Gyles had no difficulty making out his words.

“Welcome to the club.”

Author’s Note

Dear Reader,


So at last you’ve learned of Chillingworth’s fate. We can now leave him and Francesca to get on with their well-rounded and passionate lives, and turn our attention to the next Cynsters to fall.

It’s the twins’ turn to find love in the next two Cynster volumes. The years have rolled by and although they’ve been searching constantly and diligently, they’ve yet to find any suitable men-gentlemen of rank who measure up to their high standards, men who can hold their own when compared to their Cynster cousins. They have, they decide, reached the end of their tether-they’re no longer willing to wait on fate to turn her attention their way. So they each devise a campaign-a strategy to find and win the man of their dreams. To Amanda, the matter’s obvious-as they’ve failed to flush out any suitable prey in the conventional hunting fields of ballrooms and drawing rooms, then they need to look elsewhere. She turns her determined sights on venues where more dangerously exciting gentlemen-gentlemen like her cousins before they were wed-are to be found.

In waltzing into their lairs, she discovers it’s not at all difficult to attract attention; unfortunately, not all is of the type she welcomes. In weathering an unexpected storm, she finds herself indebted to the most fascinatingly elusive gentleman, a devastatingly handsome earl who prefers the shadows to the glittering lights of the ton. Amanda decides he’s the lion she wishes to tame, but first she must snare him. In the game that ensues, pursuit and passion go hand in hand, first driving one, then the other, until the love that grows from it is strong enough to demand the resolution of a long-ago mystery, paving the way for Amanda’s earl to return to the light by her side.

Read of Amanda’s pursuit of love in the next volume of the Cynster series, to be released by Avon Books in April 2002. Amelia’s tale will follow in October 2002, followed by the story of Simon, the youngest male of the Bar Cynster generation.