A Lady's Dream Come True - Grace Burrowes Page 0,116

he’s not so grumbly). I’ve included an excerpt from The Truth About Dukes below.

I will also be this year busy updating, re-covering, and downpricing the Lonely Lords series, book by book, and republishing duets and trios of delisted novellas. Stephen Wentworth’s story is in the works for next spring (How to Catch a Duke), and I’ve written three Regency mystery stories for a widowed sleuth named Lady Violet. Maybe I should publish those too…?

If you’d like to stay up to date regarding all this activity, I put out a newsletter about once a month. I will never sell, swap, or spam your addie, I promise. Following me on Bookbub means you’ll get the pre-order and on-sale alerts, and notices of any retail discounts. You might also take an occasional peek at my Deals page, where I note all the discounts and sales in my webstore as well as on the major platforms.

Happy reading!

Grace Burrowes

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Read on for an excerpt My Heart’s True Delight!

Excerpt—My Heart’s True Delight

Lady Della Haddonfield has landed in a world of trouble. Ash Dorning doesn’t feel he has the right to ride to the rescue, but neither can he stand idly by while the woman he loves faces scandal…

* * *

“If you are so unforgivably clodpated as to challenge Chastain to a duel,” Ash Dorning said, “I will not only refuse to serve as your second, Tresham, I will shoot you in the arse myself. Lest you forget, I was raised in the country. My aim is faultless.”

“You wouldn’t,” Jonathan Tresham replied. “Della would never forgive you for wounding her devoted brother.”

Ash poured two fingers of brandy from the better stock kept behind the bar in The Coventry Club’s game room. At this mid-morning hour, the cleaning crew had already come through. The space was was tidy and deserted, and a perfect place to talk sense into Tresham.

Or try to. “If you add fuel to the flames of gossip,” Ash said, “by involving Lady Della’s name in a matter of honor, you will be the one she never forgives. As far as polite society is concerned, the Haddonfield menfolk are her brothers. Your involvement in the situation would only cause the wrong kind of speculation.”

Lady Della’s mother and Tresham’s father had had an affair while married to other people. The tall, blond Haddonfields affectionately referred to the petite dark-haired Lady Della as their changeling, but anybody who took a close look at Della and Tresham side by side would begin to speculate.

If they had any sense, they’d speculate silently. Della’s oldest Haddonfield brother, Nicholas, was the Earl of Bellefonte, while Tresham was heir to the Quimbey dukedom. Della was fiercely beloved by all of her siblings, and by any number of in-laws and relatives.

And Della was loved by Ash too, not that his sentiments had any bearing on anything.

“Why did she do it, Dorning?” Tresham took his drink to the roulette table and gave the wheel a spin. “Why run off with Chastain? He’s a bounder and a rake and the worst kind of inept card player.”

Because Ash managed The Coventry Club with his brother Sycamore, he knew exactly what Tresham meant. The more heavily William “Chastity” Chastain lost, the more heavily he drank, and the more heavily he bet.

“To those just down from university,” Ash said, “Chastain offers a certain shallow-minded bonhomie. He’s good-looking. He pays his debts or we’d not let him back in the door.” Though how he paid his debts was something of a mystery.

“His damned father must be cleaning up after him,” Tresham snapped. “Last I heard, Chastain was engaged to some French comte’s daughter, so Papa is doubtless keeping Chastain out of trouble as best he can. I really do want to kill him.”

So do I. “That won’t help. Chastain got no farther with Della than some inn at Alconbury. If he wants to live, or ever sire children, he’ll keep his mouth shut. The whole business will remain a private regret for both parties.”

By daylight, the game room looked a little tired, even boring. The art on the walls depicted good quality classical scenes—scantily clad nymphs, heroic gods, but nothing too risqué and nothing too impressive either. Without the click and tumble of the dice, the chatter of conversation, or the sparkle of the patrons’ jewels by candlelight, the room was simply a collection of tables and chairs on thick carpet between silk-hung walls.

Any Mayfair town house would have been at least as elegant and had far more personality.