About Alina
Award winning author Alina K. Field earned a
Bachelor of Arts Degree in English and German literature, but her true passion
is the much happier world of romance fiction. Though her roots are in the
Midwestern U.S., after six very, very, very cold years in Chicago, she moved to
Southern California and hasn’t looked back. She shares a midcentury home with
her husband, her spunky, blonde, rescued terrier, and the blue-eyed cat who
conned his way in for dinner one day and decided the food was too good to leave.
She is the author of the 2014 Book Buyer’s
Best winner, Rosalyn’s Ring, a 2015
RONE Award finalist, Bella’s Band,
and a 2016 National Reader’s Choice Award finalist, Liliana’s Letter, as well as her latest release, The Marquess and the Midwife. She is hard
at work on her next series of Regency romances, but loves to hear from readers!
About
THE MARQUESS AND THE MIDWIFE
Finding
the woman he lost turned out to be easy. Winning her is another matter.
Once upon a time, the younger
brother of a marquess fell in love with his sister's companion. He was sent off
to war, and she was just sent off, and they both landed in very different
worlds.
Now Virgil Radcliffe has returned
from his self-imposed exile on the Continent to take up his late brother's
title and discover the whereabouts of the only woman he's ever loved.
Abandoned by her lover and
dismissed by her employer, Ameline Dawes has found a respectable identity as a
Waterloo widow, a new life as a midwife, and a safe, secure home for her twin
girls. Called to London at Christmas to attend her benefactress's lying-in, she
finds herself confronted by an unexpected house guest--a man determined to woo
her anew and win her again.
But, is loving the new Marquess
of Wallingford a mistake Ameline cannot afford to repeat?
Excerpt
Ye
gods, but her ladyship
needed more maids, and a couple more footmen with both arms and both legs, at
least for this type of fetching and carrying.
Ameline chided herself for being insensitive
and balanced the steaming bucket. She set down the lamp momentarily to gather
her skirts, along with the lamp handle.
A pair of men’s boots moved into view and the
lamp bobbled. Fine boots they were.
She sighed, gritting her teeth. Lord
Hackwell’s visits had unnerved his lady, and Ameline had counseled him to
leave.
Very well, she’d thrown him out, once almost
literally. He would wonder what she
was doing below stairs. He might send for the accoucheur he was mumbling about,
and his lady would not like it.
“I’ve just popped down to the kitchen for a
word with Alton, my lord,” she said. “All is going well, except he’s a bit
short on staff.”
“We have noticed that.”
The skin on her back rippled and she
shivered. This wasn’t Hackwell—it was him.
Panic flared in her and her hands and ankles
began to tingle. He carried no light. She let her own lantern dip lower and
stepped to one side. What was he doing on the servants’ staircase in the middle
of the night?
If he saw her, he would remember her, but he would not want to, unless he would think to befriend her again. Heat flamed in her.
She took in a breath. “Let me pass, Lord Hackwell,” she said.
“Let me carry that bucket for you.”
“No.” She forced in another breath, willing
herself to speak calmly. “That is, no thank you. I shall send a servant for you
when it is time.”
Footsteps scurried on the stairs. “Mrs.
Dawes?” Jenny called, breathless.
Her heart raced again. She’d tarried too long
in the kitchen. “I’ll be right—”
Heat touched her hand as the bucket came out.
The lantern, too, lifted higher, and she looked up into the face of Lord Virgil
Radcliffe, now the latest Lord Wallenford.
“Mrs.
Dawes?” His eyes widened and then
narrowed, and his lips curved down.
Anger spiked in her. “Lord Wallenford.”
He moved down to the step below her, putting
them at eye level, and crowded her against the hand rail.
“Give me the bucket, sir. I can manage quite well
without your help.” Quite, quite well.
“Can you, indeed?” he drawled, sounding just
like his brother the day he’d sacked her.
Blast him. Blast the Wallenfords. Blast the
Hackwells. “Alton has a bottle set out. Best go and fetch it.”
His lips quirked.
She gritted her teeth. “Give me the blasted
bucket, Virgil.”
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THE MARQUESS AND THE MIDWIFE
Contact Alina
I love having my story nestled among all the books on your blog's bookshelves! Thanks so much for hosting me today!
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