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  “Laura’s father is Horatio Mayhew, a distant cousin of Prince William of Denmark, now King George I of Greece. Horatio has fallen on a financial sword since the Emancipation Proclamation in America. I understand he had holdings in South Carolina. Clearly, he backed the wrong horse. Mayhew lost everything with the exception of his tenuous claim to royalty. He is weak. He will sell us out for a price and I cannot rely on him to keep his daughter in check. As it stands, he does not believe her tale but if she is allowed to roam the streets of London, God knows the trouble she could stir up.”

  “I understand your concern, ma’am.”

  “Precisely so. I knew you would, Mr. Caine. You understand everything. The question is whether there is anything you can do to help.” Victoria dabbed a lace handkerchief at the base of her throat. They were having an unbearably damp spring. Windsor Castle had never been less comfortable.

  “I believe I can. What do you have in mind?”

  Her shrewd eyes took in the young man. Tanner Caine was the most powerful man in England but no one knew it. He was dishonourably discharged from the Royal Navy almost six years ago for reasons that he refused to discuss. He was a private citizen now, living in a hunting lodge buried in the Berkshire countryside when he was not in London. When he was in town, Caine could be found at the rooms he rented in Baker Street. He kept a low profile which perfectly suited Queen Victoria’s purposes.

  “Your residence in Berkshire is in the vicinity of Gateshead Asylum, is it not?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Hawthorne Hall is in Bracknell Forest. The asylum is a two hour journey beyond on horseback.”

  Few in Victoria’s circle of intimates expected the twenty-nine-year-old Tanner Caine to prefer a quiet country life over the glitter of London, but Caine retreated to the lodge as frequently as possible, resurfacing only when Queen Victoria sent for him.

  She had cause now to be deeply grateful for his self-imposed exile; she wanted as few eyes on the task ahead as possible. She chose well, the queen thought, sizing him up. There was not even a wife to get in the way. Though Tanner Caine was often seen in the company of beautiful women, he had never married.

  No doubt because of his face.

  Caine was tall, broad-shouldered with glinting charcoal hair and piercing black eyes. A breathtakingly sexual man with one flaw: a physical deformity acquired at birth, mild enough, but disturbing on first meeting. The left side of Tanner’s face was paralytic, pulled down at the corner of the eye and mouth. His was a half-formed beauty, which made the queen trust him all the more. Marred men were humble enough to take orders and ruthless enough to carry them out.

  “Mr. Caine, Miss Laura Mayhew must escape from Gateshead Asylum and quite soon. She will need an escort to her home in Dorset. I should appreciate it if she never arrived.”

  §

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  About the Author

  Catherine Lloyd loves reading, watching great episodic television, and writing romance. Love stories that are hot and soul-satisfying are her drug of choice. She was inspired to write Victorian Villains from the gothic romance novels she devoured as a kid. Phyllis A. Whitney, Victoria Holt and Daphne du Maurier combined suspense and romance without the use of vampires.

  She decided to release her Victorian stories in installments in the tradition of serialized fiction of the Victorian Age. Magazines nicknamed “the penny dreadful” published genre literature at a low cost in bi-weekly installments. The Victorian Age was an exotic time of science, exploration, high drama and passionate romance on stage and in books. The villains were psychologically fascinating. And hot!

  The author has two grown children, two stepdaughters, a cat named Harry (who thinks he’s a dog) and four grandsons. She lives with her long-suffering spouse in the country where she enjoys having no hobbies and writes full time. Follow Catherine on Amazon to be notified of new releases in this series.

  Contact Catherine Lloyd at [email protected]

  Or visit: Writewood Creations

  Or visit her Author Page on Amazon

  Mandrake Falls Four Seasons Romance

  Four brides. Four seasons. One rocky road to romance.

  THE JILTING ~ Summer

  Best friends forever. Until one of them falls in love. The groom is AWOL. It’s Scout Rutherford’s wedding day and in the next 24 hours, she is shot at, lied to, forced to reveal a secret, abducted at gunpoint and thrown down a ravine. But a night spent in hiding with her best friend Ryder Dean puts her in the worst danger of all.

  LIE FOR ME ~ Autumn

  Sworn enemies, until they pretend to be lovers. Is the lie really the truth? Shelby Porter doesn’t like Sheriff Sawyer McIntyre and everyone in town knows it except Dolly Porter, Shelby and Sawyer’s much-loved, daffy aunt. Dolly’s health hasn’t been good of late. She worries too much over Shelby’s single status. To ease her mind, Shelby tells a little white lie that morphs into a whopper, until she is standing in Sheriff McIntyre’s bedroom at three o’clock in the morning with a teeny request: “Lie for me.” And that’s when things really get scary.

  THE WAY HOME ~ Winter

  The one thing they agree on is to never fall in love. Mandrake Falls is cocooned in a thick blanket of snow when Michael Shannon, the star of Tomorrow Never Comes is dropped like a bomb into Hudson Grace’s bachelor life. For the next seventy-two hours, due to a bureaucratic mix-up, the forester is stuck with the daytime diva. A fire on the hearth. A raging blizzard. And a three-year-old holy terror. Who will crack first?

  LOVE RISING ~ Spring

  Nobody expected them to fall in love. Nerdy stage manager, Jeremy Marks sees right through Jocelyn Tate’s stunning beauty to the vulnerable girl she is underneath. It’s no secret he’s in love with her. Jocelyn thinks Jeremy is sweet but poor and she’s determined to marry a rich man--preferably a billionaire. Jeremy doesn’t have a hope until a mysterious notice appears in the Gazette announcing their engagement. Thrown together, the young couple form a bond to find out who has it in for them.

  MANDRAKE FALLS FOUR SEASONS ROMANCE ~ Boxed Set Edition

  Contemporary Romantic Comedy. Get all four titles for one low price!

  Dark Redeemer Medieval Adventure Romance

  Love. In a dangerous time.

  WANTON

  Callie of Wideopens is the beautiful 18-year-old ward of Jane and Ethan. Ethan has had impure thoughts about his ward. Jane is dying and the crone who supplies her herbs has had a vision of a terrible act. In a misguided attempt to alter the fate of her husband, Jane makes a desperate request of Callie. In doing so, she unwittingly sets in motion the crone’s prophecy.

  WASTREL

  Lord Sebastian Redford’s drinking, card-playing and womanizing is legendary at court and his brazen affair with the wife of the most powerful man in England has put his life in danger. To ward off disaster, Lord Redford’s man hastily arranges a marriage of convenience to Beatrice Fall. Sebastian’s bride proves to be anything but convenient when he consummates their marriage and their marriage of convenience becomes a dangerous wedding of illicit love.

  TRAITOR

  The Earl of Dorset has betrothed his only child, pampered 18-year-old Lady Elspeth to the French lord, Tyndale to secure his favour with the new French king. The trip to Canterbury is a great adventure accompanied by her father’s Captain of the Guard, Griffith of Nottingham. The captain is a skilled bowman, loyal to the Earl and admired by Lady Elspeth—he is also a double agent working to restore King John to the throne.

  Purchase the Boxed Edition for $4.99!

  Swords, horses and medieval adventure! Get all three for one low price.

  SOLDIER ~ A Medieval Christmas Novella

  Two amoral men are transformed by love. In Mercenary, Broderick has been made a new father but his infant son is failing to thrive. Then Tess is brought before him, the daughter of the lord whose lands Broderick has usurped. The new master of Castlemuir confines the young woman to
his inner sanctum to nurse his son, but his desire for the silent girl drives him to take dangerous risks. In Jester, Dumas is a hideously deformed clown who travels the countryside in a caravan with his young assistant, Fallon, a young woman disguised as a boy. In return for keeping her identity a secret, Fallon must perform for the misshapen man each night. But Dumas has a secret of his own as Fallon soon learns after a performance at Castlemuir Hall.