Scandalous widow Rosalind Nelson’s life centers around four things – her young daughter, helping couples suffering sexual discord, avoiding all peers, and definitely not falling in love. That is, until the day she rescues a mysterious stranger from a carriage accident. Kind, brave, and achingly seductive, Jack is everything she’s ever wanted. Nothing can destroy their growing bond…except the demons of his past...
4. MISTLETOE AND THE MARQUESS
by
Wendy Vella
Marriage was something Miss Partridge had hoped to delay indefinitely, but due to her father's reckless behavior she is now expected to save the family from ruin. Determined to have one last night of freedom before marrying a man she detests; Jemma attends a Christmas Masquerade Ball. When a handsome highwayman awakens something inside her, with stolen kisses and whispered promises, she flees, vowing to forget about the man who touched her soul.
From the moment the Marquess of Harrington sees the Grecian Goddess enter the ball, he wants her. Harry is not usually one for irrational impulses - indeed his life does not allow for that - but this woman makes him lose all reason. Her touch ignites a fire inside him, and her kisses sear his soul. When she runs from him he is determined to find her and finally unmask the woman who has captured his heart.
5. LORD MISRULE
by
Donna Cummings
Juliana, Lady Courtenay, is no stranger to scandal. Not after her late husband died in the bed of another man. Now that the mourning period for her unwanted marriage is over, she is impatient to celebrate her freedom–and what better way than with a love affair during the most festive time of year? Finally she can experience the excitement of spending the entire night with a man completely devoted to her pleasure. Except when she asks Lord Misrule to be her very first lover, the rogue declines.
Lord Misrule is eager for a diversion that will banish the regrets that always resurface during the Christmas season. Yet he cannot accept the desirable widow's tempting offer. If he did, he knew it would be impossible to adhere to his strict rules for affairs—no debutantes, no innocents, and no attachments—all of which are necessary to prevent future misfortune.
But when it seems Lady Courtenay will choose a less-than-honorable man to be her lover, Lord Misrule's chivalrous nature insists he charge to her rescue. He offers her a twelve-day affair, intent on providing her with a fortnight of pleasure without causing her heart, or his, a lifetime of harm.
6. GLITTERING PRIZE
by
Beverley Oakley
Blue-stocking Jemima Percy is too clever and too driven to be drawn into the life of a courtesan. Or is she?
Engaged in a secret search for lost treasure, she falls into the shadowy world of antiquity collectors. With a murderer hot on her heels, becoming the greatest treasure in a bored aristocrat's exquisite collection may be her only hope of survival. Then one fateful Christmas, Jemima discovers a love that threatens her best-laid plans.
Read an excerpt from:
THE CHRISTMAS AFFAIR
by
Heather Boyd
Chapter One
Amy Mellish might never be warm. She would freeze and no one would ever know her name. She would be just another homeless, unknown body they found during the spring thaw if she did not keep putting one foot ahead of the other.
She blew on her hands, encased in her late mother’s best-but-worn gloves, and surveyed the bustling street ahead. Bond Street less than a week before Christmas was a busy time, though so cold this year. Few looked at her directly. No one moved out of her way.
It certainly was not the best time to lure a man to take their pleasure with her so she might afford a corner of a room in a drafty boardinghouse.
“A pox on the happily married,” she muttered bitterly as a laughing couple almost barreled over her.
Amy had been overlooked all her life. As a child she had not had friends or family aside from her mother, and as an adult of two and twenty years, that was not likely to change. She was utterly alone, and as a result of her lack of proper protection in the form of chaperones, she was not innocent.
She was one of the impure, a fallen woman who relied on the wickedness of her customers to survive the harsh world of London’s streets. It was not the life her mother had wanted for her, but it was the life she must live no matter how hard it seemed.
Unfortunately, she was not that successful in attracting interest in the middle of winter and had taken to the streets of London’s busiest district in desperation for coin and customers.
She pushed on through the happy crowd, fretting over her desperate situation. She could do what one of the light-skirts on the last street corner had just done—made a show of unbuttoning her threadbare coat and flashed her breasts to a passing gentleman. The portly fellow had ogled her but had not flicked out a coin. He had smiled and then moved on with his own business. The woman had taken the loss of custom with good spirits and hurried to cover herself again. Amy considered her very brave. Undressing, even partially, while the snow fell and the winds howled was not pleasant. While she silently applauded the woman’s tenacity and fortitude under trying circumstances, Amy was not willing to surrender any more of her body heat to the uncertainty of fickle male whim.
She had to be practical and thrifty with her favors.
“Watch where you’re going!”
Amy jerked up her chin and met the hard stare of a well-heeled heavy-set gent of middle years. On his arm was an expensively dressed woman who positively sneered at Amy’s presence on their path. Amy shuffled aside, feet sinking into a deep patch of snow that reached above the top of her ankle-high boots. The couple took their time passing, and Amy was shivering in earnest once more when she could proceed.
She stamped her feet after they were gone and shook the snow from the hem of her heavy garments.
“People are always in too much of a hurry,” a contemptuous male voice remarked nearby.
She turned around for the source of the voice and found a fellow standing just inside an alley in the shadows, smoking from a weathered pipe. He seemed of middle age or perhaps older, but it was hard to tell with his cap pulled low over his eyes.
Amy smothered her disappointment. She preferred a younger customer. They were a little more giving of their coin and often cleaner, but she would make do with whatever she got. “Some are indeed.”
He moved to the edge of the shadows but did not step out into the street to meet her. His eyes beneath the cap were fierce and his expression sour. “Most don’t see the beauty they cast aside. Not me though. I’ve got my eyes wide open. I see you.”
“How kind,” Amy said calmly enough, but her skin prickled with a warning.
From time to time, Amy had met men whose interest in her brought unpleasant sensations. She did not feel at all safe near this fellow. Despite his neat outward appearance, there was something about his demeanor that warned her to keep a distance. He could be dangerous.
His clothes were good quality, but it was what lay beneath that made a difference. Even the best-dressed men could hurt a whore. She had heard enough, witnessed enough firsthand, to heed her own instincts. She nodded to him, intending to move along.
He jerked his head toward the alley behind him. “Why don’t you come over here and we can warm each other for a bit?”
She pretended to be shocked. “Sir!”
His expression grew menacing in an instant. “Think you’re too good for the likes of me? I know what you are.”
Amy needed coin desperately, but not so desperately as to risk misadventure with someone as changeable as him. “I am a lady, sir, and what you suggest is indecent. Leave me be or I shall call the watch.”
She spun around, but not before she heard the sound of a soft moan come from the dark alley behind the fellow. Amy hurried on, crossing the street to the bakery side and slipping in behind a chattering group. She took a moment to catch her breath, stealing the warmth from the ovens deep into her lungs f
or as long as she dared. And then when an older woman swept past carrying a heaped basket, she followed her out onto the street again.
A quick glance around confirmed the dangerous fellow had not followed her to the bakery.
The woman with the basket turned to her. “Can I help you, dearie?” She had the face of kindness, but her eyes were shrewd as she took in Amy’s threadbare coat.
“No, but thank you.”
The older woman hesitated. “You’re very pale.”
“The cold,” Amy murmured, but then that moan she had overheard from the alley came to mind. “A conversation with a stranger a short time ago has overset my nerves. It’s nothing, I’m sure.”
“Oh, what did he say?” The woman adjusted her basket, waiting for a juicy bit of gossip.
“Nothing untoward, thankfully, but as I was walking away, I swear I heard a moan come from the alley behind him.”
The woman’s eyes widened. “Not again.”
The woman spun back for the bakery, shouting a man’s name, and disappeared with her basket of baked goods.
Amy sighed, lamenting the fact that the memory of the smell of freshly baked bread was going to torture her all day and likely all night.
Unfortunately, Amy had no choice but to push on in search of a customer. A shy smile, a flutter of lashes, were all she had to bring a gentleman into her arms in the right circumstances. In the biting cold of the afternoon, however, she was not having much luck, and she needed funds to escape the aching cold of winter that was sure to envelop the city tonight.
Another couple passed her, laughing as they went. “A pox on all happy couples,” she said aloud and then prayed she had not been overheard.
She had best keep her thoughts to herself, or she would never appeal to anyone. Aside from the dangerous fellow, she usually had good luck in the shopping district, though her usual haunts had attracted a rougher crowd of late. Amy had no wish to be passed around a group of men for the fee of a single client. As long as she was not overly brazen about what she was there for, she had found she was left largely to her own devices in the proper neighborhoods.
And it was usually so much cleaner, safer, nicer all round in this part of town. She lifted her thoughts to the path ahead and arranged her face into a pleasing expression.
There were certain shops, however, that she did not like to linger near for long, and they were just ahead. The pastry shop always made her empty stomach complain, and the fine merchandise displayed in the Cabot’s Haberdashery windows made her yearn for the past and the coin she did not possess.
The dream of one day having funds to buy whatever she liked gave her something to hope for though. If her circumstances changed and she had funds at the ready to spoil herself with, she might yet be a regular customer at either establishment.
However, she would not be able to frequent either if one of the proprietors—both very proper gents and handsome—discovered how she earned her living.
Chapter Two
Mr. Harper Cabot of Cabot’s Haberdashery, London, surveyed the new stock and his domain with approval. Trade that day had been brisk and satisfyingly lucrative, the delayed shipment he had received at midday had eased his cares. Profits should be up this month despite the biting cold, and the new man he had employed last month had borne the brunt of the heavy lifting without complaint.
Mr. Robin Pelaw was working out perfectly and handling his demanding clientele with the utmost respect. His youth and handsomeness proved a gentle lure for women who frequented the busy Bond Street shopping district. Harper had a knack of knowing what people most wanted. Pelaw’s glib tongue and easy manner was genuine enough to ensure he sold to most of his customers on the same day.
The new man did a much better job of being pleasing than he or his other longtime employee, Godfrey Hunter, had done of late.
“Is there anything else you need done tonight, Mr. Cabot?” Mr. Pelaw asked as he placed the final bolts of new fabric on display for the regular customers. The more costly fabrics were already locked away in a private room at the rear of the shop, only available for inspection by those with the funds to pay for any damage their eager pawing might inflict.
“You can remove the crates we stacked out back first thing tomorrow, but the buttons have become jumbled again. They’ll need to be sorted before you go home,” he said, casting a rueful glance toward the always-popular table display. He was very glad to pass on a task that had become a daily bother since his wife had passed away. Diana Cabot, his late wife, had enjoyed sorting the many colors, sizes, and shapes at the end of each long workday while he tallied the books.
He missed her still.
Pelaw groaned and moved to the table covered in tiny jars. “Yes, sir.”
“Stop thinking of her,” Hunter said from a safe distance, his voice subdued.
“I cannot help the way I feel.” He folded the lace bolt carefully and set it aside. “Everything here reminds me of her.”
Hunter set his scissors safely away into the workbench drawer. “You need a new woman to turn your mind.”
Harper clenched his jaw. “A temporary solution to a permanent affliction at best.”
Hunter drew close, folding his apron. “She was only one woman in a hundred pretty faces that have passed through your front door.”
“She was my world, Hunter.”
“No, your shop was your world and you feel guilty she died alone. That’s the real reason you’re so bloody unhappy and doing your best to make us feel the same.”
He pressed his lips together. He couldn’t deny the charge.
Hunter bid him good night then and went on his way, a bachelor in search of amusement, and thankfully, this time he did not try to drag Harper along.
Harper preferred to wallow in his memories of happier times. He’d had a vastly satisfying married life. He had met Diana, the eldest daughter of the nearby baker one summer afternoon. She had been just nineteen, late coming out due to a death in the family, and they had struck the right note immediately. A month later he’d asked for her hand in marriage, and they’d had ten years of happiness in this shop together before influenza had robbed her of her health and then her life.
He missed her presence at his side—her wise words of advice and quiet strength supporting him in his endeavors. He was indeed guilty of neglect too. The day she had died, she had died alone, upstairs in their apartment on Christmas morning. He had left her side, thinking it was for but a moment, to attend an important client who had arrived unexpectedly. When he had returned upstairs, flush with the success of a lucrative transaction, she had already slipped away.
Since burying Diana, every day had become an effort to rise from his empty bed and get on with his lonely life. A routine had been his salvation. Once he was among the bolts of fabrics and customer demands, he could forget that his life was so very empty in every other respect save professional achievement.
As the clock struck four o’clock, Harper moved to the front door and pulled down the shade on the white world outside. Snow had been falling steadily since daybreak, muting the sounds of the world beyond his shop. It was too cold to venture out to his club or to visit a married friend’s happy home for the pleasure of their conversation and excellent food. He would stay in yet again and ignore the empty space beside him for another endless night.
“Good night, Mr. Cabot.”
“Good evening, Pelaw,” he said before throwing the bolts on the door to protect his property.
Closing up had once been his late wife’s job, and he was reminded how different his life had become just by completing the simple task. Cabot’s Haberdashery had once boasted & Son behind his surname. Since his wife had not conceived by the time his father had died, he had put those hopes aside. Despite Hunter’s claim that women were replaceable, he found it hard to consider remarriage or even to contemplate courting another woman. Diana would be impossible to replace anyway. She had devoted more of her life to the business as each year passed
and her arms remained empty of a child for her to love. She had rarely shown her disappointment to others, but he was aware of her private pain.
They had talked it over, had each hoped for a miracle, but it had not helped. They had remained childless, and Harper had set his ambitions for the future and the longevity of his business aside.
He drew the blinds down over the south window and then straightened the ladies’ hat display. His wife had loved hats of all styles and features. Thanks to her fine taste, and her subtle improvement of his, his customers now never lacked pretty things to wear upon their heads.
It had been a year since her passing, and he missed having someone to go home to, someone to lavish his attention on and spoil.
Not that home was far. He had lived above his place of business for a dozen years now and found the arrangement imminently convenient to the long hours he kept.
As he reached for the north window blind, he spotted a woman staring at a fur muffler displayed on a bed of pink silk wraps. Thinking she might be one last customer for the day, he paused before she noticed him to give her time to make her mind up about coming inside.
The woman’s bright green eyes gleamed as she beheld his wares. He was used to that look in female customers when it came to his many items, and he tried to anticipate what she might fancy. Her slender fingers rose to caress the glass between her and the object of her interest. It was then he noticed the hole in her glove. Was she interested in replacing her damaged pair tonight or just looking for what she might come back for another day?
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