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<\/a>Lies of Gold<\/a><\/p>\nBlurb<\/strong> Buy Links<\/strong> Excerpt<\/strong> He remembered the night he met Katherine as if it were yesterday. Charles was in France and he was in London attending a debutante\u2019s ball. Bored out of his head with the simpering young females and strutting males he was looking for an excuse to depart when his cousin\u2019s tall, elegant wife, Katherine was introduced to him. The orchestra began playing and he asked her to join him on the floor. It was a waltz; he took her in his arms, her eyes met his and he knew he\u2019d met the only woman he\u2019d ever love. They\u2019d set off murmurs behind fans for dancing twice and they didn\u2019t leave each other for a week. They\u2019d made intense, passionate, love, they\u2019d laid in each other\u2019s arms and talked for hours, they were as one. She\u2019d confided Charles was a hard, brutish man but she would not leave him because she\u2019d lose all rights to her four years old son. He\u2019d begged her, made promises he knew he couldn\u2019t keep. She\u2019d shaken her head in despair. As soon as Charles returned to London they would go home to Halton Hall.<\/p>\n He\u2019d prayed Charles\u2019s ship would sink to the bottom of the Channel. She\u2019d cried in his arms; he\u2019d cried in her arms. The day before Charles was due to arrive in London they became tense with each other and finally, distraught, he\u2019d accused her of selling herself for the title and privilege. She\u2019d thrown a heavy teapot at his head. When it struck, he\u2019d seen stars for several seconds before shouting more insults. She\u2019d furiously told him he couldn\u2019t afford to keep her on his army pay. He\u2019d walked out.<\/p>\n Julian barely remembered the following months of heavy drinking and angry self-pity until the army knocked his arrogance and selfishness out of him and saved his sanity. He knew damn well his army pay wouldn\u2019t have kept her and he knew damn well she\u2019d have lost all rights to her son. Knowing Charles, he would have demanded she be brought back to him and the law and the church would have supported him. Her life would have been worse than hell. Now this, Christ, never in a million years did he expect this. He wanted to walk away but he couldn\u2019t because the whole damn top secret investigation would crumble or blow up in his face.<\/p>\n He sat down by the fire and put his head in his hands. He didn\u2019t know it then, but that night fourteen months ago, changed his life. Benjamin Bloomfield, aide de camp to His Royal Highness, the Prince Regent, had ordered Brigadier Sir Ian MacDonald, Sir Henry Whitton and himself to meet at a nondescript location on the outskirts of London. On their arrival, they\u2019d been momentarily lost for words to find a sober and serious Prince Regent waiting for them. Senior government officials had drawn the Regent\u2019s attention to the alarming amounts of gold leaving England. Well-placed sources in France had reported English gold was being smuggled across the Channel to help finance Napoleon Bonaparte\u2019s army. Intensive investigations along the east coast had failed to find any solid evidence but the Regent was not satisfied. He and Bloomfield were convinced someone in the upper echelons of power and influence was behind it or protecting the smugglers. That night the five men present decided that from now on the Prince Regent would shrug it off as rumors and lose interest.<\/p>\n That night MacDonald, Whitton and Julian agreed to begin their search for the source. The Prince Regent named the secret investigation Spider\u2019s Web. The three men thought the name childish but they dutifully indulged His Royal Highness. Not one word of the meeting was recorded and at the conclusion the Prince Regent instructed the three men to meet on the first day of each month and report their progress to Bloomfield the day after. Their investigations were secret and painstaking and gradually they began to close in on this part of the coast. They had observed from a distance, they had moved a little closer and then, as with every other investigation, the scent disappeared. However, they were convinced, and MacDonald decreed Julian was the only suitable person to come and go around the Ballingford estates and the coast without raising suspicions.<\/p>\n Stretching his feet towards the fire, he remembered his furious refusal to return to this place he despised intensely and how he nearly resigned his commission when summoned to a private audience with the Prince Regent. High Treason was involved and as an officer of the Crown he was expected to do his duty. He\u2019d reluctantly bowed to HRH\u2019s orders and it was agreed that to be convincing he\u2019d have to be in dire straits to return. His debts, scandals and fistfights were carefully and authentically orchestrated culminating in him being bawled out by Ian MacDonald who\u2019d conveniently forgotten the raw young corporal and scandal loving clerk in his office. Then their one reliable informer, who\u2019d only agreed to meet him under strict conditions of anonymity, was found with his throat cut. He and Baker had arrived at Halton Hall with no idea of where to start or where to look for the needle in the haystack of boats and fishermen and identify whoever was behind this well organized group of traitors. When he did find evidence, his orders were to send a coded message to MacDonald and Whitton and the net would close in.<\/p>\n No matter what was thrown at him now, he could not walk away. They were so close and if the web was broken it could not be repaired. Nor could he let down Ian MacDonald, his uncle and mentor, to whom he owed so much.<\/p>\n Jan<\/strong> Contact Jan: <\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is a blog hop. Be sure to check the link at the bottom to see posts from other authors! Lies of Gold Blurb Their love affair ended in anger and painful consequences. Katherine Ashford has guarded a secret through years of abuse. Fighting wars and hard living has numbed Julian Ashford. Then fate steps … Continue reading “Gold, gold and more gold #MFRWHooks”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1012,1246,1],"tags":[1099,21,27,283,28,264,1455,158],"class_list":["post-2633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-hooks","category-mfrw","category-uncategorized","tag-bookhooks","tag-historical","tag-historical-romance","tag-intrigue","tag-jan-selbourne","tag-lies-of-gold","tag-napoleon","tag-suspense"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9wA33-Gt","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nomadauthors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nomadauthors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nomadauthors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nomadauthors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nomadauthors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2633"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nomadauthors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2641,"href":"https:\/\/www.nomadauthors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2633\/revisions\/2641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nomadauthors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nomadauthors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nomadauthors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nTheir love affair ended in anger and painful consequences. Katherine Ashford has guarded a secret through years of abuse. Fighting wars and hard living has numbed Julian Ashford. Then fate steps in. Gold is crossing the Channel to Napoleon Bonaparte and Julian is ordered back to where it all began, and Katherine. It\u2019s her secret and the increasing danger that rekindles the love they once shared. When a murder exposes lies, death and devastating betrayal, they finally face the mastermind behind this sordid smuggling operation.<\/p>\n
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\nJulian felt a sliver of shock when he opened the door to his bedchamber. He couldn\u2019t remember how he got here. Swearing softly, he walked to the window overlooking the front courtyard and rested his head against the glass. He\u2019d fathered a child, a daughter. For nine years, his daughter had lived in this house as Charles\u2019s daughter. His vision blurred. Ten years of hard living had buried those deep painful scars and all it took was one look at Katherine and that small girl\u2019s face to peel it all away. Like peeling an onion, his eyes were stinging like hell.<\/p>\n
\nJan Selbourne was born and educated in Melbourne, Australia and her love of literature and history began as soon as she learned to read and hold a pen. After graduating from a Melbourne Business College her career began in the dusty world of ledgers and accounting, working in Victoria, Queensland and the United Kingdom. On the point of retiring, she changed course to work as secretary of a large NSW historical society. Now retired Jan is enjoying her love of travelling and literature. She has two children, a stray live in cat and lives near Maitland, New South Wales.<\/p>\n
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