Quotes:
"What can Bradley come up with after The Liars Club and the Royal Four? The answer is a humorous romp of marriage mayhem that’s a love and laughter treat, tinged with heated sensuality and tenderness. This winning combination ensures Bradley’s Heiress Brides series will climb the bestseller charts."

4 ½ stars-TopPick!
--Romantic Times Bookreviews

Under the covers:
When I was young, I found the most fascinating part of the story of "Sleeping Beauty" to be the tangle of thorns that grew up around the castle of the sleeping princess and the fates of all the princes who died there, trying to fight their way past it. I always felt as though they deserved the princess more than the guy who just happened to ride up the day the hundred years had passed and the thorns fell away.

When a man earns a woman's trust and love through trial and self-sacrifice--and a great set of buns!--it is always more satisfying to me. In DESPERATELY SEEKING A DUKE, Rafe Marbrook has to earn what he most desires. He must put away his rakish ways and grow to be the man that Phoebe most needs, a man who will protect the tender heart she offers, not trample it or lock it away unused.

I found Phoebe to be one of the most intricate characters I've ever written. Imagine the very real conflict a woman would feel even now between choosing a respectable man--a good and handsome man--who would give her all the security she would ever need and is known to honor his commitments--not to mention that her father thinks he invented sliced bread!--or choosing a man with a very bad reputation, no visible means of support, a real problem with commitment yet makes your knees weak to watch him walk across a room!

Be honest--wouldn't you have to think about that one for a while? Phoebe literally must choose between love and life itself--for if she chooses the rake, she will most definitely lose the life she knows.

Phoebe emerged from the most romantic side of me--from the girl inside who cries when Heathcliff shouts Cathy's name into the wind, when Darcy walks away from Elizabeth after being refused, and when no one can reach the princess sleeping inside the thorns.

Excerpt:
The kitchens were in the cellar, as was Rafe's personal favorite, the larder. It was a long narrow chamber, lined with marble shelves for the things that needed chilling, and cool stone floors that stung his bare feet. Since his midnight craving called for savory, he easily avoided the sturdy worktable in the middle of the room and bent to feel along the lowest shelves for something of a ham or roast nature. He was really more in the mood for big, juicy slices of--

Thigh. Smooth . . . rounded . . . warm . . . lush . . .

"Eek." It was a small protest, hardly more than a whisper.

"Ah!" He snatched his hand back and straightened--and smacked the back of his head into the stone shelf above with great force. "Ow!" He staggered backward with one hand to his skull.

"Oh!"

Something moved on the shelf, there was a rustle of fabric and a metallic clank--and then light seared his expanded pupils.

"Phoebe?" He partially unshielded his eyes and blinked. Blurred afterimages still floated in the way, but he could see her before him, clad in nightdress and half-open wrapper, fishing her lighted candlestick out of a flour tin.

She scowled at him in the glow, trying to undo the knot in the belt of her wrapper in order to pull it tighter. "Goodness, my lord! You frightened the life out of me!"

He frowned at her. "You shouldn't wander the house alone. You don't know it well."

She lifted her chin. "It is my house--or it will be in a fortnight. I think I am entitled to raid the larder if I please."

Her house . . . his brother's wife-to-be. "Yes, thanks so much for reminding me. Soon there'll be lots of merry little Calder-shaped brats to keep us all up at night."

She lifted a tray of roast slices to the table which stood in the center of the room. "Some of the brats might be Phoebe-shaped, you know."

Little Phoebes, cherub-cheeked and tousle-haired, pattering about the house, perpetually in trouble, charming their way out with dimples and long-lashed blue eyes . . .

For a moment, he was utterly captivated by the image in his mind. Then he remembered that it would not be he who fathered those blue-eyed darlings.

Uncle Rafe. Welcomed for holiday dinners and not much else.

She went on calmly preparing the food with competent movements.

I want you to be upset. No, I want you to be devastated. I want you to fight for me, to throw everything away to please me, to cost yourself your family's esteem and the life of a duchess so I won't feel like my brother wins . . .

So what kind of man does that make me?

It makes you Uncle Rafe, because she's smart enough to send you packing, even though she fancies you.

Which was precisely what he deserved.

He gazed at Phoebe, who was carefully not looking his way at all. Yes, she fancied him, but she would never choose him over Calder. She was too intelligent to do that.

"I don't want to hurt you, Rafe." Her voice was low, but he could detect the pain in it.

"And I don't want to be hurt," he said, forcing a smile. "And see? We can spend time together without difficulty. We're the only ones awake in the entire house, just the two of us, alone and isolated where no one knows we--"

He stopped, for the vastness of their solitude only made the night feel safer and more secret. Dangerous.

She visibly shivered. "This floor is icy."

"Then get off it." He rounded the table in a swift movement.

"What--"

Wrapping both hands about her little waist, he lifted her to sit on the table before she could form a protest. Her gasp feathered against his cheek, mingling with her scent. He wanted to tighten his grip, pull her closer and make her forget everything but him--

He backed a step away and bowed deeply to hide his expression. "My queen's royal barge is ready to depart. If Your Majesty will lounge appropriately?"

She laughed. "You're mad."

He straightened. "Lounge," he ordered. "The floor is too bloody cold."

She snickered again, but pulled her chilled feet up to tuck them beside her, then leaned on one hand. "There. I'm lounging. Can you hand me the tray? I cannot reach it from here."

He snatched up the tray and held it out of her reach. "Your majesty's royal hands must not handle trays!"

"No trays," she murmured thoughtfully. "A girl could become accustomed to such a thing."

A poor vicar's daughter had likely toted many trays in her life. "Then do so, my queen," he intoned.

She laughed again and then assumed a bored and queenly air. "Very well then. Serve me the bread."

He pulled a shred of it off and popped it into her mouth, neatly avoiding her reaching hand. Her eyes twinkled as she chewed and swallowed. "So no royal handling of food either, eh?"

"Of course not." He plucked a bite of cold roast from the selection and fed it to her.

She closed her eyes. "Why does stolen food taste so much better?"

"Keep your eyes closed," he said. He fed her bites of bread, roast and cheese for a moment more. The trusting way she closed her eyes, tilted her head back and opened her lips...

A decent man really ought not to have those thoughts about his brother's bride. Of course, he'd never laid claim to decency, had he?

The treat he'd found her was a rich chocolate sauce that was probably meant for dessert tomorrow evening. He spooned out the dark delicacy, letting it drip onto her tongue. She rolled it in her mouth and shuddered. "Heaven," she murmured throatily.

Her husky appreciation made his groin pulse. The way her tongue flicked over her lips to catch the tiniest smear made the blood leave his brain and head for those non-decent parts of him.

He eased another spoonful into that rosebud mouth, the throb of his lust the only thing he could hear. His hand shook, losing a tiny drip of chocolate to land on her chin.

Before he could stop himself, he ducked his head and licked it off.

She gasped and went rigid, but her eyes remained closed and she did not move to push him away. Their play, meant to distract them from the tingling heat between them, had lost the match.

Phoebe waited, unable to breathe, unable to think for the longing in her heart and in her rushing blood. Her belly trembled with need. Kiss me.

Don't. It isn't right.

It cannot be wrong, not this.

Kiss me.

"Open your eyes, Phoebe. Open your eyes and see me."

She lifted her lids and her eyes were like twin fires, blazing lust at him, drying his mouth, sending all virtuous thoughts straight to hell with smoke trails fading. "Phoebe?"

She was on him even as he moved toward her. He drove his fingers into
her thick fall of hair and dragged her mouth up to his. She wrapped her arms about his neck, going up on her knees to press urgently against him.

He needed her closer. The belt of her wrapper caused a brief problem, which Rafe solved by reaching for the knife she'd cut the bread with. He sliced through the tiresome knot with one swift motion, then the wrapper fluttered to the floor behind them.

Her nightdress would be but the work of a moment. It would flutter away as well and she would be naked in his hands, bared to his every wicked wish. Oh, the things he wanted to do to this sweet, hot-blooded country girl . . .

The candlestick tipped over, rolled off the table and fell to the stone floor with a harsh clang that resounded through the narrow larder.

They jerked away from each other instantly in the sudden darkness. Rafe scrambled backward until his back met the shelves. He heard a crying gasp, a rustle of fabric and a harsh thud as the door slammed shut behind the sound of racing feet.

"Phoebe?"

She was gone.