Gypsy Legacy: The Duke

A panther. A prince. A promise. Can destiny tie the knot?

Gypsy Legacy, Book 3

During a magical childhood summer, a gypsy woman gave Lady Amanda Cookeson a black panther statuette, promising that the man who came to claim it would also claim her heart. Amanda believes the Earl of Wynton is the prince she has awaited. Yet his reluctance to declare them anything more than friends leaves her wondering if she waited in vain.

If he wasn’t the last of his line, Jon Kenton, Earl of Wynton, wouldn’t marry at all. Since leaving his inheritance to the Crown is out of the question, however, he is compelled to search for the statuette his great-grandmother promised him. His quest leaves him empty handed—and secretly relieved. Finding the statuette would mean embracing the gypsy roots he has long denied.

Amanda is perfect countess material: lovely, admirable and—he thinks—statueless. Their passion is unquenchable…until the gypsy magic Jon thought he’d buried nearly destroys his future with Amanda.

One promise, two pendants…love that was destined to be.

Book 1 in the Gypsy Legacy Series

Lady Christina Kenton’s life is turned upside down when her gypsy great-grandmother gives her a pendant, along with a deathbed request—Tina must promise to marry only the man wearing its mate. But Tina cannot bring herself to make the promise, for her late stepfather has already pledged her hand to his long-absent heir.

Jay Collings, now the Marquis of Thanet, returns to England after an eighteen-year absence to honor a promise to a gypsy who once aided him, only to discover he must break his vow in order to secure his inheritance. The last thing he wants is a wife chosen by the father he despised.

Tina’s gentle strength touches Jay in ways no other woman has. And, unknown to them both, she holds the key to Jay’s promise and his inheritance. But just as their fragile relationship begins to take root, the legacy of her gypsy blood brings danger to their doorstep.

Jay and Tina’s destinies may be entwined—but will they live long enough to fulfill them?

Double trouble—with a twist.

Two months. Just two more months and Sarah Standish will be twenty-one and free to come out of hiding. Not long ago she was on the brink of marrying the man of her dreams—until she discovered his complicity with her uncle’s plan to gain control of her missing father’s substantial fortune.

A wounded man appears at the inn where she lives under an assumed name, and she’s shocked to discover it’s her would-be groom. He seems to have no memory of her, yet her traitorous heart remembers.

Max Dayton awakens from a fevered dream to find a vengeful angel hovering over him. When he realizes she’s mistaken him for his twin brother, his protective instincts kick in. There must be some reason his brother assumed Max’s identity…and some connection to this dazzling beauty and the father she insists is not dead.

In a quest to untangle the twisted trail of lies that threw them together, Sarah and Max journey to London, where the mystery grows darker and deeper. And the fragile beginnings of love are threatened by a secret someone would kill to keep.

Warning: Contains a war hero, runaway bride, jealous twin, greedy uncle, and a good reason to check names before proceeding. At least the dog knows who is who.

Sometimes, the greatest casualty of war is trust.

Lionel Cantrell has all but given up hope of finding his missing wife and child. He left them in the care of his parents and older brother while he went abroad to fight the French, only to return to a marriage in shambles, a daughter who cannot possibly be his, and his wife and son fled to parts unknown.

Until now. At a former comrade’s house party, Lion comes face to face with the object of his five-year search. Emma, whose cold reception is keenly edged with barely concealed panic.

When Emma’s perfect marriage to her childhood sweetheart crumbled into an unendurable year of humiliation and torment, she had no choice but to take their son—and her sanity—to build a new life under an assumed name. Her chance meeting with Lion threatens to expose long-buried emotional scars. And physical ones, the origins of which he must never know.

Emma’s stubborn refusal to explain why she won’t return home only fuels Lion’s relentless curiosity. So does their undeniable passion. Time is on his side, and his well of patience is deep. But Emma’s trauma runs far deeper…perhaps too deep for love to reach.

Warning: Contains a heroine caught in a treacherous web of deceit not of her making, two adorable children, and a hero determined enough to make things right.

Banished and disowned for saving a stranger’s life…

In Regency England, lineage and vouchers to Almack’s are everything, but Pamela Clarkdale has neither. After her father casts her out, she considers herself fortunate to have obtained a position as a companion to an elderly widow.

Kitt Covington has sworn off Almack’s and marriage. Why attend one when he has no interest in the other? Guilt, however, is a powerful motivator. Knowing he caused Pamela to be thrown out of her home, he proposes a sham betrothal between them to ease his conscience.

Kitt’s offer is tempting and Pamela agrees, with the caveat that the betrothal will disappear at the end of the season. But not only is Pamela refused vouchers to Almack’s, her family is scheming to destroy her to protect a secret she doesn’t realize she knows. When the twenty-year-old web of lies and deceit begins to unravel, will Pamela and Kitt discover that Almack’s isn’t really that important after all?

Her family has a death wish. For her.

Lord Marcus Waring married Corinna Houghton with the best of intentions—to protect her should anything happen to her brother while both he and Marcus are serving in India. That the child bride is underage is but a small footnote in his family’s long history of scandal.

News that his wife has died in a carriage accident stabs him with regret, but with no reason to question the report, he extends his stay until another near-scandal brings him home—eight years after his secret marriage.

Corinna is in hiding. Alone in the world after her parents’ deaths, despised by her family, unwanted even by the husband who seems to have forgotten her. When she discovers her temporary governess position is in the home of Marcus’s brother, she holds out a secret hope that she will at last learn his whereabouts.

When wife and erstwhile husband meet again, it is as strangers. Gentle, fragile sparks of attraction and trust flicker to life, but their respective dark histories threaten to overshadow any possibility of happiness. Especially when it becomes clear that someone in her family still wishes her dead.

Warning: Marrying someone in the middle of the night, without a license, at age fourteen, might be a tad illegal, but love doesn’t care about legalities.

An inconvenient proposal.

Ian MacKay, Laird of Graenfrae, has no use for love or marriage. However, his stepfather’s will mandates that marriage is what he must have…to an Englishwoman.

A sensible man, Ian develops a list of requirements in a wife: Plain, moderately dowered, older and practical. He thinks he has found the perfect candidate in Lady Annabelle.

Labeled The Ordinary her first season, Annabelle longs for a man who will see her as beautiful and love her as her father loved her mother. When she meets Ian, she thinks she has at last found that man. Until his proposal, in which he has the audacity to list his “requirements.”

She refuses his proposal. He informs her that she will marry him at the end of the season.

The battle of wills is on.

Some wallflowers bloom at night...

A Spindle Cove Novella

Violet Winterbottom is a quiet girl. She speaks six languages, but seldom raises her voice. She endured bitter heartbreak in perfect silence. The gentlemen aren't beating down her door.

Until the night of the Spindle Cove Christmas ball, when a mysterious stranger crashes into the ballroom and collapses at Violet's feet. His coarse attire and near-criminal good looks would put any sensible young lady on her guard. He's wet, chilled, bleeding, and speaking in an unfamiliar tongue.

Only Violet understands him. And she knows he's not what he seems.

She has one night to draw forth the secrets of this dangerously handsome rogue. Is he a smuggler? A fugitive? An enemy spy? She needs answers by sunrise, but her captive would rather seduce than confess. To learn his secrets, Violet must reveal hers—and open herself to adventure, passion, and the unthinkable... Love.

Warning: The heroine packs a pistol, the hero curses in multiple languages, and together they steam up a cold winter’s night.

Upon their first meeting, seventeen year old Edwina Banks loses her heart to the handsome, Sir Wallace Benedict. She then spends three years doing everything in her power to see him again only to be devastated when she hears that he still holds a tendre for his former love interest—Lady Chatterfield.

Disappointed but not defeated, Edwina forms a plan to help Sir Wallace gain his much-deserved and long awaited happily-ever-after by winning the object of his affection’s favor. For truly then she can put aside her feelings for him and pursue her own match.

Or can she...

Despite his three engagements, the thrice-jilted baronet, Sir Wallace Benedict, has never had an easy time charming those of the fairer sex. Having been deceived and used more times than he'd care to remember, he's erected a wall around his heart and is skeptical of everyone. Everyone except one Miss Edwina Banks, that is. With an inquisitive disposition, yet a relaxing presence, Edwina is a mystery which has held him captive ever since their first meeting three years ago. So when she offers to give him advice for how to conduct a courtship that will end with the most favorable result: marriage, he agrees without hesitation.

But when Wallace learns that not only does Edwina have another suitor, but that her advice was meant to help him woo the wrong lady, he forms his own plan: use Edwina's wooing advice on Edwina.

Penelope Featherington has secretly adored her best friend's brother for . . . well, it feels like forever. After half a lifetime of watching Colin Bridgerton from afar, she thinks she knows everything about him, until she stumbles across his deepest secret . . . and fears she doesn't know him at all.

Colin Bridgerton is tired of being thought nothing but an empty-headed charmer, tired of everyone's preoccupation with the notorious gossip columnist Lady Whistledown, who can't seem to publish an edition without mentioning him in the first paragraph. But when Colin returns to London from a trop aboard he discovers notyhing in his life is quite the same—especially Penelope Featherington! The girl haunting his dreams. But when he discovers that Penelope has secrets of her own, this elusive bachelor must decide . . . is she his biggest threat—or his promise of a happy ending?