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

Night arrived, or they guessed it did; snow-encircled, there was not much difference, but the quality of the light deepened and darkened and went away.


Harry talked, too: about Ned, about growing up on the estate, about being permanently under the watchful stares of tutors, parents, servants who had been tasked to ensure the good luck of Fairleigh came to no harm. He sounded wistful, and wistfully glad of that; at some point, Kit thought, Harry had made peace with the knowledge that his gifts equaled his usefulness, and the extent of love, for his parents. And, being Harry, had no doubt shrugged, considered that his own virtual imprisonment was a fair price for Ned’s strength and the estate’s flourishing, and not questioned his own choice again.


Kit said, “Do you ever want more? Town. Museums. Those elephants.”


Chapter 31