Showing results by narrator "Beverley Crick" in All Categories

Julia Hollis’ opulent life in Victorian London crashes to pieces when her husband passes away. Worse, she is told by his bankers that he gambled away their fortune. Now the family’s hope rests on The Larkspur, an old abandoned coaching inn in the quaint village of Gresham. Driven by dread and her desire to provide for her children, Julia decides to turn the dilapidated inn into a lodging house. But can she - who was accustomed to servants attending to every need - do what needs to be done and cope when boarders begin arriving? 

The wedding-night death of her much older husband left Tess Townsend the Dowager Duchess of Wansford—and still a virgin. Now she and her two best friends investigate London’s most scandalous crimes, and while Tess longs to experience physical pleasure for herself, she can’t risk losing her treasured independence.

Forced to escape the French Revolution, resilient young Comtesse Marie-Christine D'Estelle flees to London. But when she finds herself unexpectedly penniless, Christa hides her aristocratic background to become a lady's maid. … Until rebuffing advances from both her tyrannical mistress’s husband and her lover gets Christa cast into the street—directly into a hero’s arms …

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.

Brooke Whitworth has been dreaming of her first Season in London, because she intends to win a husband who will take her far away from her unloving family. Instead she is being sent to the Yorkshire moors to wed a mysterious nobleman whose family is cursed and who has thrice tried to kill her brother. But there's no room in her heart for fear; this man is her means of escape. She will make him love her!

When Andrew becomes ill and is in need of his surgeon son's skills, and his daughter's quest for privacy advances an evil man's schemes, newcomer Jewel Libby becomes an unexpected support and source of strength to the family.

As Andrew and Julia Phelps enjoy newly married life, the town of Gresham awaits the next big romance. Surely with spring around the corner, new love must soon arrive, but few could predict where it would blossom. Reserved schoolmistress Lydia Clark had resigned herself to solitary life when she suddenly finds herself with two eligible men seeking her hand. But even as she considers their offers, her heart is drawn to someone else. 

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.

An unusual heroine, Fiona Hawthorn grew up running free. Without a mother to restrain her, she spent her days riding her horse across her father's fields, or swimming like a sea nymph in the upper meadow lake. Trouble is, inside a prim and proper Regency sitting room Fiona is bound to overturn the teapot or accidentally trip the footman. Her notorious Aunt Honore decides to take the hoyden in hand, but amidst the strictures of the beau monde, Fiona is a fish out of water.

Shipwrecked and imprisoned thanks to an incorrect map, Captain Morgan Davies has returned to London to exact sweet revenge on the cartographer responsible for his suffering. He's also vowed to claim the winner's prize—three kisses—in the bet he made with his long-time nemesis, the prickly, smart-mouthed Harriet Montgomery. His incarceration has clarified his feelings for her, but convincing the infuriating woman he wants to marry her is going to be his greatest challenge yet. 

Elizabeth's heart is torn asunder when the man who broke her heart returns to town a "changed" man who is determined to win her back. 

Once a lady, reduced to a governess, Emilia Greene is desperate. The child in her care has been left orphaned and penniless, and Emilia will do anything to protect her—even track down the girl’s only relation. That man would be the next Viscount Sydenham, and surely he’ll be gentleman enough to take care of his cousin.

Daisy Hamilton's new mission for King & Co., London's premier private investigation firm, is simple: stop heiress Violetta Brand from eloping. But her case is derailed when she mistakenly holds up the carriage of Lucien Vaughan, Duke of Cranford--cynical war hero, infamous libertine, and the very man who broke her heart five years ago.

As a founding member of King & Co., London's most successful private investigation firm, studious Eleanor Law delights in secretly proving that women can solve crimes just as well as men. When a charming con man pretends to be her fictional boss, "Charles King," Ellie knows he's lying, but accepting the scoundrel's offer of help might just be the key to cracking her new case and recovering a priceless manuscript.

Despite being the illegitimate daughter of a prince, Gillian Dryden is happily ignorant of all social graces. After growing up wild in Italy, Gillian has been ordered home to England to find a suitable husband. And Charles Valentine Penley, the excessively proper, distractingly handsome Duke of Leverton, has agreed to help transform her from a willful tomboy to a blushing debutante.

After more than a decade separated from his home and family, the Earl of Heathbrook returns to his London townhouse to face a new test: reclaiming guardianship of his younger brothers. His reputation as a rakehell, it seems, has followed him from detention inside Napoleon’s France and caused his own father to block Heathbrook’s rightful custody in his will. However, the clever rogue concocts a plan to restore respectability and rescue his siblings . . . by finding a “fiancée” with no strings attached.

A series of stepfathers and a difficult childhood have left Fletcher “Grey” Pryde, fifth duke of Greycourt, with a guarded heart, enviable wealth, and the undeserved reputation of a rogue. Grey’s focus on expanding his dukedom allows him little time to find a wife. But when his mother is widowed yet again and he meets the charmingly unconventional woman managing his stepfather’s funeral, he’s shocked to discover how much they have in common. Still, Grey isn’t interested in love, no matter how pretty, or delightfully outspoken, the lady.... 

Miss Fiona Hartley’s huge dowry should have ensured that finding a husband would be quick. True, she’s a tad older than the average debutante and spends too much time sketching brutally honest character portraits. She desperately needs a husband, so she can access her dowry, lest the man blackmailing her reveals a secret that would ruin her family. So desperate in fact, that she’s willing to do the unthinkable - propose marriage to the most surly, irritable gentleman in town.

She knows how to steal a kiss. Alex Harland, Earl of Melton and dedicated rake, never pictured himself as an agent of inquiry. But the thrill of investigation is a challenge he now embraces. When he’s asked to pursue the Nightjar, a notorious thief who is reclaiming France’s crown jewels, the case throws him into the path of the beautiful and equally elusive Emmy Danvers, reminding him of the only puzzle he’s never solved: the identity of the mysterious woman who once stole a kiss from him - and left him wanting so much more....

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.