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    A Winter's Knight
    A Winter's Knight
    A Winter's Knight
    Ebook70 pages1 hour

    A Winter's Knight

    By Donna Hatch

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    About this ebook

    Clarissa's coach breaks down in front of the most forbidding estate in the county, Wyckburg Castle, a place where young brides have been murdered for generations by their husbands. Clarissa is horrified yet curious all in the same breath. When she meets widower Earl of Wyckburg, she must decide if she should flee or uncover the greatest secret in the county about her handsome rescuer.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDonna Hatch
    Release dateNov 27, 2015
    ISBN9781310016271
    A Winter's Knight
    Author

    Donna Hatch

    Donna Hatch is the award-winning author of the best-selling “Rogue Hearts Series” and more than 25 published titles. A hopeless romantic and adventurer at heart, she discovered her writing passion at the tender age of 8. She juggles writing, freelance editing, multiple volunteer positions, and speaking at workshops and conferences. Both natives of Arizona, she and her husband of over thirty years have raised 6 children together and are living proof that there really is a happily ever after.

    Read more from Donna Hatch

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      Book preview

      A Winter's Knight - Donna Hatch

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment, and to help get the word out about my books. Feel free to share this copy with friends and family, or better, yet, encourage them to buy their own copies. Also, if you like this book, please help spread the word and rate it on Amazon.

      Copyright 2016 Donna Hatch

      All rights reserved

      Smashwords FREE Edition

      No part of this book may be reproduced in any form whatsoever without prior written permission of the author, except in case of brief passages embodied in critical reviews and articles.

      This is a work of fiction. The characters, names, incidents, places and dialogue are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

      Other titles by Donna Hatch

      The Rogue Hearts Regency Series:

      The Stranger She Married, book 1

      The Guise of a Gentleman, book 2

      A Perfect Secret, book 3

      The Suspect’s Daughter, book 4

      Anthologies: Timeless Romance, Winter Collection A Winter’s Knight

      Timeless Regency Romance, Autumn Masquerade Unmasking the Duke

      Timeless Regency Romance, Summer House Party A Perfect Match

      With Every Heartbeat, The Reluctant Bride, Emma’s Dilemma, Constant Hearts"

      Heart Strings, Songs of the Heart series Book 1

      Courting the Countess

      Novellas and Short Stories:

      When Ship Bells Ring

      Constant Hearts

      Emma’s Dilemma

      The Reluctant Bride

      Troubled Hearts

      Christmas Novellas:

      A Winter’s Knight

      A Christmas Reunion

      Mistletoe Magic

      Fantasy Novel: Queen in Exile

      Chapter 1

      England, 1813

      Clarissa Fairchild stared out of the coach window at the forbidding fortress crouched atop the bluff. Dark clouds closed in around it as if to echo the evil lurking inside the grey stone castle, a castle teeming with secrets Clarissa longed to discover.

      Next to her, Great Aunt Tilly shivered. Do close the curtain, niece. That cursed place gives me the chills. Filled with murderers, you know. She waved a gnarled hand at the window and shifted as the carriage hit a particularly large rut in the road.

      Fascinated, Clarissa couldn’t tear her gaze away. All her life, stories whispered furtively about Wyckburg Castle and its terrifying lords had captured her imagination—a dark and terrible place with an equally dark and terrible earl. What a grand adventure it would be to explore the forbidding castle, a gothic novel come to life. If only she could find a gothic hero of her own.

      Clarissa tapped her chin absently. I wonder if they hid the wives’ bodies inside the castle, or if they buried them in the churchyard to make it appear as if they died naturally.

      Aunt Tilly pulled her cloak more tightly around her and shifted her feet. The warming bricks had cooled since they left the village, leaving the floorboards cold. You’d have to be foolish to venture amid murderers to view the headstones.

      Tired from shopping, they fell silent as the carriage bumped along the country road. Again, Clarissa considered Wyckburg Castle, where, for generations, the mysterious lords were born, lived, married, and killed their wives. Of course, no one ever proved the wives had been murdered. After all who would actually accuse an earl of murder? But for generations, every Countess Wyckburg had met an untimely death shortly after marrying each successive earl.

      Clarissa conjured all sorts of possibilities, each more wonderfully frightening than the last. The current lord had been reclusive even before he married, but had made no public appearances since his wife’s death. What manner of man was he? Openly evil? Slyly sinister? And what manner of woman had dared marry him, knowing the family’s reputation?

      She drew in a breath as a new thought hit her. Perhaps the earls abducted maidens and forced them to wed. Or maybe the earls were so darkly handsome, no lady could resist them.

      A thrill of delight made her shiver. I wonder if any of those poor women knew of their doom before they were murdered, or it if it happened suddenly.

      It’s not proper for a gently bred young lady to dwell on such morbid thoughts, Aunt Tilly said primly. You should be thinking of finding a nice young man and settling down. After all, you’ll be twenty soon. You don’t want to be an old maid, do you?

      "Oh, Aunt, all the men I’ve met are so dull." Murderous earls were so much more fascinating than real men wearing bored expressions while playing polite social games. Her

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