A Scot Is Not Enough ( Scottish Treasures ) Historical Scottish Romance by Gina Conkle ➱ New Release Tour with Giveaway
A Scot Is Not Enough
Scottish Treasures Book 2
by Gina Conkle
Genre: Historical Scottish Romance
Gina Conkle’s newest stunning romance in her Scottish Treasures series features a fierce Scotswoman eager to break the rules and the man who vows to stop her.
A Gentleman of Virtue
Decent and ambitious, Alexander Sloane is finally a finger’s breadth from achieving the government post he’s worked towards for years. A minor task monitoring Bow Street funds for the Crown is his final hurdle. But he discovers more than he bargains for when his assignment leads him to the most captivating woman in London.
A Woman of Questionable Repute
Cecelia MacDonald has one mission: find and steal the sgian duhb, the ceremonial dagger taken from her clan by British soldiers during the Uprising of 1745. The coy and clever Scotswoman has never had any trouble using men to do her bidding and she’s enjoying the cat and mouse game she’s playing with the delectable Alexander. But when a mutual enemy proves deadly, she must rely on him for more than flirtation to gain the dagger.
An Explosive Partnership
As Alexander and Cecilia become unlikely allies, their desire for each other overwhelms them. When shocking secrets come to light, will Alexander realize loving the wrong woman is the right thing to do?
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A SCOT IS NOT ENOUGH by Gina Conkle – Excerpt 1
Cecelia MacDonald catches a man in her mews late at night.
“Don’t. Move.” A bone-chilling click. “If you do, I will shoot that fine arse of yours.”
Cold sweat popped at his hairline. The click was a pistol cocked. Deucedly hard to know for certain with his head in a barrel, but he’d heard the sound often enough.
“Who are you, sir?”
A commanding feminine voice. Definitely the woman pointing a pistol at him.
“I am Mr. Alexander Sloane.”
“Of . . . ?”
“London.” A few minutes upside down and blood rushed his skull, pounding in his ears. “If you don’t mind . . . the pressure in my head is increasing. I’d prefer to have this conversation standing up.”
“You should have thought about that before you went arse up in my mews, Mr. Sloane.”
Blood banged furiously behind his eyes while muffled feminine whispers ensued. Wonderful. A committee of two women was deciding what to do with him.
“Put your hands on the rim. Slowly, so I can see them.” Polite and definitive, that voice.
He put both hands on the barrel’s rim and remained facedown. So, this was how he would meet Miss MacDonald, head down, arse first, and his pocket journal crammed with outrageous notes about her. Nothing to connect him to Bow Street thankfully. With any luck, they’d ignore the journal and call for the Night Watch.
“Jenny, his coat,” the lady said.
Footsteps pattered and excellent Northumberland wool brushed the barrel beside him.
“Lud. He’s got a little book”—a pause was followed by incriminating page-riffling—“and there’s lots written about you, miss.”
“Give it to me.”
Body sagging, he tossed his they’ll-ignore-the-journal plan and formed another one. Swan Lane was in Dowgate, Sir William Calvert the alderman. A coin in the warder’s palm would see a message delivered to the alderman: Please alert Bow Street that Mr. Alexander Sloane is in prison. By morning, Fielding would arrange his release and acknowledge the folly of tasking the duke’s numbers man to a thief taker’s job. It would only cost him his pride and a cold night in prison.
This would be a story to share with his brother over a pint, something to laugh about . . . someday.
“Tie him up, Jenny.”
“No need for ropes.” His voice echoed in the barrel. “I am unarmed and I mean you no harm.”
“You are armed with pencil and paper, sir. That is lethal enough for me.”
An interesting response. He would’ve ruminated on it, but a hand grabbed his arm and guided him upright. Pressure waned between his ears, the blood draining fast, leaving him light-headed. He leaned against the barrel to steady himself and discovered the hand guiding him belonged to Jenny.
She glared at him, a rag-curled Medusa. “Don’t try anything. I’ve got a knife.”
“I won’t. You have my word.”
To which Jenny grumbled a salty curse and jerked his hands behind his back.
Eyes stretching wide, he found Miss MacDonald in the courtyard, fog curling around her bare feet. She battled autumn’s bite in a white shift, a flimsy untied night-robe of the same fabric, and a skein of unbound hair. Her rigid nipples and a door lamp illuminating her shivering body told him she was cold.
His gaze drifted lower.
A flaming bolt seared him.
Did he see a shadowed wedge . . . there?
His thoughts went up in smoke. Hot lust shuddered his loins, hungry and persuasive, a reminder that he was flesh and blood, a man who could be lured, a man in danger of losing his mortal soul to the goddess of Swan Lane despite the fact she pointed a biting glare and polished pistol at him.
The Scotswoman had a fierce, take-no-prisoners look about her.
Just how fierce, his wanton self would gladly explore. His eyes boldly pursued a jeopardous triangle—a carnal line drawn leisurely from breast to breast to the hint of gold curls between her legs. Legs that were shaking.
“You’re cold. You should take my coat.”
Gruff and sensual, he hardly recognized his voice.
Her blond-crowned head canted sideways as if this was a new development.
“Very gentlemanly of you. But my house is a few steps away.”
Behind him, a wide slippery ribbon was looped around his wrists. A shiver wandered down his back. Miss MacDonald had ordered him bound by silk.
“All done, miss.” Jenny gave the knot a final tug. “Want me to put him in the mews and tie his ankles?”
Little clouds puffed from the goddess of Swan Lane’s lips. Her perusal wandered over him like a curious touch.
“No. Bring him to me.”
Incendiary words. He should’ve argued for the mews, a plan his feet rejected. His body wanted to be closer to the Scotswoman and took him forward until he was an arm’s length from her. A truce, of sorts. He studied the contours of her face, matching them to Fielding’s ledger, while she studied his coat draped over the maid-cum-servant’s arm.
Blond brows slashed a befuddled line. “Were you at White Cross Street today?”
He hesitated. In for a penny, in for a pound.
“I was.”
A half smile formed on quivering lips. “And before you departed, did you . . . ?”
“Salute your cleavage? Yes. I did.” Lust roughed his words.
That twitch of her lips did things to him.
“Quite an introduction, you and I.”
A SCOT IS NOT ENOUGH by Gina Conkle
He clasped her hand and turned it palm up. Pink and white flesh, life lines, love lines, her flesh. He kissed her palm and set the tickets on top of his kiss.
“You have earned my trust and my utmost respect,” he said. “I hope to someday earn yours.”
Her eyes pinched sadly.
She folded her fingers over the tickets. “Everyone has a tale. Some complex. Others dirty. Mine is both.” Her voice was fragile. “I am not yet twenty-five but I’ve already lived two lifetimes. And I am so, so tired. My burdens are too great and too messy to put on someone else.”
“Try me.”
Her mouth twisted a wobbled line. She was graceful, slipping away and tucking the tickets in her wardrobe. She shut the wardrobe door and leaned back, tucking her hands behind her.
“You ask too much.”
Her voice was the distant sound of a lost soul.
“And you give too little. We both know I could marshal the crown’s considerable resources and hunt down whatever else you’re not telling me—about you and your league.”
“You won’t do that,” she said quietly.
“Because I’d rather hear it from you. As is customary when two people care about each other.”
Her eyes were luminous.
“You presume much.”
She walked to her washstand, every swish of silk ruining him. Everything faded in the wake of this woman. Fielding . . . the Jacobite ledger . . . the judge’s seat as Baron of the Exchequer.
Cecelia pulled a pin from her hair, and his breath caught. A lock tumbled across her shoulder. The one he’d kissed. She was a portrait of debauchery, petticoats wrinkled, her hands rummaging through her curls. I could do that for you was on the tip of his tongue, but temptation was the Scotswoman’s currency.
Who would they be if they couldn’t get past this? Thus, he glued his spine to her bedpost and endured the torture of her undressing.
Lithe arms raised, she removed hairpins and dropped them in a small bowl on a bedside table.
“For what it’s worth, I do trust you. More than you’ll ever know.”
Aching words that tore him. There was distance in them. He was a government man, secretly tasked to follow her, to dig up dirt. Perhaps he wanted too much, too soon. Their bridge of trust had begun the moment the Scotswoman pointed her pistol at him. Control was of the essence—mostly hers. The facts sketched her in one light, yet being with her sketched her differently. Innocent and saucy, clever and strong. An admitted thief with a tender heart. What was he to make of her?
Gina's
fate was sealed when her mom read aloud the poem, The
Highwayman—the perfect historical romance hook. But, Gina grew
up in California where no dukes or Vikings live. She always did
prefer stone castles over sand castles and books over beaches.
Years
ago, she fell in love with her favorite hero, Brian, and they eloped
to Vegas at midnight. Together, they raised two sons who like history
almost as much as their mom.
Nowadays, Gina pens sparkling
Georgian romance with a dash of Scots or Viking romance with heat and
adventure. When she's not writing, you can find her wandering a
museum or with her nose in a book.
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