The Earl Takes A Bride. Kathryn Jensen

      She Was Trembling And She Didn’t Know Why.

      Diane met Thomas’s intense brown eyes and a shudder of realization raced through her. She wanted him to kiss her again. She wanted him to crush her in his massive arms and remind her how it felt to be a woman.

      Was that what she feared? That he would do all these things and more if she flew away with him to her brother-in-law’s palace in Elbia?

      “Say yes,” he said so low, the words were a barely audible rumble across her humble Connecticut kitchen.

      Diane looked up at the man who seemed to fill a good half of the room. His eyes were glistening obsidian, hard with determination.

      She drew herself up in her chair. Now or never…a persistent voice whispered through her mind. Take a chance. Grab the ring. Risk your heart. For once in your life, do what feels good!

      “All right,” she forced out at last. “I’ll go.”

      Dear Reader,

      Spring is in the air…and so is romance. Especially at Silhouette, where we’re celebrating our 20^th anniversary throughout 2000! And Silhouette Desire promises you six powerful, passionate, provocative love stories every month.

      Fabulous Anne McAllister offers an irresistible MAN OF THE MONTH with A Cowboy’s Secret. A rugged cowboy fears his darkest secret will separate him from the beauty he loves.

      Bestselling author Leanne Banks continues her exciting miniseries LONE STAR FAMILIES: THE LOGANS with a sexy bachelor doctor in The Doctor Wore Spurs. In A Whole Lot of Love, Justine Davis tells the emotional story of a full-figured woman feeling worthy of love for the first time.

      Kathryn Jensen returns to Desire with another wonderful fairy-tale romance, The Earl Takes a Bride. THE BABY BANK, a brand-new theme promotion in Desire in which love is found through sperm bank babies, debuts with The Pregnant Virgin by Anne Eames. And be sure to enjoy another BRIDAL BID story, which continues with Carol Devine’s Marriage for Sale, in which the hero “buys” the heroine at auction.

      We hope you plan to usher in the spring season with all six of these supersensual romances, only from Silhouette Desire!

      Enjoy!

      Joan Marlow Golan

      Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire

      The Earl Takes a Bride

      Kathryn Jensen

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      With deep thanks to my wonderful readers,

       who loved Jacob, Allison, Diane and Thomas in I Married a Prince…and wanted more of them.

      KATHRYN JENSEN

      has written many novels for young readers as well as for adults. She speed walks, works out with weights and enjoys ballroom dancing for exercise, stress reduction and pleasure. Her children are now grown. She lives in Maryland with her husband, Bill, and her writing companion—Sunny, a lovable terrier mix adopted from a shelter.

      Having worked as a hospital switchboard operator, department store sales associate, bank clerk and elementary school teacher, she now splits her days between writing her own books and teaching fiction writing at two local colleges and through a correspondence course. She enjoys helping new writers get a start and speaks “at the drop of a hat” at writers’ conferences, libraries and schools across the country.

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      One

      Diane Fields, mother of three, aroused him.

      She pushed all the right buttons, as one of his American friends so aptly put it.

      She looked at him…and those soft, hazel eyes with a hint of playful sparkle melted his trousers. Worst of all, she made Thomas forget he was employed by Jacob von Austerand, King of Elbia, who had a temper to rival his own and wouldn’t be pleased to discover his trusted right-hand man was mentally undressing his wife’s sister. Particularly while he was on a royal mission.

      Thomas had watched her house for two hours before the lights in the end rooms dimmed and he decided it was probably safe to approach. Nevertheless, he remained behind the wheel of the glistening ebony Benz—concealed behind the glazed windows looking out at Long Island Sound, his strong fingers coiling and uncoiling nervously around the leather-wrapped steering wheel.

      He studied the front windows, following telltale wisps of shadows behind them. Was she in the living room or her own bedroom now? He couldn’t remember the exact floor plan of the little Cape Cod in this quaint Connecticut town—Nanticoke—a place reminiscent of Chichester on the sea-swept coast of England, where he’d been born.

      Maybe he should wait a little longer?

      He was stalling for time and he knew it. Thomas cursed softly under his breath and flung open the car door. Straightening all six feet five inches of his muscular body, he rose up out of the leather driver’s seat and quietly closed the door.

      It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see Diane, he told himself as he crossed the street. Lord knows he’d been thinking about the long-legged brunette off and on for more than a year and almost constantly for the past two days. Thomas remembered in disturbing detail the lovely contours of her face…and other intriguing parts of her body. Diane Fields was a good-looking woman with a no-nonsense attitude toward life he could appreciate. In her own way she was tougher than her sister, Jacob’s bride. Thomas had seen Diane stand up to Jacob on behalf of Allison before His Royal Highness married her. The woman was a force to be reckoned with. But apparently she was in trouble now.

      As chief advisor and security officer to one of the most powerful figures in Europe, Thomas Denton Smythe had been dispatched to find out what kind of difficulty the king’s sister-in-law was in and how bad it might be. As unofficial royal troubleshooter, he was expected to get to the bottom of things.

      Bottom.

      Why had he thought of that unfortunately provocative word? He marched forward, smothering a groan. Her bottom, he mused as visions of Diane appeared in his mind, at angles best not dwelt upon.

      As Thomas neared the driftwood-gray bungalow, another, fainter light from the interior of the house flicked off. He drew a deep breath and strode bravely across the lawn, already having decided on the side door that led from the driveway directly into kitchen. Logistically it made sense. He didn’t want to start off on the wrong foot by waking her children.

      Her husband was another reason for using caution. Gary’s truck had been conspicuously absent when Thomas pulled up in the sleek black sedan across the street. Even though it was nearly nine o’clock at night, well past the time a construction worker knocked off for the day, there was still no sign of the man.

      Before he knew it, Thomas was standing on the four-by-four cement slab outside her kitchen door. There was nothing to do but knock and get it over with.

      He waited for her to answer, his arms folded over his chest, wearing the same suit he’d traveled in—impeccable