Showing results by narrator "Beverley A. Crick" in All Categories

As her friend's matron of honor, Paislee Shaw vows to solve the mystery of a missing brooch and a dying wedding guest . . .

Lady Gwyn Drake has long protected her family's reputation by hiding an imprudent affair from her youth. But when her former suitor appears at Armitage Hall, manhandling the heiress and threatening to go public with her secrets, it's Gwyn who needs protecting. Her twin brother, Thorn, hires Joshua Wolfe, the estate's gamekeeper, to keep her safe in London during her debut. As a war hero, Joshua feels obligated to fulfill the assignment he has accepted. But as a man, it's torment to be so very close to the beauty he's fought to ignore....

Wearied by his years as a British intelligence officer, Simon Duval resigns his commission after Napoleon’s abdication. Hoping to find new meaning in his life, he returns to England, where he discovers his cousin’s widow, Suzanne Duval, the Comtesse de Chambron. Working as a seamstress, living in reduced circumstances, Suzanne has had a life as complicated as Simon’s. While both believe they are beyond love, their sympathetic bond leads him to propose a marriage of companionship, and Suzanne accepts.

Lord Vaughn, Viscount Darlington, has a dark reputation for sinful pleasures, putting off even the most ardent mamas who crave his title for their unmarried daughters. They say he's dangerous enough to ruin a woman with just one look...but he can't resist the pleas of a woman who needs his help. This rogue might yet be redeemed. All of London adores Perdita Darby. She receives invites to every party and has eligible gentlemen willing to wait for her, but she has no desire to marry.

In difficult circumstances Charlotte Ward, once a famed stage actress, tries to restart her career - only to experience disaster. Against her better judgment, her estranged daughter, Rosalind, comes to her mother's rescue and moves her to a quiet English coastal village. Charlotte is grateful to get to know Rosalind after years apart. As one who has regrets about her own romantic past, it's a joy for Charlotte to see love blossom for her daughter.

With the summer days getting shorter in the seaside village of Nairn, the annual bagpiping competition at Ramsey Castle promises to be quite the end-of-season blowout. Paisley has snagged a special invitation from the dowager countess, who wants to showcase her cashmere goods in the castle gift shop, and she's brought her son Brody, Grandpa, and their black Scottish terrier Wallace.

After the death of his fiancée, Kai Ramsay left Scotland to roam distant lands. He has searched ancient ruins, collected priceless antiquities, and escaped certain death after being imprisoned as a spy during the Napoleonic War. Ramsay has lived on the edge of danger for years — but everything changes the day a letter arrives for him from Scotland....

After building a fortune amid the splendor and dangers of the China seas, American adventurer and Merchant Prince Gavin Elliott is sailing for London, where he intends to establish himself in the society that forced his family to leave in disgrace when Gavin was only a child. But fate intervenes on an infamous island in the East Indies when he tries to save a European woman being sold at a slave auction. By the sultan’s decree, the woman can only be freed if Gavin wins her by enduring an ancient tribal challenge that may cost him his life.

Miss Jane Wilkinson couldn't be more delighted when her two best friends marry, creating a much-desired vacancy at the Spinster House. For the first time in her 28 years, Jane can be free of her annoying older brother and enjoy complete solitude - with the exception of the Spinster House cat, Poppy. If only Jane's unruly thoughts didn't keep drifting to handsome Alex, Earl of Evans, in the most un-spinsterlike ways....

From the author of The Darcys of Pemberley comes a new story, straight out of the world of Jane Austen and told in a style reminiscent of her six classic novels. Set in nineteenth century Hampshire and Bath, For Myself Alone is the tale of Josephine Walker, a bright, young woman whose quiet life is turned upside-down by an unexpected inheritance. With a tempting fortune of twenty thousand pounds, she's suddenly the most popular girl in town. Yet Jo longs to be valued for who she is, not for her bank balance.

The lovely Angelique Graham knows her strengths-and patience is not one of them. So instead of waiting nine months to wed her beloved Simon, as per her overprotective parents' edict, Angeliq - rake of all rakes - who has just returned from war, to throw her parents into a panic. Though Angelique has plotted and planned every move, it seems that love has a different plan. When the game playing gets serious, will Angelique be able to resist the charms of Lord Faring?

James, the scandalously uncivilized Duke of Harland, requires a bride with a spotless reputation for a strictly business arrangement. Lust is prohibited, and love is out of the question. Charlene Beckett, the unacknowledged daughter of an earl and a courtesan, has just been offered a life-altering fortune to pose as her half-sister, Lady Dorothea, and win the duke's proposal.

When Ned meets governess Phoebe Baker, he becomes intent on gaining her affections. Phoebe wants nothing more than to keep her head down, teach her students, and go unnoticed-especially by the Earl of Ashby. But his rakish secretary has the infuriating habit of constantly crossing her path. Yet Phoebe cannot deny that her pulse quickens in Ned's presence. If this prim-and-proper governess lets her heart rule, will fate intervene where Ned's luck has forsaken him?

Leighann Dobbs and Harmony Williams present Book 5 in the Lady Katherine Regency Mysteries.

The son of a proud naval dynasty, Gabriel Hawkins leaves the Royal Navy in disgrace and is disowned by his family. As captain of his own ship, he’s earned his living in ways both legal and illegal, and his experience makes him the best choice to ransom an aristocratic beauty captured by Barbary pirates. Having avoided the traps of convention and marriage, Lady Aurora Lawrence is horrified by the prospect of spending her life as a harem slave. Her only hope of escape is a quiet, steely captain who has a history with her captor - and who will do anything to free Rory.

Bianca Tate is horrified when her sister Cathy is obliged to accept an offer of marriage from Maximilian St. James, notorious rake. Defiantly, she helps Cathy elope with her true love and takes her sister’s place at the altar. Perched on the lowest branch of his family tree, Max has relied on charm and cunning to survive. But an unexpected stroke of luck gives him an outside chance at a dukedom - and which Tate sister he weds hardly seems to matter. Married or not, Bianca is determined to protect her family’s prosperous ceramics business, even when Max shows an affinity for it.

It's the Christmas season in London, but the holiday festivities don't deter Lady Katherine from investigating a death that happened months earlier. Since the victim was a maid, investigative resources were sparse, and the police hastily wrote it off as a random killing. But Lady Katherine and her friends believe it was nothing short of premeditated murder, and they vow to seek justice.

Willa, the vicar's little sister, knows full well that her prospects are bleak. When she accidentally kisses Alexander Braeburn, her dull, predictable world turns upside down. Logic dictates that she should stay away from the handsome Corinthian. He's the black sheep of their village. But how can she resist? She yearns for one more taste of the most tantalizing excitement she has ever experienced. Just one more before Willa settles back into her dreary life forever.

The wooded hills of Oxfordshire conceal the remains of the aptly named Ashdown House - a wasted pile of cinders and regret. Once home to the daughter of a king, Ashdown and its secrets will unite three women across four centuries in a tangle of romance, deceit, and destiny....

Captain Andrew St. James always knew he came from a noble family, but his branch grew far from the wealth and status. Nothing shocks him more than learning that he now stands as heir presumptive to his distant cousin the Duke of Carlyle. There is much for Drew to learn and adjust to - but first he goes home to Edinburgh, to tell his mother and three sisters of their startling good fortune.