscled body were a pleasure to behold.
Not that Torie would ever ogle her sister’s future husband.
“I’d prefer my husband wasn’t infamous for losing his temper and bellowing in the House of Lords when he doesn’t get his way,” she said. “In my opinion, Kelbourne would be greatly offended if Cupid shot an arrow in his direction. Gentlemen of his sort don’t bother with love. Perhaps not even with affection.”
“Yes, they do! Didn’t you read Love in Excess?” her friend demanded.
“Novels are trivial . . . frivolous,” Torie said, pitching her tone to lofty disdain.
“Oh pooh,” Clara cried. “You and I are frivolous, Torie! I can’t believe you haven’t read it yet.”
“I disdain such trivialities,” she informed Clara.
Her friend narrowed her eyes. “What are you talking about? Just last week you told me that your husband would have to manage all the household expenses, because you plan to spend your spare time sorting your ribbons.”
Torie staged an abrupt counterattack. “Frivolous I may be, but at least I’m not dragging a cat to a ball!”
Clara held up a bag fashioned in the shape of a cat’s face. “Are you talking about my darling reticule?”
“Yes! Are those whiskers made of wire? Because something just poked me in the leg.”
Clara started pulling the whiskers straight. “They keep getting bent and tangled, especially when I dance. You changed the subject, Torie.”
Torie didn’t want to talk about books or gossip columns. “Kelbourne showed no signs of infatuation at dinner last night. As for my sister, I assure you that Leonora sees him as a heap of sovereigns topped by a coronet.”
“I would give anything to marry him,” Clara sighed.
“The viscount is haughty—and bad-tempered. He would squish you like a bug. At dinner, he spoke of nothing other than some bibble-babble going on in the House of Lords.”
“Bibble-babble!” Clara repeated, giggling. “Torie, he probably spent the day rewriting the laws of the land.”
“I don’t care. He’s boring. And old.”
“Not old,” Clara protested. “He was at Eton with my brother, so he’s not yet thirty. Twenty-seven at most.”
“That’s old,” Torie said dispassionately. “Anyway, you can’t tell me Kelbourne was more charming when he was young.”
Clara opened her mouth, but Torie interrupted her. “Perhaps he cares for Leonora as much as he’s capable. If you ask me, they are like two fish swimming along side by side and deciding to mate. You don’t see a romantic twinkle in the eye of a trout, do you?”
Clara turned red, and a peculiar sound escaped her mouth.
“Drat.” Torie willed herself not to blush as she turned about. “Didn’t your nanny tell you that eavesdroppers never hear good things about themselves?”
“I’m fond of fish, so I take your remark as a compliment,” Viscount Kelbourne said. “Though I agree that the eight years between us might make me appear old, or conversely, you . . . infantile.”
His expression was so daunting that Clara squeaked, bobbed a curtsy, and ran away.

Excerpt. ©Eloisa James. Posted by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.
 
 

Giveaway: Three winners will receive a copy of VISCOUNT IN LOVE by Eloisa James.

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Meet the Author:

Eloisa James is a USA Today and New York Times bestselling author and professor of English literature, who lives with her family in New York, but can sometimes be found in Paris or Italy. She is the mother of two and, in a particularly delicious irony for a romance writer, is married to a genuine Italian knight.

Buy link: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/viscount-in-love-eloisa-james?variant=41204561018914