“But you will let us know if my niece contacts you, Your Grace.” The impertinent man was not asking, but demanding.

Eleanor allowed a haughty eyebrow to express her opinion of his attempt at command, but did not flatter him with a response. “My butler shall show you and your son out, Kent.”

“I am her betrothed,” the younger fool insisted. “I have a right to know where she is.”

Eleanor ignored him, exchanging a glance with her butler that had him summoning the footman from the hall to insist that the two men leave.

“I doubt it,” her friend Grace observed, as the door closed behind them. “I have seen Miss Lovell in the company of the younger Mr Kent, and I very much doubt she is amenable to his suit.”

“I would hope not,” Eleanor said. “I do not know Miss Lovell well, but I have formed a good opinion of her sense, and no woman of sense would take on an overgrown schoolboy like that one. He and that father of his would strip her fortune in no time.”

Grace frowned as her friend poured tea. They had been about to partake when the Kents had been announced, their message begging help to find a missing niece and ward guaranteeing them a few minutes of the duchess’s time. Their unpleasant personalities and the holes in the story they told meant she ignored the waiting refreshments and had them removed as quickly as possible, though not before she had told them, truthfully, that she had not heard from the missing heiress, and had no idea where she was.

“Did she come to you, Grace, or to Georgie or Sophia?” The Winshire women ran a village refuge for women who needed to escape intolerable situations, but Grace was shaking her head. “Not that I have heard. I imagine she is trying to reach her uncle Robert Lovell, who is in Brussels, I believe.”

“I hope she has reached him, or found refuge elsewhere,” Eleanor told her. “The storm in the North Sea is terrible, or so my son says.”

Letty Lovell is caught up in the storm, and her ship goes down in the sea near the village of Fenwick on Sea. She is rescued by an improbable hero in the first story of the new collection, Storm & Shelter, on preorder now.

An Improbable Hero

By Mary Lancaster

A runaway heiress, a mysterious stranger.

When Letty’s ship founders in a violent storm, she forges a rare bond with her rescuer.

Simon is a troubled man on a final, deadly mission—until the spirited yet soothing Letty makes him question everything. Hiding in plain sight among the refugees at The Queen’s Barque, Simon is more than capable of protecting them both. But when the floods recede, can either of them say goodbye?

Storm & Shelter: A Bluestocking Belles Collection With Friends

When a storm blows off the North Sea and slams into the village of Fenwick on Sea, the villagers prepare for the inevitable: shipwreck, flood, land slips, and stranded travelers. The Queen’s Barque Inn quickly fills with the injured, the devious, and the lonely—lords, ladies, and simple folk; spies, pirates, and smugglers all trapped together. Intrigue crackles through the village, and passion lights up the hotel.

One storm, eight authors, eight heartwarming novellas.

Find out more on the Bluestocking Belles’ project page. 

Only 99c while on preorder. Published April 13th.