Cathy Maxwell returns with her first novel in the brand new “Marrying the Duke” series, a Regency historical filled with sparkle, wit, and a daringly dashing hero.
Elin Morris, proper, well-bred, and always sure to do the right thing knows it’s her duty to marry the Duke of Baynton. After all, they’re the “match of the century”--at least according to gossip.
But her world is turned upside down when the duke’s brother, Benedict, returns. He’s dashing, daring, handsome, and living a life of questionable repute. And for once in her very good life Elin is oh, so tempted to do all sorts of very wrong things!
Ben knows Elin is forbidden to him--she’s to marry his brother, after all. And long ago he paid a heavy price for loving her. But what is a man to do when the woman who owns his heart throws herself into his arms and begs him to save her life?
All of London, even down to the riffraff,
already knew what the ball’s special announcement would be. There was no
mystery, although the dowager Duchess of Baynton’s guests would feign surprise
when the moment for the announcement arrived.
They called it the Match of the Century.
Her son, the duke of Baynton, London’s
richest and unarguably most handsome gentleman, would announce his betrothal to
the Miss Elin Morris, also known as Morris Heiress, thereby uniting two great
fortunes and two magnificent adjoining country estates in Leicestershire along
the River Trent.
And the reason everyone anticipated the
“announcement” was because it was a well-known fact that Elin had been promised
to the duke almost since the day of her birth. Yes, she had been presented at
Court and had gone through the motions of a First Season but it had all been
just a formality, a “show.” The duke was hers. She had Baynton, the epitome of
a lordly lord, the Nonpareil.
“And I am not worthy of him,” Elin
whispered, stopping the furious pacing she’d been at for the last ten minutes
in an attempt to settle anxious nerves and a confused mind.
Her bedroom in her parent’s London house was
fit for a princess. The India carpet in hues of blue was thick and soft beneath
her stockinged feet. Her furniture was gilded in the opulent manner her parents
preferred.
Back in Heartwood, the Morris family estate,
which adjoined the Baynton’s family seat, the furniture in her room was simple
and to her tastes. Here, her parents ruled. They were London creatures,
darlings of society.
And Elin? Well, their only child preferred
the quieter life at Heartwood. Of course, all that would change when she became
Baynton’s duchess. He was too important to have his wife rusticate in the
country.
She caught a glimpse of herself in her
dressing table mirror, a lone figure in finely woven petticoats, her face pale
beneath a mop of over-curly brown hair. Her dark eyes reflected her agitation.
They threatened to swallow her face.
“It’s not that I don’t want Baynton,” she
attempted to explain to her image. “It is that I shouldn’t have him. Not
without telling him--”
New York Times Bestselling Author, Cathy Maxwell spends hours in front of her computer pondering the question, “Why do people fall in love?” It remains for her the great mystery of life and the secret to happiness. She lives in beautiful Virginia with children, horses, dogs, and cats.
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