A Duchess for Christmas

 

 

Grace Banks is much looking forward to her first Christmas at the Home for Desolate Ladies. As its proprietress, she is keen to bring comfort and joy to the gentlewomen who have taken refuge there, and also enjoy the festivities herself.  However, the sudden arrival of a visitor threatens her plans, for she and he are not strangers.

 

Edward, Duke of Tavistock, is searching for his young cousin. Winifred went missing after departing Bath under a cloud of gossip, and there is reason to believe she is currently residing at the Home. But he also has another motivation for visiting: Grace, the woman he loved and mysteriously lost, before learning she had married someone else.

 

Edward wants answers, but Grace is not sure she can bear raking over the past. He appears to believe she forsook him for another, when it was news of his engagement to a young heiress that sent her running. That, and a secret she feels she may never be able to share…

 

Can the spirit of Christmas and love from the past, heal the present, and bring a happy future?

 

 

 

 

It Started with a Christmas Kiss

 

 

Forced to leave the family home a fortnight before Christmas!

 

While her employer and friend lay dying, Emme promised Mirabel Youngwin that her five young daughters would stay together, vowing to herself she would never be parted from them either. 

 

Now, two years later, the children’s father has also passed. Thrown out of the family home, Emme must find somewhere for her and her charges to stay until their new guardian arrives—when they will most likely be taken to start a new life without her. With Christmas quickly approaching, and nowhere else to turn to, she heads to the Home for Desolate Ladies, to take refuge there and work out how she can prevent herself from being separated from her beloved girls.

 

Stranded on a roadside after their carriage breaks down, Emme is grateful when a gentleman stops to help. Lord Luke Parker is handsome, kind, and good with the children, and she can’t help being drawn to him. So when Luke arrives at the Home a few days before Christmas to announce that he’s been appointed as the sisters’ guardian, she’s presented with a heartrending dilemma. How can she persuade Luke not to dismiss her—and if she succeeds, stop herself from falling for him even more deeply?

 

 

Mistletoe Waltz

 

Dancing into the arms of love?

 

Marcus, Lord Hawthorne, vowed never to fall in love, the past having taught him that marriage can only ever lead to heartbreak. So, how has he allowed himself to be tricked into being leg-shackled to Faith Whitworth, the daughter of a scheming businessman who wants entry to the ton?

 

Marcus’s solution for dealing with his unwanted wife is to keep her at Deer Park, his country estate, while he stays in London. But when he returns at Christmastime, he is surprised to find that not only does Faith revel in her role as his marchioness, she is sweet and lovely—and he desires her. This was never part of his plan. However, the arrival of relatives means he won’t be able to escape until the yuletide festivities are over.

 

As Twelfth Night approaches, Faith’s gentleness and beauty are growing on Marcus more and more. He realizes he wants to dance with her forever, in a marriage that’s more than in name only. He knows he can protect her from her ruthless papa and make her happy—just as long as he doesn’t have to give her his heart…

 

 

A Marchioness for Christmas

 

After Antonia Madeley’s mother died, she learned just how heartless her father could be. Not caring for his daughter’s grief, Lord Madeley forbade her to play her beloved violin, and then remarried with indecent haste to a woman who made it plain she’d rather Antonia wasn’t there. The engagement that’d been arranged between Antonia and Dracon, Lord Trawden, offered no escape. Dracon was clearly still in love with his late wife, Catherine. Facing a life of always being second best, Antonia ran away.

Five years on, Antonia receives the news her father is gravely ill. Perhaps the time has come to make amends and go to his bedside. However, traveling in inclement weather and on treacherous roads, her carriage is involved in a terrible accident, and when she regains consciousness, she’s being cared for at Lionshead, Dracon’s family seat! The feelings she has for Dracon haven’t dimmed, but she has no reason to believe he’s stopped loving Catherine either. With Christmas only a few days away, will Antonia be forced to endure yet another bleak midwinter, or is it possible that a yuletide miracle will gladden her lonely heart?

 

 

How the Duke Stole Christmas

 

Can the magic of Christmas melt his frozen heart?

Theodore Winslow, Duke of Greystone, has no wish to celebrate Christmas, but he’s returning to his ancestral home for his widowed mother’s sake. Knowing her mission is to secure him a wife, he’ll be keeping his heart on ice—better that than to have it repeatedly broken.

Patience Leybourne is spending Yuletide at Castle Greystone, hoping to revive the happiness of family Christmases past. When she’s asked by the Dowager Duchess to do the decorations, she’s delighted.  But the next morning she finds her mistletoe and garlands torn down. Who could be so lacking in festive spirit?

 

It’s the Duke of Greystone himself who’s destroyed Patience’s efforts to bring cheer. And there’s no comfort or joy in realizing he’s the mystery man whom she so passionately kissed at a masked ball.  How will she manage to endure his company all the way through to Twelfth Night—when that fiery attraction is still burning between them?

 

 

 

 

Twelfth Night Promise

 

Lord Kinsley has never let go of the hope that he will win back Lady Emma’s heart. But when the shocking news arrives that Emma is due to marry, Kinsley realizes it’s now or never. He must take action and ride north to Cragbourn where Emma is spending Christmas with his sister and claim her.

 

Emma’s dreading her forthcoming wedding but what choice does she have?  Her cruel brother is threatening to leave her penniless unless she becomes the middle-aged Duke of Faringdon’s wife. Until Christmastide at Cragbourn offers her an unexpected last chance, and she discovers Kinsley standing right before her proving that her desire for him hasn’t dimmed one jot.

 

Bad weather forces Kinsley and Emma to be together for all the days of Christmas; too long for her to keep up her pretense of ignoring him, and long enough for him to discover why she cut him off six years ago.  But as Twelfth Night—their final night— approaches, will the truth bring them together, or push them forever apart?