Tessa Dare

Tessa Dare – Read Books Online Free Ebooks good best novels to read http://www.books2020.com Sat, 01 Oct 2022 08:48:23 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 http://www.books2020.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/favicon.png Tessa Dare – Read Books Online Free Ebooks good best novels to read http://www.books2020.com 32 32 Twice Tempted by a Rogue – Stud Club Read Online Tessa Dare http://www.books2020.com/twice-tempted-read-online-a-rogue-stud-club-read-online-tessa-dare Sat, 01 Oct 2022 08:38:46 +0000 http://www.booksnovels.com/twice-tempted-read-online-a-rogue-stud-club-read-online-tessa-dare Genre: Historical Fiction, Romance Authors: Tessa Dare Advertisement

Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 112133 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)

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Horses, gambling, and secrets are the game played by the men of the Stud Club--until love raises the stakes in Twice Tempted by a Rogue.

Luck is a double-edged sword for brooding war hero Rhys St. Maur. His death wish went unanswered on the battlefield, while fate allowed the murder of his good friend in the elite gentlemen's society known as the Stud Club. Out of options, Rhys returns to his ancestral home on the moors of Devonshire, expecting anything but a chance at redemption in the arms of a beautiful innkeeper who dares him to take on the demons of his past--and the sweet temptation of a woman's love.

Meredith Maddox believes in hard work, not fate, and romance isn't part of her plan. But when Rhys returns, battle-scarred, world-weary, and more dangerously attractive than ever, the lovely widow is torn between determination and desire. As a deep mystery and dangerous smugglers threaten much more than their passionate reckoning, Meredith discovers that she must trust everything to a wager her heart placed long ago.

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

Chapter One

Rhys St. Maur, newly Lord Ashworth, was a broken man. Literally.

By the age of twenty, he’d fractured his left arm twice—once in a schoolboy brawl at Eton, and then again during an army training drill. Cracked ribs … he’d lost count of those. Fists driving through barroom haze to connect with his face had snapped the cartilage in his nose a few times, leaving him with a craggy profile—one that was not improved by his myriad scars. Since sometime around his thirtieth birthday, the little finger on his right hand just plain refused to bend. And in damp weather like this, his left knee throbbed with memories of marching through the Pyrenees and surviving the Battle of Nivelle unscathed, only to catch a Basque farmer’s hoe to the knee the next morning, when he left camp for a predawn piss.

That left knee was on fire tonight, sizzling with pain as Rhys trudged through the granite heart of Devonshire, leading his horse down the darkened road. The moisture in the air kept dithering between fog and rain, and the night was thick with its indecision. He couldn’t see but a few feet in front of him, which was why he’d decided to dismount and lead his horse on foot. Between the poor visibility and the surrounding terrain littered with chunks of stone and boot-sucking bogs, the risk of fatal injury was too great.

For the horse, that was. Rhys wasn’t in the least concerned for himself. In fact, if he thought this godforsaken moor had any chance of claiming his own life, he’d cheerfully saddle his gelding and charge off into the gloom.

But it wouldn’t work. It never had. He’d just end up with a lamed or dead horse, another broken rib perhaps, and the same curse that had haunted him since boyhood: unwanted, undeserved, and wholly wasted good luck.

No matter what misfortune befell him, this or any night, Rhys St. Maur was doomed to survive it.

The wind’s low moan played his spine like a fiddle string. Behind him, the gelding balked. With a reassuring shush for the beast’s benefit, Rhys marched on, turning up the collar of his coat to keep out the mist.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…

He’d been walking through this valley for a long, long time. Trod so far into death’s shadow he’d felt his feet turning to dust in his boots, the breath in his lungs burning acrid as sulfur. A living ghost, that’s what he was. He’d returned from war to a newly inherited barony, and his sole duty now was to haunt the English aristocracy. Hulk awkwardly in the corners of their parties, terrify their delicate young ladies, and cause the gentlemen to rub their temples self-consciously as they tried not to stare at the gnarled scar marring his own.

As Rhys rounded a sharp curve in the road, a vaguely familiar sight emerged from the gloom. If he’d read his landmarks right, this had to be it. The tiny village of Buckleigh-in-the-Moor. At this distance, just a meager constellation of amber pinpricks against the black night.

The horse, scenting straw and safety, picked up his pace. Soon the cluster of stone and cob buildings came into focus. It must not be as late as it felt. A fair number of the cottages still showed light through their windows—yellow eyes peering out from beneath thatched-roof hats.

He halted in the center of the road. Wiping the moisture from his eyes, he squinted in the direction of the old inn. Fourteen years he’d been gone, but the same sign still creaked on its chains above the door. It read, in retouched gilt letters, The Three Hounds. Below the words, the pictured trio of dogs remained at perpetual attention. A burst of coarse laughter rattled one of the inn’s unshuttered windows. Old Maddox was still doing a brisk trade, then.

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Advertisement The Wallflower Wager Read online Tessa Dare http://www.books2020.com/the-wallflower-wager-read-online-tessa-dare Thu, 31 May 2018 13:57:33 +0000 http://www.test123.demo2.xyz/the-wallflower-wager-read-online-tessa-dare Genre: Historical Fiction, Romance Authors: Tessa Dare Advertisement

Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)

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Read Online Books/Novels:	The Wallflower Wager
Author/Writer of Book/Novel:	Tessa Dare
Language:	English
ISBN/ ASIN:	0062672150 (ISBN13: 9780062672155)
Book Information:
They call him the Duke of Ruin. To an undaunted wallflower, he's just the beast next door. Wealthy and ruthless, Gabriel Duke clawed his way from the lowliest slums to the pinnacle of high society—and now he wants to get even. Loyal and passionate, Lady Penelope Campion never met a lost or wounded creature she wouldn’t take into her home and her heart. When her imposing—and attractive—new neighbor demands she clear out the rescued animals, Penny sets him a challenge. She will part with her precious charges, if he can find them loving homes. Done, Gabriel says. How hard can it be to find homes for a few kittens? And a two-legged dog. And a foul-mouthed parrot. And a goat, an otter, a hedgehog . . . Easier said than done, for a cold-blooded bastard who wouldn’t know a loving home from a workhouse. Soon he’s covered in cat hair, knee-deep in adorable, and bewitched by a shyly pretty spinster who defies his every attempt to resist. Now she’s set her mind and heart on saving him. Not if he ruins her first.
Books by Author:	Tessa Dare Books

Chapter One

Over her years of caring for unwanted animals, Lady Penelope Campion had learned a few things.

Dogs barked; rabbits hopped.

Hedgehogs curled up into pincushions.

Cats plopped in the middle of the drawing room carpet and licked themselves in indelicate places.

Confused parrots flew out open windows and settled on ledges just out of reach. And Penny leaned over window sashes in her nightdress to rescue them—even if it meant risking her own neck.

She couldn’t change her nature, any more than the lost, lonely, wounded, and abandoned creatures filling her house could change theirs.

Penny gripped the window casing with one hand and waved a treat with her other. “Come now, sweeting. This way. I’ve a biscuit for you.”

Delilah cocked her plumed head and regarded the treat. But she didn’t budge.

Penny sighed. She had no one to blame but herself, really. She’d forgotten to cover the birdcage completely at sundown, and she’d left a candle burning far too late while she finished a delicious novel. However, she’d never dreamed Delilah could be clever enough to reach between the bars with one talon and unlatch the little door.

Once the parrot had escaped her cage, out the window she flew.

Penny pursed her lips and whistled. “See, darling? It’s a lovely biscuit, isn’t it? A gingersnap.”

“Pretty girl,” the parrot chirruped.

“Yes, dear. What a pretty, pretty girl you are.”

Delilah made a tentative shuffle sideways. At last, progress.

The bird came closer . . .

“That’s it. Here you come, sweetheart.”

Closer . . .

“Good girl.”

Just a few more inches . . .

Drat.

Delilah snatched the biscuit from Penny’s fingers, scuttled backward, and took a brief flight, coming to land on the windowsill of the next house.

“No. Please. No.”

With a flutter, Delilah disappeared through the open window.

Drat and blast.

The old Wendleby residence had lain vacant for years, save for a few servants to watch over the place, but the property had recently changed hands. The mysterious new owner had yet to make an appearance, but he’d sent an architect and a regiment of laborers to make several noisy, dusty improvements. A house under construction was no place for a defenseless bird to be flying about in the dark.

Penny had to retrieve her.

She eyed the ledge connecting the two houses. If she kicked off her slippers, climbed out onto the ledge, clung to the narrow lip of mortar with her bare toes, and inched across it . . . the open window would be within reach. The distance was only a few feet.

Correction: It was only a few feet to the window. It was twenty-odd feet to the ground.

Penny believed in a great many things. She believed that education was important, books were vital, women ought to have the vote, and most people were good, deep down. She believed that every last one of God’s creatures—human or otherwise—deserved love.

However, she was not fool enough to believe she could fly.

She tied her dressing gown about her waist, jammed her feet into slippers, and padded downstairs to the kitchen, where she eased open the top-left drawer of the spice cabinet. Just as she remembered, all the way at the back of the drawer, affixed to the wooden slat with a bit of candle wax, was a key.

A key that opened the Wendlebys’ back door.

Penny removed the ancient finger of metal and flaked away the wax with her thumbnail. Her family and the Wendlebys had exchanged keys decades ago, as good neighbors were wont to do. One never knew if an urgent situation might arise. This counted as an urgent situation. At this hour, waking the staff would take too much time. Delilah could fly out the way she’d entered at any moment. Penny could only hope that this key still fit its proper lock.

Out into the night she went. In one hand, she carried Delilah’s empty cage. With the other, she drew her dressing gown tight to keep out the chill.

Skulking past the front door of the house, she made her way down to the servants’ entrance. There, obscured by shadows, she slid the key into the lock, coaxing it past the tumblers. Once she’d inserted it all the way, she gave the key a wrenching twist.

With a click, the lock turned. The door fell open.

She paused, breathless, waiting for someone inside to raise the alarm.

There was only silence, save for the thudding of her heart.

Here she was, a complete stranger to criminal activity, about to commit prowling, or trespassing, or perhaps even burglary—if not some combination of the three.

A faint whistle from above underscored the urgency of her mission.

Closing the door behind her, Penny set the birdcage down on the floor, dug into the pocket of her dressing gown, and withdrew the taper and flint she’d stashed there before leaving her house. She lit the slender candle, lifted Delilah’s brass cage with the other, and continued into the house.

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Advertisement The Governess Game Read Online Tessa Dare http://www.books2020.com/the-governess-game-read-online-tessa-dare Sat, 15 Jul 2017 13:57:33 +0000 http://www.test123.demo2.xyz/the-governess-game-read-online-tessa-dare Genre: Funny, Historical Fiction, Romance Authors: Tessa Dare Advertisement

Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 79601 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 398(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)

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Read Online Books/Novels:	The Governess Game
Author/Writer of Book/Novel:	Tessa Dare
Language:	English
ISBN/ ASIN:	0062672126 (ISBN13: 9780062672124)
Book Information:
He’s been a bad, bad rake—and it takes a governess to teach him a lesson The accidental governess. After her livelihood slips through her fingers, Alexandra Mountbatten takes on an impossible post: transforming a pair of wild orphans into proper young ladies. However, the girls don’t need discipline. They need a loving home. Try telling that to their guardian, Chase Reynaud: duke’s heir in the streets and devil in the sheets. The ladies of London have tried—and failed—to make him settle down. Somehow, Alexandra must reach his heart... without risking her own. The infamous rake. Like any self-respecting libertine, Chase lives by one rule: no attachments. When a stubborn little governess tries to reform him, he decides to give her an education—in pleasure. That should prove he can’t be tamed. But Alexandra is more than he bargained for: clever, perceptive, passionate. She refuses to see him as a lost cause. Soon the walls around Chase’s heart are crumbling... and he’s in danger of falling, hard.
Books by Author:	Tessa Dare Books

Prologue

Alexandra Mountbatten had common sense. That’s what her friends believed.

The truth was, Alex had no sense at all—at least, not when it came to charming gentlemen with roguish green eyes. If she possessed any wisp of rationality, she wouldn’t have made such a fool of herself with the Bookshop Rake.

Even now, more than half a year later, she could revisit the embarrassing scene and watch it unfolding, as though she were attending a play.

The setting: Hatchard’s bookshop.

The date: a Wednesday afternoon in November.

The personages: Alexandra, of course. Her three closest friends: Nicola Teague, Lady Penelope Campion, and Emma Pembrooke, the Duchess of Ashbury. And, making his first appearance in a starring role (trumpet fanfare, please)—the Bookshop Rake.

The scene proceeded thusly:

Alexandra had been juggling a tower of Nicola’s books in one arm and reading her own book with her free hand. A copy of Messier’s Catalogue of Star Clusters and Nebulae, which she’d plucked like a pearl from the used-book section. She’d been searching for a secondhand copy for ages. She couldn’t afford to buy it new.

One moment, she’d been blissfully paging through descriptions of astronomical nebulae, and the next . . .

Bang. A collision of cosmic proportions.

The cause remained unclear. Perhaps she’d taken a step in reverse, or maybe he’d turned without looking. It didn’t matter. Whosoever’s elbow jostled the other’s arm, the laws of physics demanded an equal and opposite reaction. From there, the rest was gravity. All her books fell to the floor, and when she looked up from the heap—there he was.

Ruffled brown hair, fashionable attire, cologne that smelled like bottled sin—and a smile no doubt honed from boyhood as a means to make women forgive him anything.

With affable charm, he’d gathered up the books. She’d been no help at all.

He’d inquired after her name; she’d stammered.

He’d asked her to recommend a book—a gift, he said, for two young girls. In response, she’d stammered yet more.

He’d drawn close enough for her to breathe in his woodsy, earthy, oh-so-manly cologne. She’d nearly fainted into the antiquities section.

But then he’d looked at her with warm green eyes—truly looked at her—the way people rarely did, because it meant allowing the other person to truly look at them, too. Equal and opposite reactions.

He made her feel like the only woman in the bookshop. Perhaps the only woman in the world. Or the universe.

The moment seemed to last forever, and yet it was over much too soon.

Then he’d made her a dashing bow, bid her adieu, and strolled away with Messier’s Catalogue of Star Clusters and Nebulae, leaving Alexandra holding an insipid book of stories for “obedient girls.”

End of scene.

Or at least, it should have been the end.

Alex resolved to scrub the encounter from her mental slate, but Penny—the incurable romantic among them—wouldn’t allow it. Since he hadn’t given his name, Penny anointed him with increasingly ridiculous titles. First he was merely the Bookshop Rake, but as the weeks wore on, he made a rapid ascent up the rungs of the peerage. Sir Read. Lord Literature. The Duke of Hatchard’s.

Stop, Alex told her again and again. That was ages ago, and I haven’t thought of him since. He certainly hasn’t thought of me. It was nothing.

Except that it wasn’t quite nothing. Some idiotic corner of her memory embellished the encounter with rainbows and sparkles until it resembled . . . something. Something too mortifying to ever admit aloud, even to Penny, Emma, and Nicola. In truth, Alex avoided admitting it to herself.

From that day forward, whenever she visited Hatchard’s—or the Temple of Muses, or even the Minerva Library—she looked for him. Imagining that they might collide once again, and he would confess, over afternoon tea that lingered into dinner, that he’d been haunting the bookshops, too—hoping to meet with her. Because, naturally, in those two minutes of painful one-sided conversation, he’d divined that an incoherent, clumsy, working-class girl small enough to fit into the average kitchen cupboard was everything he’d always yearned to find.

You’re exactly what I’ve been searching for.

Now that I’ve found you, I’ll never let you go.

Alexandra, I need you.

Common sense, feh.

Alex worked for her living, setting clocks in the homes of wealthy customers, and she didn’t have time for dreams. She set goals, and she worked to achieve them. Feet on the ground, shoulders squared, and head on straight.

She would not—absolutely not—be carried away with romantic fantasies.

Sadly, her imagination ignored this memorandum. In her daydreams, the afternoon tea led to walks in the park, deep conversations, kisses under the stars, and even—Alexandra’s dignity wilted just thinking of it—a wedding.

Truly. A wedding.

Do you take this man, Anonymous Bookshop Rake with Horrid Taste in Children’s Literature, to be your wedded husband?

Absurd.

After months of attempting to quash this madness, Alex gave up. At least the fantasies—foolish as they might be—were hers to keep secret. No one else need ever know. In all likelihood, she would never meet with the Bookshop Rake again.

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Read Online Books/Novels:

The Wallflower Wager

Author/Writer of Book/Novel:

English

0062672150 (ISBN13: 9780062672155)

Tessa Dare Books

Read Online Books/Novels:

The Governess Game

Author/Writer of Book/Novel:

Tessa Dare

English

0062672126 (ISBN13: 9780062672124)

Tessa Dare Books