Once a Rake

Book excerpt: New York Times bestselling author Eileen Dreyer delivers a Regency romance where a widow must help hide a rake on the run for his life even if it means risking her hold on the only home she's known--perfect for fans of Julia Quinn and Kelly Bowen. All he wants is her help . . . Colonel Ian Ferguson may be a rake, but he's no traitor. Accused of trying to kill the Duke of Wellington, the disgraced Scotsman is now a fugitive-from the law, the army, and the cunning assassin who hunts him. Wounded and miles from his allies, Ian finds himself at the mercy of an impoverished country wife. The spirited woman is achingly beautiful . . . and hiding some dangerous secrets of her own. All she needs is his heart . . . She was a child nobody wanted. Now for Lady Sarah Clarke, holding on to her vanished husband's crumbling estate is her final chance to earn respectability. She knows that hiding the devastatingly handsome Ferguson will jeopardize her home. Common sense demands that she turn him in. But a single, delirious kiss shatters her resolve . . . and awakens a passion that neither of them can escape.