Headstrong Heroines

Oliver Stuart Colborne, the duke of Scarborough and a man of mixed heritage, needs a false engagement post haste. A parcel of unentailed land, held in his maternal grandmother’s name and potentially harboring Roman ruins, can be his if he marries within two years of taking the title...and he only has a month left. He wants that treasure if only to follow in his revered father’s footsteps.

Recently retired from the Royal Navy, much acclaimed Captain Bartholomew Grayson has come home to London. He’s looking forward to the Christmastide season, especially now that he’s adopted his 10-year-old former cabin boy. The waif needs a family, and Bart wants to recapture the joy of his own childhood. Too bad the fly in the ointment is a strong-willed harridan with a tart mouth intent on stealing his cargo.

If she were honest with herself, Lady Nora Peacock is done with marriage and romance. They only proved a disappointment. Having suffered through a lukewarm union of twenty years, the last thing she wants is another husband. However, after a sensual dance with a stranger, she wouldn’t mind entering into a torrid affair.

Fearless and impulsive, Lady Anne Eliza Lewis, daughter of the Earl of Doverton, is not the usual ton lady. Nor does she want to be, for she's worked the bulk of her adult life at being a balloonist. Well-read Benedict Giles Urquhart, Viscount Worthington is a man who values peace and order over all else in his life. When a freak accident with a crashing hot-air balloon spooks his horse and throws Benedict, his placid life takes an abrupt turn, to say nothing of the distracting and unrepentant woman manning it.

Alistair Forsythe, the 12th Earl of Reardon, is the most sought-after man in the ton this Christmastide season. Handsome, of good character, and possessing a large fortune, he finally intends to do his duty to his title after being in India for years. In the market for a wife, he can now easily have his pick of any woman, yet none of them have snared his interest—not since Carole, but she is beyond his reach.