Hi, folks!

Rene and I decided to take a short vacation with Nick a few weeks ago. We wanted somewhere we could drive to that also wouldn’t be too hot, so we opted for Luray, Virginia, in the Shenandoah Valley. We enjoy caverns, and one of the largest in the U.S. is there. Luray Caverns also had a bonus attraction for Rene and me—the Car & Carriage Caravan Museum! He liked the cars; I liked the carriages. Nick just went along for the ride, pun intended.

We also drove the Skyline Drive and spent some time just relaxing in our Air BnB’s hot tub. The only downside was we couldn’t take any river jaunts because the water level was too low. But we went to the Safari Park on our way back. All in all, a great vacation.

I hope some of you had a chance to travel this summer. It’s nice to have a change of scenery once in a while!

Waving to you from North Carolina,

Nick and I on Skyline Drive—such gorgeous views!

Nick and I standing in front of a Georgian coach.

Rene and Nick at the entrance to Luray Caves.

Dream Lake. The “stalagmites” on the bottom are actually a reflection in water of the stalactites above. If you look at bottom right, you can see the edge of the “lake."

A Sexy Summer Excerpt

Verity sank onto her knees behind them and gazed out at the sea, mesmerized by the sight of so much bared male flesh. The men were all shirtless, but she couldn’t see below their waists. They were standing in the water discussing something, although they were too far away for her to make out any words.

Her gaze went right to Rafe. His olive skin, no doubt from his Portuguese mother, made him stand out. His back seemed sculpted of bronze, glimmering in the bright sun as if he’d just risen from the water and still had droplets all over him. How she wished she could view him more closely through a spyglass. Or see below the surface of the water.

Her cheeks heated, reminding her of what she was supposed to be doing now. “Ladies!” she hissed as she sank further into the rocky sand, determined not to be seen from the water. “You should not be here!”

Somehow, she’d managed to startle them, because their heads whipped around as fast as globes on swivels.

“We didn’t mean—” Isolde began. “We were just—”

“We’re so sorry, Lady Verity,” Miss Chetley said, her expression as panicked as Isolde’s.

“Don’t apologize to her.” Lady Harry sniffed. “She can’t be much older than us.”

“So, you’re nearly twenty-six, are you?” Verity said, knowing full well that Lady Harry was barely nineteen.

Lady Harry frowned. “Good heavens, you are old.”

“And you, madam, are treading on thin ice.” Verity fixed her with a cold gaze. “I’ll overlook this transgression if you three come with me right now. We’ll return to the house and say no more about—”

Voices drifted to them from close by. A group of younger men were coming down the slope adjacent to theirs, and taking their sweet time about it as they joked and jostled and called up the hill to someone behind them. Verity groaned. She and the others would be seen if they moved an inch. Fortunately, none of the men seemed to have noticed them. Yet.

Pressing a finger to her lips, she flattened herself against the sand, praying that no one veered in their direction. At least the men’s bathing machines were grouped at the bottom of the other slope and not theirs.

But unless she and the other ladies wanted to slither down the stony hill on this side on their bellies, all they could do now was wait for the gentlemen to enter the bathing machines below and leave her and the other ladies free to escape.

Regency Tidbit

People in the Regency time period also liked to travel, and, as with now, they often went to the beach. For Accidentally His, I enjoyed researching and writing about a Regency seaside experience (it certainly made for good sensual scenes). Plenty of men swam in the nude and some women, too, which was facilitated by the fact that men and women had separate beaches. For the more modest, there were bathing gowns and the machines in which to change into them. I honestly don’t know why they called them “machines.” There’s nothing machine-like about them. They’re simply boxes/covered wagons that had openings at either end. You went in on one end, changed your clothes as the “machine” was being towed into the water, and then climbed down into the water on the other end. You can see pics of the bathing machines at Jane Austen's World and my Pinterest page about the book.

Exclusive Subscriber Giveaway

Congratulations to Cecilia R. from Yucaipa, CA, for winning July’s giveaway of two autographed “seduction” books—Dance of Seduction and Never Seduce a Scoundrel.