Amanda Panhorst
Author
Cordelia has made a match. That is, her guardian has made one for her.
Tucked away in Leicestershire after the deaths of their parents, the wards of the unconventional Duke of Alvaston are on the cusp of taking their places in Society, and Cordelia Densley is the first. She is determined that her betrothed, the staid and steady Mr. Oliver North, will find nothing but perfection in his intended, even if his overbearing godmother has her doubts.
When Mr. North is invited to stay at the Alvaston estate, Cordelia realizes that the eccentricities in her family, including her own, may not be conducive to an extended visit, much less a successful marriage. Mr. North however, proves time and again that he is more than up for the challenges of pranks, rescue missions, furry companions, and burnt biscuits. But when rumors of past scandal resurface from enemies new and old, she is forced to choose. Protect her family, or risk tainting Mr. North by association?
She thought she would never see him again. Now, one summer could change everything.
Being an heiress is not all it’s cut out to be, as Ruth discovered during her first London Season. Now, she has retired to Bath for the summer to cool the growing resentment surrounding her fortune and to repair the reputation she acquired as a ruthless rejector of every proposal she received. All hopes of marital bliss were dashed long ago by a young man in Devonshire who was as deceitful as he was handsome. Ruth must put her pain and grief aside to marry well and pave the way for her younger cousin. But a chance encounter in the rain along with a determined matchmaker or two is forcing Ruth to revisit her past far more than she likes.
She broke his heart. Now she’s right next door.
Julian Lyte has, at present, but one objective in life: save his family from ruin and keep his father out of debtor’s prison. With every other avenue to economize exhausted, he now has no choice but to turn to the one thing he swore never to do: marry for money. And his mother, just removed to Bath with his sisters, seems to have found the perfect candidate in their next door neighbor. But Ruth Hanaway has for many years been the sole reminder of every failure in Julian’s life. Now, he is caught between saving his family and confronting the past.
As lies unfold and past treachery is revealed, Ruth and Julian must decide if their hearts will mend along the same path during their summer stay in Bath.
Arthur Fairhurst is a terrible duke. Jumpy and nervous around others, he prefers hiding away in his Northumberland forest collecting, sketching, and researching all the wildlife he can find, trying to satiate his inexhaustible curiosity. So when his gamekeeper informs him of a gypsy girl and her dog hiding away in his woods, curiosity demands he find out everything he can about her before telling her to move on. Dressed as a plain woodsman, Arthur gains her trust little by little, and is surprised by the things the gypsy girl, Mara, brings out in him.
Mara Boswell discovered long ago that she cannot depend on anyone but herself. Driven by tragedy, she has roamed here and there all around England, always on the move, running from those who would find her and hurt her once more. Thinking she has found a safe haven at last the dense forests of Northumberland, she is informed by a woodsman that she is trespassing, and not just on any lands, but a duke’s.
Loath to move on again, she agrees to a bargain with the woodsman: talk about her gypsy life in exchange for permission to stay in the forest unmolested. The opportunity is too good to pass up, and Mara begins to see that not everyone is out to do her harm. That certain people would love and protect her if she would only let them.
Alfred Deane’s own hard work has always been engulfed by the charity he has received in life. All the more reason to prove himself by working twice as hard as those around him. But his determination to prove himself hinders him from one of things he wishes for most: a loving wife and family of his own. He has no time to court in person. His solution?
Advertise.
Courtship through letters is the perfect way to discover if he and the lady in question are suited to one another in heart and mind. And when a likely candidate draws him in more and more with her wit and happy nature, it helps him endure the days dealing with a particular thorn in his side.
At twenty-six, Clara Winters is vivacious, unmarried, but most of all, determined to support herself. When the opportunity comes to be employed by a countess nothing can stop her. Not even the stiff, disapproving secretary, Mr. Alfred Deane, standing between her and the job. Though once the position is secured, she and Mr. Deane (who is everything at once disagreeable and unlikeable!) must work together to prepare for the countess’s favorite festive season: Christmas.
With Mr. Deane against her at every turn, Clara finds happiness and hope in her exchange of letters with an anonymous man to whose advertisement she had the audacity to reply. Each letter from him solidifies her belief that the perfect match for her just might exist.
Matrimony if suited.
Could her wish to find a loving husband and home finally come true this Christmas?
The plan was to run away from him, not right into his hands…
For years, Millicent Westwood looked forward to the life that had been planned out for her: where she would travel, what she would do, when she would marry, and what place she might have in society (titled, of course). Even with the war and a mysterious decline in the prosperity of her family, she was sure everything would turn out as promised. But when the will of an eccentric relative proposes an arranged marriage for her (to a mere merchant!) with an enticing fortune attached to the union, her promised future takes a sudden and unwelcome veer off course.
Vigorously urged by her mother and father to accept the arrangement, Millicent takes matters into her own hands, only to be waylaid by broken wheels, sick servants, snowstorms, and the very man she is running from.
Evangeline has come to Fernsby Hall to host a house party, not to fall in love with an old friend…
Beautiful, vivacious, and extremely wealthy, the widowed countess, Evangeline Payne, may take every opportunity to entertain herself that she wishes. Her favorite pastime? Refusing ever offer of marriage that comes her way. Especially from her favorite scoundrel, Basil Morley, whose antics as her would-be suitor have kept her in stitches for years. His promises of someday wooing, winning and wifing her are utter nonsense. It is all fun and games between them, both knowing his main objective is her vast fortune.
She also knows Basil, ruined by foreign travels, only cares about amusing himself through absurd pranks, outrageous wagers, and the usual pursuits of a rake. To allow him into one’s heart would be beyond foolish. But as loneliness creeps into her life, Basil’s constant friendship is seen in a new light, and at a house party in Hertfordshire, clues to the real man hiding behind Basil’s roguish facade are too curious not to investigate, forcing her to realize that perhaps he is not the cordial rake he makes himself out to be.
He wants her gone. She wants to leave. The problem? She can’t remember where she came from.
Hugh Longville keeps his distance from everyone. Especially anyone who may recognize him and remember what he did ten years before. So when he comes to the rescue of a strange woman deep in the forest that’s been his home for so long, he wants her back where she came from as soon as possible. But there’s a hitch.
Waking up after a bump on the head is unpleasant, but especially terrifying when you wake up in a strange place with no recollection of how you got there. Thus, Diana Stilwell finds herself at Eastbend Lodge, deep in New Forest with only a foreboding man and his servants for company.
Stranded by rains, Diana and Hugh are forced to find a middle ground for their tumultuous natures. But the more Diana sees of this strange and formidable man, the more she sees passed his façade of surliness and into the kind and hurting heart he carries. Can she convince him that forgiveness and love are possible?
They made a vow based on the impossible. But what will they do now that the impossible has happened?
Though they were exact opposites, Gussie Stilwell and Harry Fletcher often played together growing up in Rutland, England. To pass the time one hot summer day, they vowed to marry each other should Harry ever inherit his distant cousin’s baronetcy, sealing their pact with blood.
When he made the Pact, Harry knew he would never inherit Camrose from his cousin. He was third in line behind two robust men, including his brother, after all. But when a series of unthinkable events saddle him with the baronetcy, Harry must return from soldiering in Bombay to take up the mantle. With Gussie’s letters keeping him company on the voyage, he wrestles with the question whether to honor the childhood pact with his best friend, if she was willing, that is…
Gussie is not made for marriage. A fact she has known for years, declaring to anyone who asked that she will never participate in the institution. She made the Pact with Harry safe in the conviction that he would never inherit. They would simply remain best friends, even if Harry stayed in India as a soldier for the rest of his days. But when Harry arrives in England as Sir Harry, a baronet who now must marry, Gussie must decide which vow to keep.
Rosy Barrett is a woman of simple tastes, asking nothing more than for leave to ride from dawn until dusk and tend to the horses in her father’s stables at Broadstone Manor. With the foaling season well underway, she is wholly focused on obtaining the beginnings of her own future breeding operation, separate from her father’s. Wholly focused, that is, until Giles Harrington, the boy she loved as a child, appears out of nowhere into her life again.
Seven years after his father’s financial ruin, Giles Harrington, Lord Montbury, does not like to waste time or money, having little to spare of either resource. While traveling home from a failed investment opportunity, Giles is led by chance to Rutland to his old acquaintances, the Barretts of Broadstone. Here, he finds Rosy, a girl he hardly remembers, a grown woman now, and all sunshine and smiles as she runs wild in her father’s stables. The more time he spends in her company, the more Giles is affected by her, beginning to believe that life, with the right people surrounding you, can offer the joy and happiness he doesn’t think he deserves.
If she wanted to save him, there was no room to hesitate…
Resigned and dreading an arranged marriage that’s as ill-suited as it is unwanted, Lord Walraven accepts the invitation of a ramshackle acquaintance to journey to a house party in the far north of England as a last hurrah before accepting his fate. But in this helter-skelter party, schemes to ensnare Lord Walraven and his wealth are afoot.
Anna Welbourne has been her brother’s drudge for years now. When she is sent by herself to prepare their ancestral home and its unsuspecting servants for his grand party, she is furious enough to try anything to rid herself of her brother’s cruel guardianship. But among his guests is a man to whom she owes a debt, and she must pay him back. So when, after a raucous game of cards, Anna sees the handsome Lord Walraven being swept off to Gretna Green by a conniving woman, she not only sees a chance to escape her brother, but a way to pay the debt.
He is in desperate need of a wife. She is accepting someone else. Will one summer be enough to change her mind?
With the third refusal of his hand in as many months, James Hammond is losing hope of ever finding the right woman to become the new Mrs. Hammond. What woman would want to take on a widower with mountains of debt, a rambunctious son to keep in check, and a ward to prepare for a London season? With time running out, he is desperate enough to propose to just about any woman he meets, regardless of what his heart might have to say, even a stranger that is swept into his house in an unlucky incident…
Whisked away across the Channel to avoid scandal, four years later, Letty Langham vows never to allow such a powerful emotion as love to control her again. That is why, come autumn, she plans to become engaged to a perfectly adequate lord. Comfortable home, excellent connections, no love involved. Perfect.
But when an act of charity goes awry while visiting her cousins, Letty finds herself in the frequent company of James Hammond and his higgledy-piggledy household that is positively yearning for love. Will Letty be brave enough to open her heart again? Will James allow his heart to have a say in his search for a wife?
They are the best of enemies and the worst of friends…
Lady Anthea’s relationship with Lord Desford has never been easy, but always entertaining. After ending a short, disastrous engagement, the two spend the next decade in a verbal sparring match. Their goal? Jab each other as much as possible while London looks on, accepting them as an eccentric, amusing pair. It’s a position that suits them both. So, when word goes round that Desford is looking for a bride, Anthea is certain their relationship won’t change, and focuses her energies on how to dampen her beautiful niece’s infatuation with Desford’s cousin, the handsome Richard Tiverton.
Finally yielding to the pressures of his family, Lord Desford agrees to find a wife and flatly refuses to help either Richard or Anthea in the situation revolving around Molly Wakefield, Anthea’s niece. With his considerable fortune, and title to go with it, it will be easy to find a suitable woman to fill the position. He knows full well that love will not play a part in his marriage. How could it when the woman he’s really wanted all these years won’t have anything to do with love?