Until You

By Gina Conkle

A smoldering Scotsman sets Emma’s heart aflutter in a curiosity shop. A few public meetings (Tuesdays only), and a friendship ensues, though her days of relative freedom are dwindling. Her parents want her married, and she wants the Scotsman, Mr. Ramsay. But an air of mystery—and a few stolen kisses—may be all she’ll get...until Lord and Lady Whitwell’s ball when Emma learns stunning truths about the man—and he discovers stunning truths about her.

***Please note: UNTIL YOU was previously published in the anthology A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S ROMANCE***

• Language: English
• Publisher: NYLA
• Release date: Nov 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9781641971911

Gina Conkle

Gina Conkle is a USA Today bestselling author who writes sensual Georgian romances. Her historical romances always offer a fresh, addictive spin on the genre, with the witty banter and sexual tension that readers crave. Her writing career began in southern California and despite all that sunshine, she prefers books over beaches and stone castles over sand castles.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

May, 1814

On Thursdays, Miss Emma Middleton browsed Chancery Lane’s shops with a nose for adventure. She hunted the unpolished and imperfect, à bric et à brac as the French would say, and there was no better place for it than Hexham’s House of Curiosities. A fanciful name, that. London’s rough and respectable gathered at Hexham’s, bringing whispers of fenced goods. More likely debt-riddled patrons spread the scurrilous gossip to soothe their pride after selling prized possessions. The circumstances which brought the goods didn’t matter.

Emma perused treasures of all kinds: dusty clocks, foreign coins…the enticing man beside her.

She set a steadying hand on the counter and breathed his scent. Plain soap, richly lathered, as if he’d shaved before setting foot in the shop. His arm, sleeved in black wool, was near hers. She stared at it under her lashes, a skill proper young women perfected.

His hand was just as intriguing. Large, well-fleshed, a dusting of black hair at his wrist.

Excitement spooled inside her. An adventuress would lift her chin and smile at her fellow browser. Smiles invited polite greetings, and polite greetings invited discourse.

Flirting with a nameless stranger…

The idea was not without merit.

She smoothed her pelisse and reached casually across a tray of sparkling gem intaglios. Her gloved fingers collided with his. Her gaze shot up and up and met stygian eyes.

Heat snapped her skin as if she’d touched a Leydon jar.

I beg your pardon, sir.

The pardon is mine to beg for poaching on yer tray.

His Scots brogue was unexpected. Polite. Rustic, the Rs and Os seeming to grow and catch in the middle of his mouth, and what a fine mouth indeed. The shape curved sensually with a thumbprint-sized indent on his lower lip. The Italian masters could not have produced finer work or set it in a more square and perfect jaw. But his mouth was his sole embellishment. His wide cheeks and thick eyebrows belonged on a bruiser. Or a rebel knight, for no gentleman owned such sin-black eyes. Eyes that would peer from an iron helm before tossing a woman over his shoulder.

It’s my accent, he said. Hard to understand. I doona know how to lose it.

Don’t. It’s perfect.

A genteel, if awkward, silence expanded.

He smiled, a handsome dent of his mouth, while a curmudgeon trundled by, his walking stick thumping the floor. Conversation hummed as patrons poked and prodded well-traveled goods, her chaperoning maid, Headington, among them. Without a proper introduction, Emma was swimming in dangerous waters.

Rustic or not, the stranger had to know this.

I noticed ye studying these trinkets a good long while, he said.

He noticed, did he?

She tore her attention from all six feet and more of him. Mr. Hexham has the best collection of gem intaglios in the City. One is sure to find the rare treasure or two.

A treasure, ye say? He picked up a pink medallion etched with two harvest maids.

Well, not that one. She breathed his pleasant, soapy scent.

What’s wrong with it?

See the edges? She dragged her fingertip over the trinket’s side, carefully avoiding his thumb. They are scratched and peeling. A glass intaglio, probably made here in London. I would say ten or twenty years old. Twenty-five at the most.

Brows slashing, he studied it. How do ye know that?

Some women collect vases, books, figurines. A feminine shrug and, I collect gem intaglios.

Her galloping heart eased its race. The diverting topic had the same effect as wrapping herself with a favorite shawl. Three years she’d saved her allowance and scoured shops while cultivating knowledge through correspondence with antiquarians and a carefully curated library. Little by little, she’d bartered and sold simpler gem intaglios to the less discerning—and stashed her earnings. Not a ladylike pursuit, but it put freedom within her grasp.

Only a fool would pay more than a shilling or two for what you’re holding, she said.

His chuckle rippled seductively. Consider me warned, lass.

The stranger returned the pink medallion to the tray, his sleeve brushing hers. He was an exotic species—big, brawny, and dark in a land of men who were slim, limp, and pale. His inquisitive glances owned her, made her want to nurse their fledgling conversation.

I suppose I do get carried away. Their history fascinates me. She plucked a cracked carnelian gem and raised it to the light. This one is Etruscan. It predates the Roman Empire.

Worth some quid, is it?

More than a hundred pounds. Mr. Hexham ought to keep it under lock and key.

Except people won’t buy what they canna see.

She traced the fracture in the carnelian, wistful and wondering. If only stones could talk…

Holding older gem intaglios was like touching rare and distant kingdoms. Greece, Assyria, the Indus Valley. Kings and viziers commanded unique engravings on gemstones and wore them as rings, their seal, a luxury of art and status in the ancient world. Colored glass eventually replaced costly gems when humbler households needed a seal’s binding signature. Even those middling treasures met the same fate as many other antiquated rings: taken apart, the gold melted, and the glass medallions turned into necklaces or household trinkets.

The stranger held up an agate etched with a lion. What about this one?

Late seventeenth century, Venetian, she said, returning the carnelian piece to the tray. I’d pay thirty-five pounds for it. Possibly forty, but no more.

And this one? He showed her a satyr etched in glass. A lazy phallus rested on the creature’s thigh.

She refused to blush. Two shillings, if that. Hawkers sell them outside the British Museum.

He grunted, twirling the naughty medallion between big fingers. His hands belonged to a man who earned his coin by hefting heavy things.

Eyes sharp, he scooped medallions off the tray. What about all of these?

Gem intaglios gleamed like plunder in his fist.

Are you testing me? she asked.

Call it what ye like.

A thrill coursed her veins. The dark-eyed stranger had tossed a gauntlet on the floor of Hexham’s shop.

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