It Happened One Night...and nothing was ever the same again!

Once upon a time, four superstar storytellers — New York Times bestselling authors Stephanie Laurens and Mary Balogh, along with Jacquie D'Alessandro and Candice Hern — came up with a delicious idea. What if they each wrote a story about a proper young lady stranded at a remote inn away from society's constraints? What would happen? And how long would it take for her to give in to desire?

In these four amazing tales, four heroines will come face-to-face with the men who got away...only to discover that, instead of anger, there is still a passionate connection that cannot be denied. And while each of their lives is quite different, and their pasts utterly unique, they will all make a common discovery — that one night can change everything...forever.

Chapter One...

It was a dark, stormy, and utterly miserable night. Rain fell from the sky in unrelenting sheets; whenever Robert "Rogue" Gerrard, fifth Viscount Gerrard, managed to squint through long lashes weighed down by icy droplets all he saw was more rain.

Hunched in his greatcoat on the box of his traveling carriage, he held the reins loosely in one long-fingered hand; he'd stripped off his sodden gloves miles ago. There was no risk of the horses bolting.

"Just a little further," he crooned, urging them on. He doubted they could hear over the drumming downpour, but the coaxing croon was ingrained habit. If one wanted females or animals to do what one wanted, one crooned; in Ro's experience, it usually worked.

The powerful pair, normally arrogantly high-stepping, were disdainfully lifting first one hoof, then the other, free of sucking mud. Their pace was down to a crawl.

Inwardly cursing, Ro peered through the water coursing down his face, trying through the darkness to make out some — any — landmark. It was February. His mother always maintained one should never travel in February; as with many things, she was proving to be correct. But business had called, so Ro had dutifully left the luxurious warmth of the hearth at his principal estate, Gerrard Park, near Waltham on the Wolds, summoned his trusty coachman, Willis, and set out that afternoon for town.

He'd imagined putting up for the night along the way, possibly at the Kings Bells in St. Neots.

As usual, they'd joined the Great North Road near Colsterworth. It was only after they'd swept past Stamford that Willis, glancing idly back, had seen the massive storm clouds rushing down on them from the north. The turnoff to Peterborough had already been behind them; when applied to for orders, Ro had decreed they'd press on with all speed, hoping to reach Brampton. They'd just raced through the hamlet of Norman Cross when the heavens had opened with a ferocity that had instantly made traveling, even on England's most major highway, a nightmare.

They'd limped toward Sawtry, but with the smaller, slighter Willis all but drowned on the box, having increasing difficulty managing the reins, Ro had insisted on trading places. His drenched coachman was now a shivering lump inside the coach, while Ro, also drenched to the skin, but courtesy of his size and constitution better able to withstand the apocalyptic downpour, squinted through the torrent.

They'd reached Sawtry over an hour ago, only to find every possible habitation packed to the rafters with travelers seeking shelter. The Great North Road was the country's busiest highway; mail coaches, post coaches, and private coaches, let alone wagons and carts, had been stranded and deserted all around Sawtry.

No shelter of any sort was to be had, but the deluge had shown no signs of abating; if anything, as the hours dragged on, the downpour had only increased.

That was when Ro had remembered the small but tidy inn in Coppingford. The lane along which it lay met the highway about a mile south of Sawtry. With no real option, Ro had accepted the risk, not just of that extra mile on the highway, but of what he'd estimated as two miles of country lane.

Now, with the night an icy, wet, close to impenetrable shroud around him, with the horses slowing even more with every step, with the deluge rapidly converting the lane into a quagmire, he was seriously wondering if he'd judged aright. Yet quite aside from its seclusion tucked away through woods two miles from the highway, given the sudden onset of the storm and its dramatic impact, he doubted the Coppingford Arms would be full.

Gaining shelter for him, Willis, and his horses was currently his only objective, and both...

New York Times bestselling author STEPHANIE LAURENS began writing historical romances as an escape from the dry world of professional science. Her hobby quickly ballooned into a career with the publication of her wildly popular novels about the Cynster family. She currently has 30 novels and 4 novellas published, all of which are continually in print. All of her novels have been translated into other languages and are published around the globe. Her last 15 books have been New York Times bestsellers, many in both hardcover and mass market editions.From her home outside Melbourne, Australia, where she lives with her husband and two feline princes, Stephanie continues to pen her signature historical romances set in Regency England. Her latest work, Beyond Seduction, is the sixth book in a group of novels about the members of the exclusive Bastion Club introduced in the novel The Lady Chosen.