{"product_id":"the-trap-trilogyisbn-9780345483089","title":"The Trap Trilogy","description":"Here comes the substitute bride. . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eViolet Brantford has always longed for the passionate embrace of Adrian Winter, the wealthy Duke of Raeburn. Problem is, he’s set to marry Violet’s vivacious, more socially polished look-alike twin sister, Jeannette. But when Jeannette refuses to go through with the ceremony mere minutes before it is to begin, soft-spoken Violet finds herself walking down the aisle and taking vows in her sister’s place. Soon shy Violet is a high-society wife, trying to keep her real identity a secret while living out the fantasies of her wildest dreams. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAdrian thinks he knows exactly what he’s gotten himself into: Jeannette may be flighty and, well, a bit self-involved, but she’s the picture-perfect wife to carry on the Winter name. Yet this marriage of convenience brings the groom more than he bargained for when he finds his sweet, innocent wife surprising him at every turn. And though he never planned on true love, Adrian is definitely in danger of losing his heart.Tracy Anne Warren grew up in a small central Ohio town. After working for a number of years in finance, she quit her day job to pursue her first love–writing romance novels. Warren lives in Maryland with a pair of exuberant, young Siamese cats and windows full of gorgeous orchids and African violets. When she’s not writing, she enjoys reading, watching movies, and dreaming up the characters for her next book. Visit her website at www.tracyannewarren.com.Chapter One\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e      London, July 1816\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “I, Adrian Philip George Stuart Fitzhugh, take thee, Jeannette Rose, to be  my wedded wife . . .”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Violet knew she was going to faint, or else be sick, right here at the  altar in front of Adrian and the Archbishop. In front of everyone, nearly  the entirety of the Haut Ton, assembled in St. Paul’s Cathedral to witness  what was being hailed as the wedding of the year.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    One thousand people lined the aisles. Two thousand eyes locked in rapt  fascination upon Jeannette Brantford, this Season’s Incomparable—and last  year’s as well—as she exchanged vows with Adrian Winter, Sixth Duke of  Raeburn, England’s most eligible bachelor.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Trouble was, the bride wasn’t Jeannette Rose Brantford.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The bride was Jeannette’s identical twin sister, Jannette Violet  Brantford, or Violet, as her family called her. And right now she thought  perhaps she had gone a little insane.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She fixed her eyes upon her blue silk slippers, studied the intricate  designs wrought upon the marble floors beneath the elegant shoes. Light  swam around her in a brilliant mist. A few tiny motes of dust winking in  the mix of candlelight and natural sunshine that cascaded through colorful  stained-glass windows in intense shades of blues and greens.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The scents from the great bowers of blush roses and creamy white gardenias  arranged for the ceremony curled inside her nostrils, their overly sweet  fragrance only adding to her discomfort. She swallowed, her throat dry as  sand. A trickle of nervous perspiration slid between her shoulder blades,  making her long to wiggle her shoulders against the damp.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She should be a bridesmaid, she thought in dizzying panic. She should be  waiting off to the side by now with the other attendants. Instead she was  standing here next to Adrian in front of a pair of massive Baroque columns  with their swirled bands of dark marble and mellow gold, the cathedral’s  great dome rising more than three hundred feet above her. Paintings of the  life of St. Paul stared down at her from the ceiling, scornfully  disapproving her every move, she imagined.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She willed herself to be calm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Calm?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    How could she possibly be calm when she was perpetrating the most  appalling deception of her life? She kept expecting someone to notice who  she really was, to stretch out an accusing finger and shout, “Fraud!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But as her twin had accurately predicted, people saw exactly what they  expected to see. Certainly her parents and the servants had earlier,  accepting her as Jeannette when she’d presented herself in her sister’s  elegant wedding gown, a lustrous confection of ice blue silk with  elbow-length half sleeves and an overskirt of snowy white organza,  hundreds of seed pearls arranged in the shape of rose blossoms and  trailing leaves sewn into the scoop-necked bodice. No one had questioned  her identity, not even when she’d sent her sister’s dresser into a tizzy  by needing to have her hair arranged for a “second” time that morning, the  servant forced to painstakingly rethread pearls and tiny sparkling  sapphires into her upswept coiffure.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Oh, merciful God, Violet fretted for the hundredth time, how had she  gotten herself into such a fix? Everything had been so blessedly normal  when she’d awakened this morning. As normal as a wedding day could be,  that is, the entire household thrown into a flurry of anxious activity. In  hindsight, she would have been a lot more anxious herself had she realized  it was to be her wedding day and not her sister’s. She wished now she’d  skipped the breakfast of eggs and kippers she’d eaten. The meal wasn’t  sitting too pleasantly in her stomach.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Oh, what an idiot she was. She’d never get away   with it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Her hand trembled inside the duke’s, his clasp strong and masculine, so  very warm against her own icy skin. Since walking up the aisle, she’d  given him little more than a cursory upward glance, too nervous to dare  look at him fully. She couldn’t help but be aware of him as he towered  beside her. Dark and beautiful, powerful, utterly resplendent in his  formal wedding attire.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Did he know? she wondered. Did he suspect? Oh, Lord, what if he did? Would  he denounce her right there in full view of the entire Ton? Or would he  wait until they could be in private and demand the marriage be annulled  forthwith? Either way, how would she ever be able to explain?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    What could a woman say when her very identity was a lie?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Whatever had possessed her this morning? How could she have allowed  Jeannette to talk her into such an appalling ruse? Isn’t that why she had  vowed years ago never to trade places again with her elder twin? Because  it always led to trouble—for Violet!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Why, oh why, had she let herself be lured down such a treacherous path?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Was it because Jeannette had decided to renege on her promise to marry her  rich, handsome, influential bridegroom barely two hours before the  ceremony? An action sure to create a scandal so disastrous her family  might never recover from the humiliation and shame of it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Was it because Adrian had settled twenty thousand pounds upon Jeannette  for the marriage—money their family had spent like water drained from a  well to pay off their father’s and wastrel younger brother, Darrin’s,  prodigious debts?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Or was it because she loved Adrian Winter? Had loved him since the moment  she first laid eyes upon him at her come-out ball two Seasons before. Had  continued to love him, aching and unrequited, even after he offered  marriage to her sister. Even though he’d unknowingly captured her heart  and left her to bleed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Ahem . . . my lady,” the Archbishop whispered, “it is your turn.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “What? Oh, beg pardon. Y-yes, of course,” she replied softly, cringing to  realize she had been caught woolgathering.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She glanced upward, caught a glimmer of curious puzzlement in Adrian’s  gaze and immediately looked away.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The Archbishop recited the words for her to speak. “I, Jeannette Rose,  take thee, Adrian Philip George Stuart Fitzhugh, to be my wedded husband.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “I, Jannette Vi . . . umm.” She cleared her throat and coughed. What was  wrong with her? If she didn’t take herself in hand she would give the  whole thing away without any need for thought from anyone else. Try again,  she thought frantically, concentrate. She drew a deep breath. “I,  Jeannette Rose, take thee, Adrian Philip George . . .” Her mind went  suddenly blank. Oh, heavens, what was the rest of it?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Stuart Fitzhugh,” the Archbishop prompted gently.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “. . . Stuart Fitzhugh, to be my wedded husband . . .”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The Archbishop recited the next line.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She listened intently, repeating the words when it was her turn. “. . . to  have and to hold from this day for-  ward . . . for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer . . .”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She raised her eyes again, met the steady regard in Adrian’s rich, sable  brown gaze.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “. . . in sickness and in health . . .”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She felt some of her nerves melt away, knowing she meant each word.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “. . . to love, cherish and obey, till death us do   part . . .”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She did love him. Promised to cherish him all the days of her life. As for  the obey part . . . well, she rather feared she might already have  violated that one, but she’d try her best to make amends in the future.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “. . . according to God’s holy ordinance; and thereto I give thee my  troth.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The Archbishop spoke again. This time to Adrian, who lifted her left hand  and slid a slender gold band in place next to the immense emerald and  diamond ring Jeannette had thrust onto her finger a little over an hour  before. Her ring now.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “With this Ring I thee wed . . .” Adrian intoned, his honeyed voice deep,  solemn. “. . . with my Body I thee worship and with all my worldly Goods I  thee endow: in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy  Ghost. Amen.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Let us pray.” The Archbishop lifted his prayer book in readiness.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Legs shaking, Violet knelt beside the man who was now nearly her husband.  Bowing her head, she closed her eyes and said her own prayer, asking God  to forgive her. She was weak and human but she loved this man   at her side more than he could possibly imagine or would probably ever  know. How could the falsehood she committed be so very great a sin when  her heart adored with such steadfast devotion and truth?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It seemed to her God answered her silent entreaty when He allowed the  Archbishop to conclude the ceremony unchecked. “Those whom God hath joined  together let no man put asunder.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Adrian assisted her to her feet, keeping her right hand tucked within his  own. A shiver raced through her as he curved an arm around her waist and  drew her nearer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Your Grace,” the Archbishop smiled, “you may kiss your bride.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Violet couldn’t read the expression on Adrian’s chiseled, saturnine  features as he bent close, closer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She had been kissed one time before, a stolen peck in the shade of an  apple tree by one of her Brantford cousins when she was twelve. At the  time she found the idea of the kiss far more exciting than the actual  event, she had to confess.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Adrian’s lips touched hers. Warm and smooth, hard yet tender. And proved  to her she had never really been kissed before at all. A rushing hum  filled her ears, blood thrumming like racing rivers in her veins as the  world melted away; guests, the Archbishop, everyone. Instinctively she  parted her lips to let him take more. And for a brief instant he did,  intensifying the kiss in a way that stole the air from her lungs, blanked  every thought from her brain.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Then suddenly it was over. He straightened and tucked her arm in the crook  of his own to lead her back down the aisle.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Smile, my dear,” Adrian said for her ears only. “You look pale as death.  Although that kiss seems to have put a touch of color back in your cheeks.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    At his mention of the kiss, her blush deepened. Because he had asked, she  planted a beatific smile upon her lips and beamed at the blurry mass of  guests as they walked past. Look happy, she told herself. Look like  Jeannette. She playacted and did her best to keep from shivering.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She kept pace as they retraced their steps down the long quire, past  additional rows of smiling guests seated in the carved dark oak pews,  before stepping into a crowd of well-wishers gathered in the cathedral’s  wide, domed transept.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Adrian kept her close at his side. She clung gratefully to his supporting  arm and did her best to smile and chat instead of withdrawing into shy  silence the way she longed to do.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Thankfully they were soon interrupted. One of the Archbishop’s assistants  appeared, drawing her and Adrian aside after a few murmured words to the  duke. Words she wasn’t able to overhear. Violet said nothing as the man  led them into the quiet privacy of a nearby chamber, turning to inform  them with grave politeness that the Archbishop would wait upon them  directly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Then he closed the door, leaving her and Adrian alone.","brand":"Ivy Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303016419557,"sku":"NP9780345483089","price":7.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780345483089.jpg?v=1730752752","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-trap-trilogyisbn-9780345483089","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}