Someone -- or something -- is causing magical blizzards at Fairleigh Hall. The estate is suffering, and the Earl has requested assistance. Constable Kit Thompson, of Bow Street’s Preternatural Division, isn’t especially thrilled to be sent out to the country. At least the assignment gets him away from fashionable London society and his own unwanted celebrity after successfully solving a notorious case. Of course, he’s now trapped at a country estate due to closed roads, snowstorms, and magic, but Kit’s always liked solving puzzles. He’s good at using empathic skills for investigations, and this is definitely a challenge. Besides, the Earl’s younger brother is an irritating and delicious temptation, all blue eyes and muscles and boundless enthusiastic optimism. Kit wants to either shake sense into him or kiss him senseless -- and can’t trust him, either, because if someone’s genuinely sabotaging the weather, everyone’s a suspect. Harry Arden, younger brother of the Earl of Fairleigh, has never met a Preternatural Division constable before, much less a famous and celebrated one. He wants to help. And he wants to make that attractive but cynical constable smile, at least once. But the estate hides a family secret, and Harry knows perfectly well Kit doesn’t trust him ... and for good reason. Still, Harry offers to do what he can to assist with the investigation, and if that means spending more time with Kit, that’s a bonus. When Harry and Kit end up caught by those magical storms, snowed in together at the old hunting lodge, they’ll have to trust each other with their secrets ... and their hearts.

Snowed In: Kit and Harry

He rummaged through the pantry. Unearthed blackberry preserves, dried peas, and startlingly recent-looking bread and cheese. Kept an empathic ear open, listening in on the other room, the other presence.


The blizzard howled and raged and battered the world. Kit’s clothes, soggy with melting snow, left puddles on the floor.


Out in that other room, Harry was alone. Alone and in pain and cold. Because Harry had saved him. Had saved them both.


And Kit had as much as told him that he wasn’t wanted. That he wasn’t worth touching, pleasuring, caring for, even if only for a single encounter, a night, a stolen dream.


Kit had spent years thinking that dreams did not matter. Reality did.


Harry Arden looked at the world and saw ways to make it better. Not only that wild magical talent. The choice to use it. To offer himself. To smile.


Kit would have, a day ago, a lifetime ago, not believed that smile could be true. Hiding secrets. Concealment. Had to be. Didn’t it?


Chapter 25