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FRANK SAT IN THE FRONT ROW of chairs set up in the ballroom for Sophie’s concert. The room was crowded. His fiancée looked like a princess in her performance blacks. The Carstairs also looked very grand in matching black jackets.
When they began to play, his heart swelled with pride. Sophie was truly marvelous. The piece was appropriately challenging and evidence of Beethoven’s genius. But in his mind, nothing would ever match that first performance of the Mozart he had heard when he had been completely taken out of himself and then reintroduced. Sophie had touched the core of him, and thanks to her and her music, he would never be the same man.
He watched her play an especially difficult passage. She swayed and bobbed and flourished her bow. How very sad that her own mother could not appreciate what a jewel she had for a daughter. Frank vowed to make certain that she had contact with her sisters as often as possible.
Then it was over. The applause was enthusiastic. All three musicians bowed.
He would tell her now. He could not wait. This was the appropriate time.
When the applause finished, he handed Sophie down from the dais and pulled her into the adjoining room. Before saying anything, he kissed her deeply, trying to convey his passionate appreciation. It was the first time since their engagement they had been without a chaperone. He deepened the kiss, his breath coming faster. The formerly shy Sophie broke away and kissed his cheeks and ears, even biting his earlobe.
He laughed.
“Oh, my,” she said. “How very wicked I am.”
“My own power of expression is somewhat limited until after our wedding. Your performance was magical.”
“Thank you. It was a lovely piece, was it not?”
“Yes. And I cannot wait another moment to tell you of the surprise I have for you.”
“Oh! Tell me! What is it?”
“We are to go to Vienna. I have a friend who knows a patron of Herr van Beethoven there. He will arrange for us to meet the great man. Although I have heard that he is quite grumpy.”
“Oh, Frank. You are bound to be the perfect husband for me! I cannot begin to express my gratitude for such a thoughtful gift. How can I ever repay you?”
“You are giving me Sophie Edwards, a gift so wonderful I never thought to possess it. Believe me. That is over and above anything I could desire.”
When the doors to the room opened and the guests came streaming in, it was to find Sophie and Frank twined together in a most stirring kiss.
There was applause.
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Other Books by G.G. Vandagriff
HISTORICAL ROMANCES
>The Duke’s Undoing
Meet the Duke of Ruisdell, the unlikely hero of this traditional Regency Romance, after the manner of Georgette Heyer and Candice Hern.
The duke has just returned wounded from the Napoleonic wars. He is weary, cynical, and very bored. Known as the worst rake in England, he finds he has no interest in upholding that distinction, when his friend, the Marquis of Somerset, proposes a bet: “Five thousand guineas says that seducing Miss Elise Edwards will cure your ennui.” Because his friend has just lost a packet to him, he agrees that the bet be posted in White’s famous Betting Book.
The following day, while walking in Green Park, he spies a mysterious young woman, veiled, and obviously grieving. A disembodied voice, sounding strangely like that of his late adjutant, informs him, “The jig is up. That is the girl you are going to marry!” He scoffs, but is nevertheless intrigued by something about the slight figure. He even sketches her and asks if he can be of assistance to her. She declines his offer kindly.
At the opera that evening, he is captivated by a beauty across the Opera Hall. He hears the same voice, saying the same thing. The marquis informs him that the woman in question is Miss Elise Edwards. When he meets her, he recognizes her voice as that of the woman in the park. Now she is surrounded by a surfeit of ex-fiance’s, one of them dangerously unbalanced. Ruisdell discovers an actual bond between them which renders him honor bound to protect her.
Thus begins a train of unstoppable events—dangerous, humorous, devilish, and amorous—that carry his life along at such a pace that the duke soon knows not whether he is on his head or his heels. And then there is that bet …
Enjoy this delicious romance that will carry you back to the Regency period in English history, where manners were dictated by strict rules of fashion. It is the Jane Austen era, populated by gentlemen and ladies of leisure. These books are best enjoyed with a box of chocolates, and are guaranteed to enliven any boredom (ennui) that you may be experiencing!
The Taming of Lady Kate
Lady Kate Derramore and the Marquis of Northbrooke have one thing in common: In order to receive their inheritances, they must marry. Lady Kate, prevented from marrying the man she loves by her father’s will, determines to marry for convenience. With the forthrightness for which she is noted, she sets her sights on Jack—aforesaid Marquis. Jack, meanwhile, has tumbled into love with Kate at their first meeting. All might have gone swimmingly, were it not for his “other life,” the mysterious job that calls him out of town at the most inopportune moments. Unwittingly, he puts Lady Kate’s life in danger, and while attempting to rescue her comes up against her “reins-grabbing” nature. Will he ever be able to master Lady Kate? Will he ever be able to oust another man from her heart? And, despite Kate’s penchant for disaster, will he be able to save her life and his own?
Miss Braithwaite’s Secret
Miss Braithwaite’s Secret is the final novel in the traditional Regency Trilogy: “Three Rogues and Their Ladies.” The Deseret News claims “Vandagriff writes in a style reminiscent of Georgette Heyer. Like Heyer, she centers her novel on witty characters that readers will love.”
In this novel, when Caroline Braithwaite, the Incomparable, leaves her first London Season early, the ton is left wondering why. Home in Wiltshire, she does not confide in her parents or her best friend. However, when the duke of Beverley appears at a house party to which they have both been invited, she is seriously discomposed. So is he. Fresh from a broken engagement, the last thing he wants is to partner a woman he had briefly courted in London – a woman he would have offered for before the fiancée came along. Caro fights her own attraction to the compelling duke. After all, he’s already broken her heart once. She is not about to give him a second chance.
As the two slowly learn more about one another, they are surprised to find that first impressions have led them astray. While their feelings are growing progressively more intimate, they are plagued by harrowing circumstances which keep them apart and lead to new misunderstandings. How many times will Caro have to forgive Ned, the Duke of Beverley? And will he, at last, be able to prove his love?
Rescuing Rosalind
When frigate Captain Buckingham Kernow-Smith encounters a sprite in a topiary garden going by the name of “Gannymede,” he remembers his Shakespeare. Pulling off her stocking cap, he reveals the character of “Rosalind” from As You Like It, played, in this case, by the appealing Fanny Edwards.
Three years pass. The War over, Buck encounters his Rosalind at a ball, where she has developed into a notable beauty. However, her guardian confides to him that she is dancing on the very edge of propriety. Buck, who has been fighting the French since he was twelve, also finds the ton confining and sympathizes with Fanny/Rosalind’s plight as a properly reared young lady.
Together, they make a dangerous pair, straddling the line between propriety and scandal, indulging in a masquerade in daylight, riding together in a phaeton race, and laying plans for Fanny/Rosalind to play a role in Covent Garden Th
eater. Will Buck confide his secrets and overcome his lifelong aversion to marriage? Can someone as headstrong and impetuous as Rosalind ever settle for such a union?
HISTORICAL FICTION
The Last Waltz - New Edition
It is December of 1913 in Vienna and Amalia Faulhaber is surrounded by the whirlwind that is the life of a nineteen-year-old socialite. She is comfortable and confident in her wealth, her heritage, and most of all, in her engagement to the Prussian baron, Eberhard von Waldburg. All this comes crashing to a halt the day that her fiance informs her that their engagement is off since he is returning to Prussia to fight in what he is sure will be a glorious war.
Thus begins the tale of a heroine of extraordinary background and resource who develops into a woman who would be extraordinary in any age.
The men in her life—a German officer in World War I, a patriotic Polish doctor, and an Austrian Baron, all shape her, but more remarkably she shapes them. Her utopian socialist uncle has raised her with ideas outside those of the upper classes, imparting to her a more complete picture of the day than possessed by the other men in her life. This quality causes her to champion the Austrian Democratic Experiment and to especially mourn its demise.
The Last Waltz is full of little known history of a land that was, in 1913, the apex of the worlds of science, medicine, art, and music. The speed with which the five-hundred year old empire fell, and the reasons behind that failure, carry many warnings for the world we live in today.
WOMEN’S FICTION
The Only Way to Paradise
What causes picture-perfect suburban Oakwood residents, MacKenzie, Roxie, Sara, and Georgia to desert their therapist and fly off to Florence? Answer: A romantic Italian movie that prompts Roxie to ask: “If Italy is so healing and therapeutic what are we doing in Ohio?”
Even Sara, the most duty-bound of the group, finally joins the pact they dub “The Crazy Ladies of Oakwood,” and only a week later, they find themselves in Florence. Embraced by the entire province of Tuscany, each woman becomes entangled in experiences she could never have foretold. Not only do they find the fascinating Italian men that Georgia promised, but new sides to themselves and each other.
Against the glittering background of Florence, their dramas play out:
MacKenzie returns to her student days as an art historian, discarding her identity as the controlling Oakwood charity patron and society hostess. Renewing her acquaintance with the David, she vows to let herself be sculpted rather than trying to sculpt others. MacKenzie finds not only a new talent, but a new man who appreciates it, just as her husband decides to reenter her life.
Roxie, who has always approached life as a circus, is drawn unwillingly into a passionate romance with a gorgeous Italian professor, Stefano. Her physical response to Stefano taps into lost memories, causing her to literally run from him. Roxie, a quirky and colorful Cubana, senses danger in visions and smells that resurface of a rotting summerhouse behind her Florida home. With his nurturing and passionate love, Stefano helps her to face the “broken piece” inside her.
Sara unveils part of her that no one but her instructors know. She is an extraordinarily talented concert violinist. Normally trapped in the demanding life of an ob-gyn (scripted for her by her Vietnamese immigrant parents), she is temporarily freed. She performs for others for the first time, and experiences unprecedented joy. However, the coping mechanism she used to handle the pressure of her job threatens to destroy her new life.
Georgia, a grieving widow, processes her life without Ben and without her violin career that ended early because of arthritis. Looking for a new passion in life, she finds that satisfaction comes to her in “giving back” to those around her the lessons and knowledge she has learned through her successes and mistakes in La Dolce Vita. Just as her perspective is changing, she reunites with her first love, Arturo, and must make a decision about the direction of her future life.
Though ages have passed since the rebirth called the Renaissance, Florence still inspires change by breathing out its creative mix of energy, beauty, and courage. Where Michelangelo “set free” the David by sculpting a block of marble, each “crazy lady” finds her exterior “Oakwood” self burnished away by new experiences, revealing a new self. This burnishing is not a gentle process, but exuberant Italians help them through it with their all-embracing agape, or unconditional love. Though they do not know it, each of them hungers for agape’s healing power. They discover in it a balm that binds them together and puts them on the road to recovery, the road that is “The Only Way to Paradise.”
Pieces of Paris
Annalisse and Dennis seem to be living the American dream until Annalisse’s secret past and the effects of post-traumatic stress syndrome threaten to destroy her family.
This skillfully crafted novel explores the long-term effects of personal tragedy in haunting flashbacks of Annalisse’s former life — flashbacks that are interwoven with a passionate romance and reveal a person entirely different from the woman Dennis thought he married.
But as each revelation increases the emotional gulf between them, Dennis’s investigation of a toxic waste incident ignites the wrath of a former political ally and an industrial firm that will go to any lengths to cover up a shocking crime.
Can Annalisse reconcile her past and present before it’s too late? And can Dennis find a way to save his family and the town they’ve called home?
GENEALOGICAL MYSTERIES
Cankered Roots - New Edition
Couple a a spunky young widow with an even spunkier, rifle-toting grandmother and you have RootSearch, Inc., a genealogy business that frequently turns up murder! Alexandra Campbell (spunky widow) thinks that as they do genealogy for a living, it is high time she finds out her family secret. Something went wrong in her family during her adolescence, changing her mother from a Chicago North Shore matron into an alcoholic and a doting father into a workaholic. The moment she graduated from High School, she was sent to the Sorbonne in Paris with a generous bank account and instructions not to return.
It is now fifteen years since she has seen her parents, and she intends to lay the ghost that has separated her family for good. However, as usual in Alex’s unpredictable life, things do not go as planned. After an acrimonious fight with her once beloved father, she leaves with only a wallet-sized photograph of a woman she knows nothing about.
That night, Alex’s father is killed. Bewildered and grieved that her family can never be whole again, she soon finds out that she is the chief suspect in the murder. With the unflappable Briggie (rifle toting grandmother, Johannah Brigamina Poulson) at her side, she uses all her new genealogical skills, and (with the help of Briggie’s deer rifle) discovers a secret so bizarre that she finally understands why her parents wanted her far away and safe.
Join Alex and Briggie in the first of their hair-raising adventures!
Of Deadly Descent - New Edition
Where do You Start Looking for a Missing Ancestor
Without a Name
With Descendants You Share an Inheritance?
At their last known address—The Argonne Forest, France, 1919.
In their previous adventure, Alexandra Campbell and her business partner, Brighamina Poulson, discovered a branch of Alex’s family that was previously unknown. Because of wicked deeds in days gone by, a soldier in World War I who should have been part of Alex’s family was lost. In fact, he was so lost, he didn’t even know his own name!
Through a series of coincidences (and we all know there are no coincidences in genealogy!) they track their man from France to Oxford, and even give him a name. However, upon their arrival in Oxford, before they even contact the man’s descendants, a member of the family is pushed under a bus right before their eyes! It soon becomes evident that the death was connected to the coming legacy. Who knew they were coming to Oxford with news of a fortune? What role does the mysterious Frenchman Etienne play in the dastardly doings? And what about Charles Lamb, a very eligi
ble bachelor, also an heir to the estate?
Briggie is lost without her deer rifle and can’t keep up on the box scores of her Kansas City Royals baseball team. She doesn’t think much of Oxford, either, and is worried about the effect of this center of secular wisdom on Alex. She is even more worried about Charles Lamb.
Tangled Roots - New Edition
Who’s Telling the Truth?
Holly Weston, a teenager locked down in drug rehab, claims she’s never used drugs, but that her incarceration is all a plot by her parents. Why? To establish her mental incompetency so she won’t discover that they’ve embezzled the fortune she is about to inherit. Her grandmother, a slightly dotty widow, claims that her father was murdered when she was nineteen, after which she dyed her hair platinum, went to Hollywood, and met Clark Gable (and her husband). Holly’s mother, a rigid, disapproving figure, tells Alex and Briggie both her her mother and daughter are lying, forbidding them to dig any further among the family’s roots.
Three Original Ladies 02 - Lord Trowbridge’s Angel Page 18