Lady Of The Lake. Elizabeth Mayne

      Table of Contents

       Cover Page

       Excerpt

       Dear Reader

       Title Page

       About The Author

       Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

       Chapter Six

       Chapter Seven

       Chapter Eight

       Chapter Nine

       Chapter Ten

       Chapter Eleven

       Chapter Twelve

       Chapter Thirteen

       Chapter Fourteen

       Chapter Fifteen

       Chapter Sixteen

       Chapter Seventeen

       Chapter Eighteen

       Chapter Nineteen

       Author note

       Copyright

      “Release me at once, Viking!”

      Tala commanded.

      “Lady,” Edon warned her, his patience dwindling fast. “Speak to me again in that tone of voice, and I will have no choice but to teach you to respect the man you see before you.”

      

      “Strike me and I will kill you with my bare hands, Viking.” Tala gulped, struggling for her breath.

      

      “And how will you do that, hmm?” Edon taunted her. “With what weapon will you slay me, woman? Your viper’s tongue?”

      

      Edon used his head as a pointer, nodding to her bared breasts—exposed in the beam of moonlight that spilled into the chamber from the open portal.

      

      “The only success you have had thus far is in baring your breast. Continue the show. I shall enjoy seeing what other charms your struggles reveal.”

      Dear Reader,

      

      A pagan princess and a Christian warrior must form an alliance if either of their people are to survive in RITA Award nominee Elizabeth Mayne’s Lady of the Lake. Forced to surrender her heritage and marry Edon, the man responsible for her father’s death, Princess Tala fights her feelings for her new husband, afraid that she will let down her guard and reveal a secret that could tear their gentle truce apart. Don’t miss this intriguing tale.

      Cally and the Sheriff, by Cassandra Austin, is a lively Western about a Kansas sheriff who falls head over heels for the feisty young woman he’s sworn to protect, even though she wants nothing to do with him. And in Judith Stacy’s The Marriage Mishap, two people who’ve just met, wake up in bed together and discover they have gotten married.

      In our fourth title for the month, Lord Sin by Catherine Archer, a rakish nobleman and a vicar’s daughter, whose lack of fortune and social position make her completely unsuitable, agree to a marriage of convenience, and discover love.

      Whatever your tastes in reading, we hope you enjoy all of our books, available wherever Harlequin Historicals are sold.

      

      Sincerely,

      

      Tracy Farrell

      Senior Editor

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      Lady of the Lake

      Elizabeth Mayne

      

      

www.millsandboon.co.uk

       ELIZABETH MAYNE

      is a native San Antonian, who knew by the age of eleven how to spin a good yarn, according to every teacher she ever faced. She’s spent the last twenty years making up for all her transgressions on the opposite side of the teacher’s desk, and the last five working exclusively with troubled children. She particularly loves an ethnic hero and married one of her own eighteen years ago. But it wasn’t until their youngest, a daughter, was two years old, that life calmed down enough for this writer to fulfill the dream she’d always had of becoming a novelist.

      With love,

      Delores Maynard Cherveny

       Chapter One

       Summer, 889 A.D.

       Eleventh year of the reign of

       Alfred of Wessex

       Mercia

      Silently, the atheling of