Helene, the Countess Godwin, knows there is nothing more unbearably tedious than a virtuous woman. After all, she’s been one for ten long years while her scoundrel of a husband lives with strumpets and causes scandal after scandal. So she decides it’s time for a change–she styles her hair in the newest, daring mode, puts on a shockingly transparent gown, and goes to a ball like Cinderella, hoping to find a prince charming to sweep her off her feet… and into his bed.
But instead of a prince, she finds only her volatile, infuriatingly handsome… husband, Rees, the Earl Godwin. They’d eloped to Gretna Green in a fiery passion, but passion can sometimes burn too hot to last.
But now, Rees makes her a brazen offer, and Helene decides to become his wife again… but not in name only. No, this time she decides to be very, very wicked indeed.
It is whispered behind the fans of London’s dowagers and in the corners of fashionable ballrooms that scandal follows willfully wild Lady Beatrix Lennox wherever she goes. Three years before, the debutante created a sensation by being found in a distinctly compromising position. Now, the ton has branded her as unmarriageable, her family has called her a vixen, and Beatrix sees no reason not to go after what–and who–she wishes.
And she wants Stephen Fairfax-Lacy, the handsome Earl of Spade. Beatrix, with her brazen suggestions and irresistibly sensuous allure, couldn’t be more different from the earl’s ideal future bride. Yet Beatrix brings out a wildness in the earl he has tried to deny far too long. Still, he’s not about to play love’s game by Lady Beatrix’s rules. She may be used to being on top in affairs of the heart, but that will soon change.
The Woman
Lady Henrietta Maclellan longs for the romantic swirl of a London season. But as a rusticating country maiden, she has always kept her sensuous nature firmly under wraps — until she meets Simon Darby. Simon makes her want to whisper promises late at night, exchange kisses on a balcony, receive illicit love notes. So Henrietta lets her imagination soar and writes…
The Letter
A very steamy love letter that becomes shockingly public. Everyone supposes that he has written it to her, but the truth hardly matters in the face of the scandal to come if they don’t marry at once. But nothing has quite prepared Henrietta for the pure sensuality of…
The Man
Simon has vowed he will never turn himself into a fool over a woman. So, while debutantes swoon as he disdainfully strides past the lovely ladies of the ton, he ignores them all… until Henrietta. Could it be possible that he has been the foolish one all along?
A Duke in Retreat
Gina was forced into marriage with the Duke of Girton at an age when she’d have been better off in a schoolroom than a ballroom. Directly after the ceremony her handsome spouse promptly fled to the continent, leaving the marriage unconsummated and Gina quite indignant.
A Lady in the Middle
Now, she is one of the most well-known ladies in London … living on the edge of scandal — desired by many men, but resisting giving herself to any one.
A Duchess in Love
Finally, Camden, the Duke of Girton, has returned home, to discover that his naïve bride has blossomed into the toast of the ton. Which leaves Cam in the most uncomfortable position of discovering that he has the bad manners to be falling in love — with his own wife!
Pleasure for Pleasure’s heroine, Josephine Essex, is quick of wit and lush with unfashionable curves. Nicknamed “The Scottish Sausage” within a week of her debut on the marriage market, her chances of matrimony look dim. So Josie does what no proper young lady should – she challenges fate. She allows the scandalous Earl of Mayne to take her under his tutelage, discards her corset and flirts outrageously…
Shakespeare’s play title, Measure for Measure, refers to a person receiving the punishment they deserve. In this novel, Josie gives precisely what she deserves: Pleasure for Pleasure.
Imogen, Lady Maitland, has decided to dance on the wild side. After all, she’s in the delicious position of being able to take a lover. A discreet male who knows just when to leave in the morning.
But Lady Maitland is still under the watchful eye of her former guardian, the wildly untamed Rafe, the Duke of Holbrook. He believes she is still in need of a “watchdog.” She laughs at the idea that someone so insufferably lazy and devoted to drink can demand that she behave with propriety.
It’s Rafe’s long-lost brother, a man who looks precisely like the duke but with none of his degenerate edge, who interests Imogen. To Imogen, he’s the shadow duke…the man who really should hold the title.
But when Imogen agrees to accompany Gabe to a masquerade… whose masked eyes watch her with that intense look of desire? Who exactly is she dancing with? The duke or the shadow duke?
Rafe…or Gabe?
What cruel twist of fate put Miss Annabel Essex in a carriage on her way to Scotland (the place she abhors) with a penniless earl (and she longs to be rich), and all the world thinking they’re man and wife? Sleeping in the same bed? Not to mention the game of words started by the earl – in which the prize is a kiss. And the forfeit…
Well. They are almost married, after all…
Teresa Essex has a unique lot in life. Actually…she’d rather prefer that lots were not mentioned. She knows far too much about playing the odds: her widowed father gambled away any spare penny owned by their family. Shillings that should have been spent on gowns and governesses for Tess and her three younger sisters were spent keeping her father’s horses in proper condition for the race track.
When their father dies, the sisters become the wards of the Duke of Holbrook who knows far more about brandy snifters than children. But Tess’s challenges have just begun. With nothing more than a horse each for a dowry, and a drunken duke as a chaperone, she and her sisters must achieve respectable marriages.
In the manner of romantic heroines from the time of Jane Austen, Tess must make a decision whether to marry for financial, prudent reasons, or to follow her heart. But unlike those tales in which heroines prudently make the correct decision, whatever that might be, here fate steps in and Tess must learn a hard lesson: not how to play at love, but how to play at that most serious of pursuits…
Marriage.
Leopold Dautry, the notorious Duke of Villiers, must wed quickly and nobly—and his choices, alas, are few. The Duke of Montague’s daughter, Eleanor, is exquisitely beautiful and fiercely intelligent. Villiers betroths himself to her without further ado.
After all, no other woman really qualifies.
Lisette, the outspoken daughter of the Duke of Gilner, cares nothing for clothing or decorum. She’s engaged to another man, and doesn’t give a fig for status or title. Half the ton believes Lisette mad—and Villiers is inclined to agree.
Torn between logic and passion, between intelligence and the imagination, Villiers finds himself drawn to the very edge of impropriety. But it is not until he’s in a duel to the death, fighting for the reputation of the woman he loves, that Villiers finally realizes that the greatest risk may not be in the dueling field…
But in the bedroom. And the heart.
The Duchess of Cosway yearns for a man she has never met . . . her husband.
Married by proxy as a child, Lady Isidore has spent years fending off lecherous suitors while longing for her husband, Simeon Jermyn, the Duke of Cosway, to return.
But when the prodigal duke finally returns, ready to take on his obligations, he finds the woman they call his wife too ravishing, too headstrong, too sensual to be a proper duchess. But Isidore will not give up her claim to the handsome duke without a fight.
