Can she succumb to the hot sting
of his hand and the gentleness
of his kisses without revealing her true identity and darkest
secrets?
Disciplined by the Duke
Lords of Discipline, #1
Lords of Discipline, #1
by Alyson Chase
Releasing August 15th 2017
Swerve
Swerve
The Book Junkie Reads . . . Review of . . . DISCIPLINED
BY THE DUKE (Lords of Discipline, #1) . . .
A
servant. A liar. A thief. A submissive. And foremost a woman. A woman with
desires, needs, expectations. . . This was a walk on the steamier side of
historical romance. Spicy sexy tutorial in BDSM for one undercover maid that
did little work and too much snooping and descent amount of discovery, of
herself. While the premise was not new it was alluring to have a historical
romance feel more like it melded in to the world of contemporary romance
without being a time travel romance.
Liz
finds herself in the role of being protector for her sister. She becomes
entangled in a game that may cost her so much more than she has to loose. One
final assignment was required of her to gain her sisters freedom. One final
task to get on with her life. This final task proved to be a lot out of her
realm of her upbringing. Her target a duke. Her downfall that same duke. Her
savior . . . ?
Marcus
was a duke that was not of the convention that his peers and the ton expected.
He was a man that had his own way about himself. He was a man that knew so much
more than was relied on the outside. He becomes widely intrigued by the new
maid in the manor.
There's
so much more to this story than the BDSM aspect, the historical aspects, the
need to free her sister was even surpassed by the bond that takes place between
Marcus and Liz. It took time an patience, but this new series has a descent
start and I look forward to discovering the next steps in the Lords of
Discipline series. This was the introduction needed to set the tone for the
direction of this series.
Blurb
The day her sister murdered their abusive father, Elizabeth Wilcox stopped being a gentleman’s daughter. Willing to do anything to save her sister from the hangman’s noose, now she is a spy... A servant. A liar. A thief. A submissive.
The day her sister murdered their abusive father, Elizabeth Wilcox stopped being a gentleman’s daughter. Willing to do anything to save her sister from the hangman’s noose, now she is a spy... A servant. A liar. A thief. A submissive.
Masquerading
as a parlor maid and entrenched in the Duke of Montague’s estate, Liz is
willing to risk all to uncover the secrets that would save her sister. But
submitting to the duke’s peculiar brand of discipline surprises her with a
heady mixture of pleasure and pain. Eager to relinquish control of her messy
life, Liz soon craves the rough hands of Montague and his powerful, passionate
attentions. Can she succumb to the hot sting of his hand and the gentleness of
his kisses without revealing her true identity and darkest secrets? And what
punishment will she face when he realizes her betrayal?
“Look
at me.” His voice was quiet. Kind. But no less commanding than when he gave
orders to his steward. Or his dogs.
Her
gaze rose over hard thighs, the fall of his trousers, the flat expanse of his
stomach, and the wider expanse of his chest. She looked up until his eyes
captured hers and held on. Her breath caught in her throat. His eyes weren’t
the gray of unyielding stone anymore, but rather the shifting silvers and
subdued greens of an ocean tossing in a storm.
“I
don’t make a habit out of breaking anyone’s, anything’s, spirit.” Dropping to a
squat, Montague ran his fingers under Reggie’s jaw.
The
heat from his body, his sudden nearness, curled around Liz. She took a deep
breath to calm her racing heart. But she was swamped with his scent, and her
pulse ratcheted up even higher.
“Sometimes
animals need to be molded so they can become their best selves. Guidance, a
firm hand, training.” His breath bloomed across her cheek with every word. “My
horse, Darkwing, has as much spirit as he did as a foal. I merely redirected it
to productive channels. Now, he and I have a partnership. We each trust the
other.” His lips quirked. “More so than I do most men.”
Digging
his fingers into the soft fur at the back of Reggie’s neck, Montague gently
lifted the pup. “Now if this fellow doesn’t wish to be molded that is his
prerogative. He might not make the grade for a work dog at my estate, but he
will make someone a lovely pet.”
Reggie
yipped, and the duke lowered him to the ground. The puppy coiled around himself
like a snake, obviously exhausted from his day. Montague kept his hand on the
dog, his palm almost large enough to span Reggie’s entire back. He ran his
long, tapered fingers slowly through the puppy’s coat, and Reggie gave one more
sleepy yip before tucking his nose under his tail.
“You
seem to have an affinity for the scamp.” Montague gently rubbed the tip of
Reggie’s ear between his thumb and forefinger. Liz’s own earlobe tingled.
“Perhaps you’d want him as a pet.”
Her
heart twisted. She’d love to spoil a dog. But it wasn’t to be. And the duke
should have known that.
“Where
would I keep him?” She hated to do it. It would ruin the moment, these amazing
few minutes when the duke spoke to her like she was a real person, an equal,
not the hired help. She’d forgotten what it felt like to be able to sit without
fear of violence or discovery. To not have every moment revolve around a job
for Westmore, scraping together enough money for food for her and Amanda,
finding enough coal to keep her warm at night.
This
was like an afternoon of days past, when gentlemen treated her with respect and
she wanted for nothing. She felt like her old self, if only for a moment. The
decadence of it almost made her dizzy.
But
being the old Miss Elizabeth Wilcox was a luxury she could no longer afford.
So
she twisted the blade, just a little. Just enough to sting. “Mr. Todd doesn’t
allow servants to have pets. And if Reggie followed me around on my duties I
think he’d probably make more of a jumble than I could clean in a day.” Taking
a deep breath, she clenched her stomach. “It doesn’t make sense for a
chambermaid to have a puppy.”
And
there it was. That small flicker. The stormy sea hardening back into granite.
Montague had forgotten himself. Or, more accurately, forgotten her. Forgotten
how low she was in relation to him.
Her
lungs burned with the effort to keep her breathing steady. The reminder stung
more than she’d expected. The duke would probably forget his momentary lapse in
the time it took him to return to his house.
It
would take her longer.
And
she couldn’t keep forgetting who she was, why she was here. It hurt too much
when reality crashed back in. So she dug the knife a little deeper into her
side.
Picking
up the sleeping puppy from her lap, she laid him next to Reggie. Standing, she
brushed at her skirts, plucking an errant strand of fur from her apron. “Now if
you will excuse me, Your Grace, I have some chamber pots I need to empty.”
Without
looking to see whether she had shocked him, Liz turned on her heel and made her
way back to the side door of Hartsworth. The servants’ entrance.
It
wasn’t until she’d refilled Molly’s bucket and lugged it halfway up the stairs
that she realized she’d forgotten to curtsy before leaving the duke. She could
only hope her disgraceful chamber pot reference had distracted the man too much
for him to notice.
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What makes a
historical romance steamy beyond traditional romance?
Ooh, this is a great topic, one
that I’ve debated many times with my friends. First, I have to qualify it and
say there are plenty of traditional romances that I find hotter than a lot of
historicals. Good writing is good writing, no matter what the setting. And a
lot of historical romance is aimed more toward humor and heart than steam. But
on the whole, I do find the atmosphere of historical romance to be more
conducive to a lip-biting good read. Which is probably why when I wrote
DISCIPLINED BY THE DUKE, my first Regency novel, it came out much sexier than
the contemporaries I write under a different pen name.
For me, sexiness is found in
the details. That exposed patch of skin at a man’s throat. The demure dip of a
woman’s head. Traditional romance doesn’t typically have those subtleties. Why
would it when in the modern era everyone has the ability to express themselves
however we wish? We can wear what we want, say what we want, and face very
little consequences for doing so. But to me, sexy is suggestive rather than
overt. I’d much rather fantasize about a man in a well-cut pair of breeches
rather than one exposing everything in a tiny swimsuit. Excepting Daniel Craig
in the swimsuit scene in Casino Royale. Not much beats that on the steam o’
meter. Must go rewatch…
Where was I? Oh yes, the
sexiness of historical romance. In the Regency (and other past eras), so much
was forbidden. Men and women had such defined, and restrictive, roles. Getting
caught alone in a room with a man could be enough to force a woman into
marriage or face being ostracized. The stakes were higher, so that first kiss,
the first time a couple has sex (if it’s premarital), is a bigger gamble than
in traditional romance. When my heroine, Elizabeth Wilcox, takes the Duke of
Montague to bed, she knows she’s putting her goals in jeopardy and that her
life is changing. Sex in historical romance has a much greater significance.
It’s illicit. Dangerous even. And that added tension ramps up the emotion in
the story. And that’s sexy.
I am so thankful that I was
born when and where I was. I would never actually want to live in a Regency
novel no matter how many Mr. Darcys or Dukes of Montague might inhabit it. I’m
rather fond of saying, doing, and wearing what I like (the A/C and indoor
plumbing is pretty sweet, too). But there’s no doubt that traditional romances
have a hard time matching all that buttoned-up sensuality in a historical.
Alyson
Chase writes historical romances that are just a
bit…naughty. She is a former attorney, and thought that her flair for dramatic
and sexy writing was seriously undervalued in her legal career. She also writes
under the name Allyson Charles.
She lives in Northern California where the
incredible weather and natural beauty so far outweigh the overcrowding and
congested freeways. Also, the food in the Bay Area rocks.
If you want to know when the next book is coming
out, visit her at websiteand
sign up for her newsletter.
(a $15
Amazon gift card)
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