Tea with a daughter-in-law

This week’s post is an excerpt from Paradise at Last.

Eleanor was too busy to fret much about her would-be suitors, or about the chill distance between her and the one man for whom she might be tempted to forsake her new freedom. She and Jessica had much to do preparing for Jessica’s wedding in April and shopping for Jessica’s trousseau. She continued the work she had begun, seeking donations for the several charities she had offered to help when last in Town.

She also found herself deputising for Cherry on many of the same committees that she had managed when she was duchess. Eleanor met with her daughter-in-law after every meeting to report on progress.

They took tea one afternoon in the little parlour Cherry had made her own. The previous evening Haverford had escorted them both to a formal dinner, with dancing afterwards, at the home of Lord Henry’s daughter Susan.

“You will be able to take up the work again, now that you are feeling more energetic,” Eleanor told her daughter-in-law. “I’m very happy to hand it all back to you, or to continue with some of it. You must just tell me what you need.”

“We shall see,” Cherry commented. “I expect I will need your help later in the year. You have guessed have you not?”

Eleanor acknowledged the truth of that with a smile and a nod.

“I thought so. You have not fussed over me as much as Anthony, but you are always there with a snack or a drink when I need it, and always ready to take over when a nap overwhelms me.” She put a hand over Eleanor’s and squeezed. “You and Mother are the only ones to know, apart from Anthony.”

“And, I imagine, your dresser,” Eleanor joked. “It is hard to keep such a secret from one’s maid.”

It was Cherry’s turn to smile and nod.

“Dearest, I could not be more thrilled,” Eleanor said. “And not because of that nonsense about an heir to the Haverford duchy. I have seen enough of you together to know that the love you bear one another is far more important than who carries on the title after we are all gone. But you deserve the little blessing you carry. You and my son will be wonderful parents.”

Cherry burst into tears. “Excuse me, Aunt Eleanor. I seem to have little control over my emotions at the moment.” She put her arms around Eleanor and Eleanor hugged her back, then offered a handkerchief so she could dry her eyes.

“And what of you?” Cherry asked. “I always thought you and Uncle James would make a match of it after the old duke died. We would all be so pleased. Can you not talk to him, Aunt Eleanor?”

Eleanor shook her head. “I expect you know what he thinks of me. Sarah was there when he found out what I had done. I cannot even blame him for it, for I was wrong.”

Cherry made an impatient noise. “And I suppose he has never made a mistake in his life? To throw away all of your history and the friendship you have found in the last few years—surely he is not so foolish.”

Eleanor sighed. “Shall we talk about something else, my dear? What dreadful weather we are having.”

Spotlight on Only a Lyon Will Do

Only A Lyon Will Do: Lyon’s Den Connected World

By Sherry Ewing

Can a chance encounter turn desire into love?

Asher Tyler, Earl of Rowley, has guarded his life as a carefree bachelor by avoiding romantic entanglements and the debutantes of each Season. When his world is turned upside down by a mysterious woman who saves him from a fall, Asher wishes to know her better but she refuses to reveal her identity. Asher cannot forget the woman at the Lyon’s Den and remembers every delectable detail about her.

Mrs. Patience Moore, a widow with a complicated past and ties to the Wicked Widow’s Club, was disowned by her merchant father when she married without his consent. Now a widow, she lives with her friend, Cassandra, who pays the matchmaking fees of the infamous Mrs. Dove-Lyon, the Widow of Whitehall, to find a husband for Patience.

But Patience doesn’t want an arranged marriage. She wants to fall in love but not with the man who stumbled into her one night at the Lyon’s Den who appears only interested in one thing. She knows his type. She should stay far away from him. Her heart tells her differently.

Mrs. Dove Lyon’s matchmaking brings Asher and Patience together, but the road is complicated. Asher insists he isn’t interested in marriage, his brother is vying for Patience’s affection, and an enemy from Asher’s past is seeking revenge.

Only time will tell if love will win over a woman who is afraid to trust and a man who refuses to see that the perfect woman is right before his eyes.

Learn more on Sherry’s website at https://sherryewing.com/regency-books/only-a-lyon-will-do/ 

 

Tea with the Viscountess Andrepoint

“Your Grace,” Jane curtsied deeply, hoping that the amount of respect she was showing was adequate. She often granted far more depth to her courtesy than was strictly necessary, but she’d rather err on the side of respect than not.

“Lady Andrepont, please come in.” Eleanor, the Duchess of Haverford gestured to a waiting teapot and sitting area.

Jane’s palms sweated as she gripped her silk gown, crossing the plush pile rug of the duchess’s drawing room. “Thank you.”

Jane almost tripped on the way over, but righted herself in time. She was grateful when she was able to sink into the deep cushion of the Duchess’s upholstered settee. Finally she pulled out an unadorned tin that she’d held gripped in a sweaty fist lodged deep in her pocket on the way over. “If it is not too forward, I would like to gift to you a tisane of my own making.”

“Oh?” The Duchess asked, reaching out to take the small, undecorated box. “Shall we brew it up now?”

“Oh, no, it is for medicinal purposes.” Jane managed to get out the words. She was as skittish as a colt on ice, and her voice took so much effort to use. “It is especially meant for cramping or for headaches. I use it myself as well as for my staff.”

The duchess opened the tin and sniffed. She had the politeness to not wrinkle her nose at the pungent aroma. Jane had not yet learned how to mask the odors well yet.

“I have a greenhouse that I use to brew up my mentor’s receipts. Or, she was my mentor before I married.” Jane hurried through the explanation feeling foolish. But the duchess looked on with generosity. “I, of course, do not seek education now.”

“Cream?” Duchess asked, poised with the tiny ewer.

“Yes please.” It seemed impolite to refuse, so she accepted without thinking.

“You must be very well accomplished to have had a mentor,” the duchess said, pouring tea for them both.

“Well enough, I suppose. I had thought I would stay in the country, unsure if I would ever marry. It seemed prudent to have a profession.”

“If I may say, Lady Andrepont, you are quite a beauty. I know you are young, but you have many years of beauty yet. A profession would not have been needed.”

“Very kind of you to say. But I rather enjoyed my time with the midwife. She did more than attending the birthing room. The skills seemed preferable to marriage.”

“And now?” The duchess inquired.

Jane tried to give the polite answer. The one she should say, especially given the company. “I’d rather be a midwife.”

“And this tisane you’ve gifted me, you say you’ve tried it yourself?” The duchess inspected the tin again.

“Yes. Though I will caution that it does make bruising worse, even as it aids the feeling of the cramping.”

The duchess snapped her eyes back to Jane. She’d said too much. Jane looked down at her cup, the deep brown of the high quality tea swirling with the pale cream. Her heart hammered in her ears.

“Is it the viscount who does this?”

“Does what?” Jane said, before she could think of a lie, forcing herself to meet her hostess’s gaze. There was a pause, and Jane knew the duchess was weighing her options, on how much intervention she could muster. But no one could stop Andrepont. If someone could have, it would have already happened.

“Do you need protection?” the duchess asked, and even her asking the question made Jane tear up.

Jane couldn’t fathom anyone being nice to her anymore. She had spent long enough in Andrepont’s house to know that she was not a person who deserved kindness. That charity was nothing but bait to hurt her even further. There was a part of her that insisted the duchess had no such malice, but experience pushed those thoughts away. Jane shook her head.

“I’m sure I could help, if you are in true danger.” the duchess pursed her lips.

Jane thought of Vasya. He was the man who had built her greenhouse. The man who kept her safe despite her husband. Jane pulled her shoulders back, giving the impression of confidence she did not have. “I have protection. You have no need to worry.”

A Lady’s Resilience by Edie Cay

When the Blood Is Up series finale

Love Makes Us Desperate

In 1780, Queen Charlotte hosts a ball for her birthday. Jane Laurent has not been to a ball because at age sixteen, she isn’t ready. Raised in the country, Jane appointed herself apprentice to a midwife—a calling she wants to pursue. But the family traipses into London so Jane’s older sister Emma can land herself a lord. The family celebrates when lovely Emma catches the eye of the handsome viscount Andrepont. But the night of the engagement ball, dependable Emma runs away with a soldier instead. The family panics and pushes Jane forward to fulfill the marriage contract with the older and oddly unsettling Lord Andrepont. How bad could he be that pragmatic, reliable Emma ran away?

Vasily Nikolaevich Kuznetsov is a man with a past, but at least its far away. Meeting up with Gareth Somerset in a seedy gambling hell outside of Paris was the best thing that could have ever happened to him. Aimless, he follows Gareth to London where he helps his friend win the girl of his dreams, and vows to keep an eye on her while Gareth is deployed to the colonies. But when Gareth’s wife joins her husband in the colonies, and Vasya hears the younger sister is marrying Andrepont, a monster well-known to the seedy underbelly of London, Vasya takes a position as a groom in the lord’s household to protect the sister-in-law of his friend.

Years pass, and Vasya watches Jane grow into the formidable and beautiful Lady Andrepont. He can only love from afar, but there isn’t anything he wouldn’t do for her. And when it comes to murder, Vasya has the experience and the moral flexibility to help…

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Spotlight on The Lyon and His Promise

By Sherry Ewing

Part of the Lyon’s Den Connected World

A gentleman’s lifetime regret. A widow’s tarnished reputation. Can they repair the past to create a bright future together?

Gyles Hawley, Marquis of Wickes has spent years regretting that he promised a good friend not to woo the man’s sister. Not that the regret shows. Between his duties to his father and the estate as heir to a duchy, he sometimes wished he could live a simpler life as a gentleman-about-town. Inside, though, he still yearns for a girl he could never forget.

Mrs. Josephine Bouchard understands that she must live with her bad choices. Foolishly running away with a man who only desired her money, was only the first. After she became a widow, she continued to make decisions that cost her any possibility of a return to Society. Then a chance glimpse of Gyles makes her wonder if maybe she could find a way.

When Mrs. Dove-Lyon arranges a meeting between Gyles and Josephine, the past and present collide. Only once they resolve their own mixed emotions, can they combat all that Society will try to do to stop them being together.

A ruined widow and a duke’s heir must find a way, for love has once more entered their hearts.

 

Spotlight on Perchance to Dream

Scarred by life, they have abandoned dreams of romance. Until love’s kiss awakens them.

Life is richer than he expected.

John Forsythe abandons London for the furthest reaches of England after a series of betrayals leave him with the shame of a very public divorce, a poor opinion of Society ladies and a heart armored against love. Protected from intruders by his servants, the Thornes, he spends his days with his daughter and in a workshop where he makes clockwork automata.

Life is better than she deserves.

Pauline Turner has reformed in the years since she joined in her mother’s attempts to destroy her step-brother. Eschewing social position and forgetting dreams of marriage and her own home, she is content with space to breed roses and her status as a favorite sister and aunt.

A kiss awakens them…

When a storm forces Pauline to defy John’s ban on visitors, she and John each strike a chord in the other. Though they awaken to the possibility of love, they each have their own lives.

… but the trials that follow tear them apart

When his ex-wife’s husband steals John’s beloved daughter, Pauline steps in to steal her back. The journey that follows takes them across the sea to Paris and into the depths of their hearts.

A Twist Upon a Regency Tale
Lady Beast’s Bridegroom
One Perfect Dance
Snowy and the Seven Doves
Perchance to Dream

Published September 7th. Order now: https://www.amazon.com/Perchance-Dream-Twist-Upon-Regency-ebook/dp/B0C6R78CFH

Declarations on WIP Wednesday

Jack sometimes thought the worst days were the ones when Griffith was most aware of the holes where most of his memories and his old skills should be.

“He won’t help with the chores or settle to spillakins or cards,” he reported to Gwen when she emerged from her stillroom. “He refuses to sing, and he makes loud screeches when I try to tell him a story. If you don’t mind, Gwen, I’ll hire a pair of riding horses and take him out for a ride. I can keep him on a leading rein.”

“I’ll come along, if you can make it three horses,” Gwen said. “I am almost done here, and I’ve earned the rest of the day off. Go and fetch the horses, Jack, and I’ll watch Father while I make us some food to take with us.”

Some things, it seemed, Griffith remembered. He easily mounted the steady horse Jack had hired—a large placid cob that the stable master at the inn recommended. Gwen might think she had kept her father’s condition secret, but the stable master knew. Adam’s housekeeper knew. Jack wondered how many other people were aware. If so, they should be ashamed for leaving his poor darling to try to manage father, house and business on her own.

He hastened to mount his own horse. Griffith was anxious to be off, and was becoming frustrated when his horse refused to obey his commands. It wouldn’t ignore the lead reins that tethered it to Gwen’s horse and Jack’s.

“This was a wonderful idea,” Gwen said half an hour later. She had taken them to an idyllic spot by the river. As soon as Jack spread the blanket for their al fresco meal, Griffith had commandeered it to wrap himself in and had gone to sleep. Jack put his coat down for Gwen to use instead.

She sat on one side, her knees and ankles decorously together, her sensible half boots off the edge of the coat. “There’s room, Jack,” she said. “Come and share.”

Jack shook his head. “Not a good idea, Gwen. I cannot sit that close to you and keep my hands to myself.”

She looked puzzled. “Do you mean that you want to touch me? As if…? Jack, what do you mean?”

Perhaps he’d be off to hell in a hand basket, but he could not resist just once telling her how he felt. He would regret it if she sent him packing, as she should, but just once, he wanted her to know.

“I want to touch you.” It was a ravenous growl. “I want to kiss you until you don’t remember anything but my name. I want to devour you, Gwen, and if you have the least sense of self-preservation, you’ll let me sit over here while you sit over there.”

Was that a flare of interest in her eyes? Heaven help them both if it was, for her father was no sort of chaperone at all, sound asleep as he was.

Meet the hero and heroine of Love in Its Season

Meet Gwenillan Hughes

Gwen Hughes, is too tall and too independent to suit the bachelors of Reabridge. She has helped in her father’s farriery from the time she could toddle, and since her brother left for the wars and her father faded into second childhood, she has been the farrier.

She loves her work and is proud of the family business, but she is also tired. It’s the busiest time of the year for a farrier, when the big houses are preparing for the hunting season and the farms around Reabridge are bringing in the harvest. On top of that, she has a house to manage, meals to prepare, and an increasingly dependent father to look after.

The retired soldier who offers to help out with her father is a God-send, especially when he takes over the housework and cooking, as well. He says his motive is simply that he is at a loose end, and he enjoys helping people. Can Gwen dare to hope that she means more to him than that?

Meet Jack Wrath

After twenty-five years in the cavalry, Jack Wrath has resigned his commission and come home to England. Or not home. An orphan who enlisted when he was fourteen, he doesn’t have a home, and he is only in Reabridge because he brought his doctor home. After all the man saved him from losing all use of his arm after he took a bullet to the shoulder. Besides, someone had to make sure the poor beggar made it home.

Meeting Gwen Hughes strikes him all of a heap. There’s no point in courting her. She is far too good for an unemployed orphan of dubious origins. But he knows something about looking after dazed old men. He can help to make her life easier.

So he volunteers his services. He can help her through this busy season, but every day he loses more and more of his heart to this brave, clever, magnificent woman. When she finally sends him away, he will leave the best part of himself behind. Can he dare hope she will allow him to stay?

Spotlight on Flowers for His Lady and An Angel’s Promise in Belles & Beaux

Flowers for His Lady: By Alina K. Field

Shamed into spinsterhood by a fall from grace years earlier, Eleanor Gurnwood has found a home for herself in the tiny village of Upper Upton, and a quirky, sometimes annoying family in the villagers she’s been serving as her vicar-brother’s minion. Now, with his rising career, she’s faced with a choice: succumb to his pressure to keep house for him elsewhere or stay on in genteel poverty with her new “family”.

For now, she has only one goal in sight: to make this year’s Christmas service beautiful for the parishioners of St. Tancred’s. Until the Christmas eve when a man from her past rides in on a white horse.

Major Sir Bramwell Huxley, late of his Majesty’s 95th Foot, has ventured on one last mission, a quest for a Christmas miracle: finding the lady he abandoned before leaving for Waterloo.

My comments:

I love second-chance love stories, and Alina has given us a delightful one. The device of an interfering family member who secretly intercepts messages is managed here with a deft hand. No long drawn-out disbelief once the machinations are disclosed. And the romantic gesture that Bram makes to win his loved one warmed my heart. I’m sure it will warm yours.

An Angel’s Promise: By Rue Allyn

Artis MacKai might be only a little girl, but she is not going to let a blizzard, wolves, or a deadly enemy stop her from rescuing the stolen mare and foal who are the hope of her family. It will take the spirits of her parents, a determined boy, and her desperate brother to save her.

My comments:

True love never dies in this little story by Rue Allyn. The love story of Artis’s parents doesn’t end when they are foully murdered. Nor does their love for their children. Artis and the boy she finds in the blizzard engaged my sympathy from the first. This story was unexpected, since the heroine was only eight, but it truly deserves its place in this set. It is a heartwarming tale of love, courage, and determination. And just long enough to read with a cup of coffee and a piece of Christmas cake.

Find out more

Read all about the set on the Bluestocking Belles website, and preorder at the special prerelease price.

Backlist spotlight on A Raging Madness

Their marriage is a fiction. Their enemies want them destroyed before they can make it real.

Envy is a raging madness that cannot bear the wealth or fortune of others.”
François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld

Ella survived an abusive and philandering husband, in-laws who hate her, and public scorn. But she’s not sure she will survive love. It is too late to guard her heart from the man forced to pretend he has married such a disreputable widow, but at least she will not burden him with feelings he can never return.

Alex understands his supposed wife never wishes to remarry. And if she had chosen to wed, it would not have been to him. He should have wooed her when he was whole, when he could have had her love, not her pity. But it is too late now. She looks at him and sees a broken man. Perhaps she will learn to bear him.

In their masquerade of a marriage, Ella and Alex soon discover they are more well-matched than they expected. But then the couple’s blossoming trust is ripped apart by a malicious enemy. Two lost souls must together face the demons of their past to save their lives and give their love a future.

See more and buylinks.

Extract

They had history together, not all of it good

He had embarrassed Ella, which was not well done of him. Particularly since she would need to share his bed this night. Just as well Farnham could not possibly know that. The lousy carbuncle would undoubtedly share the news that Alex Redepenning had been seen with a woman in Stoke-on-Trent but would not be able to identify Ella; would not know that Alex and Ella had been living together since she turned up in his room at the inn.

Living together in the chastest of senses, but Society would say he had compromised her beyond all saving, except by marriage. He was surprised at how tempting that sounded! He’d vowed never to marry except for love, and had sworn off love by his early twenties: a bad experience with an older woman, and then with Ella.

The arrogant cub he’d been resented her choosing Melville instead of him, though he’d never let his interest in her show, certain she would find him as unworthy as Lady Carrington had.

Yes, marrying Ella would be a blessing, not a burden. For Alex. But it would not be fair to Ella.

She was moving around the small cabin, brewing his willow bark tea and pouring him a cup, retrieving the canister of tea leaves she had purchased at the market and brewing another pot, bringing him a cup of that, its fragrant delicacy taking away the bitterness of the willow bark.

If he drank it all, he would need to ask for her help to relieve himself. Just to pass him the pot and perhaps hold a blanket for his privacy. Not the prurient fantasies that flashed across his mind and stirred his recalcitrant member. Simmer down, he told it. Not for you.

She poured another mug of tea and took it to Big Dan at the tiller, receiving the man’s soft thanks.

Alex let his eyelids fall and watched Ella through his lashes as she moved around the cabin finding places to stow their possessions, every movement graceful and economic. She had blown out the candles she’d lit to illuminate her work on his leg, but plenty of light entered the cabin from the doorway and the small windows on either side of the boat. She slipped glances at him from time to time, the colour coming and going in her face. What was she thinking?

Was she as attracted to him as he was to her? Or was she just embarrassed at the situation in which they found themselves? He had never been able to read her. Sometimes, he was sure she saw him merely as a friend. Sometimes, not even that, though those occasions were mostly his own fault.

How often had he looked up across a campfire, or a room in a scurvy little billet in some benighted village on the fringes of a war, or a bedside where someone in his command lay depending on Ella’s care and met her eyes? And seen in them an echo of the wanting in his own?

Was it his imagination; his own longing misinterpreting an innocent glance? Even if it were not, she had never once, since her ill-judged marriage, by word or deed given him reason to think she would act on that attraction.

Only a reprobate would take advantage of a woman under his protection, especially a woman persecuted as Ella had been. Alex could not be such a scoundrel, but perhaps Jasper had unwittingly done him a favour. Because even with the increase in pain, his physical response to Ella’s presence had proven beyond doubt that the injury had not made a eunuch of him as he had feared. The pain would be a timely and much needed reminder to keep his hands and other bodily parts to himself.

Spotlight on Lady No More

Lady No More

By Cerise DeLand

Shes through with love.

Lady Laurel Devereaux prided herself on her sterling reputation, even as she overlooked her two younger sisters’ foibles and their ailing grandfather’s little peccadilloes. She always adored frolicking in fountains and dancing before breakfast. But those were innocent delights compared to the one night she left a ballroom to play the piano alone—and a charming man joined her to play a duet that became a mad love affair.

He quickly proposed and just as quickly jilted her. Now she’ll marry only for friendship or security or children.

Hell never give her up again.

Now Hadley, Viscount Grey, arrives in Brighton and vows to win Laurel back. But this time, his greatest problem is not overcoming his competition or challenging Laurel’s vow to remain a proper lady, but her decision to never love another man.

How can he convince her that she simply never stopped loving him?

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Amazon:   https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B3BRL61Y

ACIS:  B087R6KCVH

Excerpt

Of all the people in all the world, the one who should never have walked into her cousin Cass’s grand salon was Hadley Sherborne, the dastardly, the false, the dishonorable Viscount Grey. Two years ago, the scoundrel had broken her heart—and their engagement—and she had no reason to welcome him here. Or anywhere within a thousand miles of her. Ever again.

Yet she squared her resolve to appear civil. Minutes ago, he’d strode in with three other men, all of whom had rescued her sister Addy from abduction. And ruin.

Ironic, that Hadley had destroyed Laurel but saved her sister.

Thus, here he stood, docile as a lamb.

A wolf in lamb’s clothing.

Laurel took a glass of bubbly from the footman’s tray and downed a good swallow. She’d hugged her sister, welcomed her back to safety and security. She was happy for her. Addy didn’t deserve to be so horribly used as to have been abducted and by a man of the cloth, too. What nerve that creature had to so misuse a young woman. What hideous arrogance to think one could kidnap a lady to compel her to marry.

Laurel nodded at that. Marriage should be undertaken for respect and affection, at the least. For love, at the best. She took another hefty swig of her good white wine and considered what it would have meant to her had Hadley ever abducted her. She’d be his wife. His bed partner. His lover. As once she’d been…

And lived to regret it.

Across the rosy gold salon, Hadley stood talking with Cousin Cass and that lady’s dashing beau, Colonel Lord Magnus Welles. Carefree, forthright in his regard to Cass and his friends, he’d greeted her politely and briefly. He’d shown no twitch of his mouth or blink of his eye that he recalled any of the humor or passion of their past.

She wished she knew how she had acted as they met just now. Shock could transform a woman. Of that she’d had first hand experience the day Hadley had appeared in her Grandpapa’s drawing room and told her he was breaking their engagement. His announcement had turned her into a mole, a shrew…a tiny animal who was less herself. Still, she had put a good face on her sorrow, if she said so herself, even after Grandpapa had died. Months later, Cousin Cass had come to Ireland. She’d mourned with them and educated them in the ways of proper British society. Then Cass had scooped up her two sisters and her and spirited them off to London, Brighton and the charms of a debutante Season. There their mother’s relative offered the triplets a plunge into the haute ton and the hope of a respectable marriage loomed before each of them.

In less than three weeks in town, both her younger sisters had found men they loved. Imogen had married the Earl of Martindale last week. Tomorrow, Adelaide would marry the Marquess of Heath, a fine fellow who had rescued her sister from the clutches of a perverse young man. Addy’s intended had been assisted by three gentlemen. Cass’s new beau, a colonel of the Royal Buffs and a decorated soldier. A cavalry man, Captain Fitzroy, recently home from the wars on the Continent. And Hadley. Here in Brighton. When he should be home in Wiltshire after a wedding in June to a young lady who had land, money and Hadley’s father’s blessing.

Instead you are here. Alone. Why, Hadley?

Grey. She must call him ‘Grey’. ‘My lord.’ ‘Scoundrel.’

The man cut a fine figure, too. Damn his hide. In a midnight blue cutaway frock coat, black Hessians and tight fawn breeches dusty from the group’s hurried ride across Brighton to Hove to the home and stables of the Earl of Davenport, Hadley…Grey looked like a devil’s advocate. His hair—the color of sunshine—glowed with streaks of  old gold. Tousled by wind and exertion, locks of his hair hung over his brow in boyish abandon. His sharp cheekbones were stained pink from the rough ride in the hot August sun. His mouth was full and ripe, able to entice and claim and sip from a girl the noblest of intentions. Oh, yes, Hadley Sherborne, Viscount Grey, who had tasted her with those lips and promised with those lips, had also lied with those lips.

“I love you, my darling, and I’ll never part from you.”

But he had parted from her.

Soon, too.

Three weeks later, in fact.

Those lips that had kissed her, those hands that had caressed her, that rogue who had seduced her had abandoned her. Told her his father had demanded he wed the family friend’s daughter who lived across the river. He’d also told her he would go home to England, correct the error his father had made, apologize to his old friend whom her father and his had betrothed to him, then he would return to Laurel.

But she was Lady Laurel Devereaux, then age eighteen and with her two sisters the only remaining offspring of infamous Irish aristocrats. She’d grown up immersed in tall tales told by the likes of her Anglo-Norman family who were real live faeries. Those clever charmers possessed boundless imagination and very few scruples. They had woven their sprightly fables for more than eight centuries to mine their reputation, earn their keep and multiply their fortunes. They had also covered their losses and camouflaged their crimes.

Truly, she should have known a fairy tale when she heard it. Believing Viscount Grey’s declaration of love was her failure. She’d not be so naive about any man ever again. She was here in Brighton to marry for security. For money. For children. Perhaps, if she were lucky, she’d also laugh again. Indeed, she’d marry for many reasons. None included love.

She drained the last of her wine.

“Dinner!” Cousin Cass announced with glee for all assembled in the salon. “We will celebrate the coming nuptials of our dear Adelaide and the Marquess of Heath.”

Only fitting. Laurel considered reaching for more wine from the footman’s tray, but Adelaide gave her a mischievous little troll’s eye. Very well. Laurel demurred.  She had been drinking more than she should lately. Things had not been calm here in the marriage mart. She’d worried about the unscrupulous men she and her sisters had met. First Imogen had been assaulted by one evil sort who had tried to sully her in Dublin years ago, then tried again here. But she was rescued by the noble man who married her. Today dear Addy had been abducted and saved from ruin by her own Sir Galahad, the Marquess of Heath. Amid all that, their older cousin, Cass, Lady William Downs, had been cuddling in closets and map rooms with the strapping Colonel Welles there. Who had Laurel been entertaining? No one worth his salt. Of course, she’d have a few nips. Who wouldn’t!

But, Addy was right. Drinking was not good for the old reputation. Not very good for her attempt to establish a new one either.

She’d accept what she could not change.

Tonight at this intimate party, she’d celebrate the good turn of events. Even if they were in no small part thanks to the the man who had once been her dearest love, her fiancé. Grey had been heroic. He’d saved her sister. After that, for Laurel to be ungracious to him would be so de trop.

Fie! The things she did for love.