Showing results by narrator "Mary Sarah" in All Categories

A cruel past left Hannah Gray with one simple longing - normalcy. Normal ladies ride and waltz without fear. They have safe, normal husbands to give them safe, normal kisses. After years of healing, she's ready to find "normal" for herself, and Lady Wallingham's house party is the perfect place to begin. Perfect, that is, except for the cynical wolf-in-rogue's-clothing whose every hungry glance threatens to crack her armor and pierce her fragile heart.

A walking scandal surviving on little more than wits, whisky, and wicked skills in the bedchamber, Benedict Chatham, the new Marquess of Rutherford, is at the end of his rope. Deeply in debt and down to his last farthing, he must marry nothing short of an absolute fortune, or risk utter ruin. Enter Miss Charlotte Lancaster, unfashionably tall heiress to just such a fortune and a clumsy, redheaded disaster in her five London seasons. While she dreams of leaving England for a life of trade in America, her father schemes to trade her dowry for a title.

Libby Shaw refuses to accept society’s dictates. She’s determined to become a member of Edinburgh’s all-male Royal College of Surgeons. Disguising herself as a man, she attends the surgical theater and fools everyone - except the one man who has never forgotten the shape of her exquisitely sensual lips.

Not much happens in Theodosia Stapleton's tiny Northumberland village. Certainly not to her. She has resigned herself to spinsterhood, caring for her ailing mother in the home of her grandfather, known to the locals as "General Contrary." When her dear friend dies and leaves behind a daughter, it's simple enough to take the child into her own quiet world. That is, until her ward's famous uncle unexpectedly arrives and throws Theo's tidy orbit completely off-kilter.

Lady Arianna Hadley and her husband, the Earl of Saybrook, want nothing more than to savor a quiet life embellished by the occasional cup of the finest chocolate. However, when they receive orders to travel to Scotland and capture an elusive traitor, they feel their duty to the Crown must come first. In a laboratory in Scotland, they discover the corpse of a chemistry professor - and cryptic papers hinting at a dangerous new discovery now in enemy hands. Racing against time, Arianna and Saybrook pursue their most cunning and dangerous adversary

Now that peace reigns in Europe and Napoleon has been exiled to the island of Elba, Lady Arianna and her husband, the earl of Saybrook, are determined to put government sleuthing aside. But the head of British security has other ideas.... Rumors are rife that Napoleon may be plotting to take back the French throne and plunge the continent into another war. So when Saybrook learns that his Spanish cousin has gone missing on the island under mysterious circumstances, he and Arianna feel they have no choice but to undertake a secret mission to Elba.

When Savannah Dawson married the second son of an English earl, she never dreamed she'd have to leave America, let alone enter the aristocracy at her son's side. Yet when the earl dies and her husband disappears at sea, Savannah's life is upended. Bringing her young son to England to meet her shrewish mother-in-law is only the beginning of her trials.

Cairo 1887: A melting pot of jealousy, lust and revenge. Who will pay the ultimate price? Lucy Lawrence throws caution to the wind and embarks on a journey of self-discovery to the land of the pharaohs. Travelling to Cairo as the patron of the charming French Egyptologist, Armand Moreau, Lucy discovers an archaeological community plagued by professional rivalries and intrigue. It is soon apparent that the thriving black market in antiquities threatens Egypt's precious heritage.

After being jilted by her fiance, Dulcie Mainwaring despairs of ever finding true love. For a distraction, she goes to a publishing conference, where she meets Viola Dace, a dramatic woman who refuses to live without romance, as well as Aylwin Forbes, an editor whom Viola adores. The fact that Aylwin is married doesn't stop Viola. When her amorous pursuit prompts Aylwin's wife to leave him, the academic heartthrob is wide open to Viola's romantic attentions. That is, until Dulcie's 18-year-old niece moves in with Viola, and the young girl soon catches Aylwin's roving eye.

Miss Viola Darling always gets what she wants. Always. And what she wants more than anything is to marry James Kilbrenner, the earl of Tannenbrook. She's fallen hard for the giant, taciturn, surly brute, and she positively will have no other. The problem? He's not interested. Not even a little. But Viola cannot afford to lose. And she has her heart set on James. If only he will bend to a bit of persuasion.

When Lady Scarlett Sherwood's husband is killed in a riding accident that turns out to be no accident at all, she becomes the number-one suspect in a murder investigation that takes the ton by storm. Her accuser? None other than the dark, ruthless Sir Owen Steel, Captain of the Bow Street Runners...and the only man Scarlett has ever loved.

Painfully shy Jane Huxley is the furthest thing from a diamond of the first water. Bookish, bespectacled, and, well, plain, she never expected to befriend a dissolute charmer like Colin Lacey, much less agree to help him retrieve a lost family heirloom. Fortunately, he is nothing like his cold, rigid older brother. Unfortunately, he is not above deception if it means winning a wager. And that puts Jane in a most precarious position. For Harrison Lacey, the Duke of Blackmore, protecting his family honor is not a choice, it is a necessity.

The one that got away... Six years ago, Tacitus Everard, the Marquess of Dare, made the worst mistake of his life: courting vibrant, sparklingly beautiful Lady Calista Chance - until she broke his heart. Is the only one she wants. Six years ago, Calista Holland made the biggest misstep of her life: begging handsome, wealthy Lord Dare to help her run away from home - then marrying someone else.

Six years ago, when Lady Amarantha Vale was an innocent in a foreign land and Gabriel Hume was a young naval officer, they met...and played with fire. Now Gabriel is the dark lord known to society as the Devil's Duke, a notorious recluse hidden away in a castle in the Highlands. Only Amarantha knows the truth about him, and she won't be intimidated. He is the one man who can give her the answers she needs. But Gabriel cannot let her learn his darkest secret. So begins a game of wit and desire that proves seduction is more satisfying - and much more wicked - the second time around....

The granddaughter of a duke and darling of the ton, Lady Georgiana's life was one glittering soiree after another...until her husband did her the grave disservice of dying. Recently returned to London after a year spent rusticating in the country, she's eager to resume her social life. One thing she doesn't plan on doing? Crossing paths with Sebastian Northcliff, the arrogant cad who stole her first kiss and broke her heart. There are whispers about the duke of Warwick. Whispers that he killed his first wife. Whispers that he is incapable of love.

It is a good thing that mothers understand what no one else seems to when you are the youngest child in the family, and are finally four years old. Bonnie is more than ready to join her older sisters and brother in the many adventures she sees come their way, whether it be sliding along the ice, searching for arrowheads, or going on that journey of all journeys-across the swinging bridge to school.

A Rescued from Ruin Collection: Volume Two includes three full-length novels and one novella: The Devil Is a Marquess (Book Four), When a Girl Loves an Earl (Book Five), Twelve Nights as His Mistress (Novella: Book Six), and Confessions of a Dangerous Lord (Book Seven).

Belinda and Harriet Bede live together in a small English village. Shy, sensible Belinda has been secretly in love with Henry Hoccleve - the poetry-spouting, married archdeacon of their church - for 30 years. Belinda's much more confident, forthright younger sister Harriet, meanwhile, is ardently pursued by Count Ricardo Bianco. Although she has turned down every marriageable man who proposes, Harriet still welcomes any new curate with dinner parties and flirtatious conversation. And one of the newest arrivals, the reverend Edgar Donne, has everyone talking.

Jane Cleveland and Prudence Bates were close friends at Oxford University, but now live very different lives. Forty-one-year-old Jane lives in the country, is married to a vicar, has a daughter she adores, and lives a very proper life in a very proper English parish. Prudence, a year shy of 30, lives in London, has an office job, and is self-sufficient and fiercely independent - until Jane decides her friend should be married. Jane has the perfect husband in mind for her former pupil: a widower named Fabian Driver.

Miss Grace Weston has read countless books involving courtship and romance. Putting her knowledge into practice, she offers her assistance in finding a match for her sister, declaring herself an expert in romance. She is well-read on the subject, after all. When a bargain between sisters is struck, Grace is unable to resist a challenge. She must prove her expertise by gaining a proposal, one she plans to reject, from the man whose fleeting flirtation left her heart in ruin years before: Lord Ramsbury, the next Earl of Coventry. But Lord Ramsbury's pride does not take well to rejection.