The Temptation of the Night Jasmine (38 page)

B
Y
LAUREN WILLIG

‘If modern manhood had let me down, at least the past boasted
brighter specimens. To wit, the Scarlet Pimpernel,
the Purple Gentian and the Pink Carnation, that dashing trio
of spies who kept Napoleon in a froth of rage and the feminine
population of England in another sort of froth entirely.’

Modern-day student Eloise Kelly has achieved a great academic coup by unmasking the elusive spy the Pink Carnation, who saved England from Napoleon. But now she has a million questions about the Carnation’s deadly nemesis, the Black Tulip. And she’s pretty sure that her handsome on-again, off-again crush Colin Selwick has the answers somewhere in his family’s archives. While searching through Lady Henrietta’s old letters and diaries from 1803, Eloise stumbles across an old codebook and discovers something more exciting than she ever imagined: Henrietta and her old friend Miles Dorrington were on the trail of the Black Tulip and had every intention of stopping him in his endeavour to kill the Pink Carnation. But what they didn’t know was that while they were trying to find the Tulip – and trying not to fall in love in the process – the Black Tulip was watching them …

B
Y
LAUREN WILLIG

‘All in readiness. An unmarked carriage will be waiting for you behind the house at midnight …’

History student Eloise Kelly is in London looking for more information on the activities of the infamous 19th century spy, the Pink Carnation, while at the same time trying to keep her mind off the fact that her mobile phone is not ringing and her would-be romantic hero Colin Selwick is not calling.

Eloise is finally distracted from checking for messages every five minutes by the discovery of a brief note, sandwiched amongst the papers she’s poring over in the British Library. Signed by Lord Pinchingdale, it is all Eloise needs to delve back in time and unearth the story of Letty Alsworthy and the Pink Carnation’s espionage activities on the Emerald Isle …

B
Y
LAUREN WILLIG

Hoping to track down the true identity of the elusive French spy the Black Tulip, graduate student Eloise Kelly delves ever deeper into the archives at the British Library and the family papers of her boyfriend Colin Selwick, the modern-day descendant of her Napoleonic spy subjects. As she becomes ever more entwined with Colin, her research brings her closer to uncovering the Black Tulip’s true identity.

Determined to secure another London season without assistance from her new brother-in-law, Mary Alsworthy accepts a secret assignment from Lord Vaughn on behalf of the Pink Carnation: to infiltrate the ranks of the dreaded French spy, the Black Tulip, before he and his master can stage their planned invasion of England. Every spy has a weakness, and for the Black Tulip that weakness is black-haired women – his ‘petals’ of the Tulip. A natural at the art of seduction, Mary easily catches the attention of the French spy, but Lord Vaughn never anticipates that his own heart will be caught as well. Fighting their growing attraction, impediments from their past, and, of course, the French, Mary and Vaughn find themselves lost in the shadows of a treacherous garden of lies.

A native of New York City, Lauren Willig has been writing romances ever since she got her hands on her first romance novel at the age of six. Like Eloise Kelly, Lauren is the proud possessor of an unfinished Harvard History department dissertation, and spent a year poring over old documents at the British Library before abandoning the academic life for the more lucrative world of law. Once Lauren received her JD magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, she practised as a litigation associate at a large New York firm, but decided that book deadlines and doc review didn’t mix and departed the law for a new adventure in full-time writerdom.

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The Secret History of the Pink Carnation

The Masque of the Black Tulip

The Deception of the Emerald Ring

The Seduction of the Crimson Rose

The Temptation of the Night Jasmine

The Mischief of the Mistletoe