Description:
An intrepid
lady takes on an impossible task to win an irresistible lord.
With seven troublesome half-sisters to marry
off, Duncan, the Earl of Eads, has one problem: he’s broke. With the
prospect of marriage to the pompous local curate, Miss Teresa Finch-Freeworth
has one dream: to wed the handsome Highlander she saw at a ball.
How does a desperate lady convince a
reluctant laird that she’s the perfect bride for him? She strikes a wager! If
she can find seven husbands for seven sisters, the earl must marry her. But
when Duncan gives her a deadline even the most audacious matchmaker can’t
meet — one month — Teresa sets terms too: with each bridegroom she finds, the
earl must pay her increasingly intimate rewards . . .
Excerpt:
It would have been
remarkable if Teresa had not been quivering in her prettiest slippers.
Six pairs of
eyes stared at her as though she wore horns atop her hat. She was astounded she
had not yet turned and run. Her cheeks felt like flame, which was
dispiriting; when she blushed her hair looked glaringly orange in contrast. And
this was not the romantic setting in which she had long imagined they would
again encounter each other—another ballroom glittering with candlelight, or a
rose-trellised garden path in the moonlight, or even a field of waving heather
aglow in sunshine. Instead now she stood in a dingy little flat three stories
above what looked suspiciously like a gin house.
But desperate
times called for desperate measures. She gripped the rim of her bonnet before
her and tried to still her nerves.
The sister that
had gone to fetch him reappeared in the doorway and smiled. “Here he is, then,
miss.”
A heavy tread
sounded on the squeaking floorboards. Teresa’s breaths fled.
Then he was
standing not two yards away, filling the doorway, and . . .
she . . .
was . . .
speechless.
Even if words
had occurred to her, she could not have uttered a sound. Both her tongue and
wits had gone on holiday to the colonies.
No wonder she had dreamed.
From his square
jaw to the massive breadth of his shoulders to his dark hair tied in a queue,
he was everything she had ever imagined a man should be. Aside from the neat
whiskers skirting his mouth that looked positively barbaric and thrillingly
virile, he was exactly as she remembered him. In seeing him now, indeed, she
realized that she had not forgotten a single detail of him from that night in
the ballroom.
But more than
his eyes and muscles and all those other manly bits of him drew her. Much more.
The very fibers of her body seemed to recognize
him, as though she already knew how it felt for him to take her hand. Just as
on that night eighteen months ago, now an invisible wind pressed at her back,
urging her to move toward him, like metal drawn to a magnet. As though they
were meant to be touching.
Despite the
momentous tumult within her, however, Teresa could see quite clearly in his
intensely blue eyes a stark lack of any recognition whatsoever.
“Weel?” The
single word was a booming accusation. “Who be ye, lass, and what do ye be
wanting from me?”
It occurred to
Teresa at this moment that she could either be thoroughly devastated by this
unanticipated scenario and subsequently flee in utter shame, or she could
continue as planned.
An image came to
her: herself kneeling at the Reverend Elijah Waldon’s feet, offering his
slippers while he sat in his favorite chair before the fire reading from
Butler’s collected sermons.
She gripped her
bonnet tighter.
“How do you do,
my lord? I am Teresa Finch-Freeworth of Brennon Manor at Harrows Court Crossing
in Cheshire.” She curtseyed upon legs that felt like pork aspic.
His brow
creased. “And?”
“And . . .”
It was proving difficult to breathe. “I have come here to offer to you my hand
in marriage.”
Silence.
Complete
stillness from the man and seven women staring at her.
A book slipped
from a sister’s hand and clunked to the floor. “Pardon,” the sister mumbled.
“Why, Duncan, ye
old trickster,” another sister exclaimed. “Ye’ve gone an found yerself an
heiress to surprise us!”
He swung his
head to her. “I’ve no—”
“I’m not an
heiress.” It was only the second truth Teresa had spoken in a weeklong spree of
creative inventions. She’d told her parents that Diantha had invited her to
town for a visit. She’d told Diantha and Tobias that she needed new gowns and
that Mama had sent her to London on a shopping lark for both of them. And she’d
told Annie she was escaping Mr. Waldon, which actually was the truth.
She stepped
forward, her heartbeats atrociously uneven. All eyes turned to her, including
his, beautiful and so blue—like the most vibrant autumn sky—that it was
difficult to think.
“I will have a
marriage portion,” she said. “But while it is not shabby, it is not by any
means a fortune.”
“How much is
it?” a sister demanded.
“Sorcha!”
“Dinna be
missish, Elspeth. If our brither’s set to wed her, we should all ken hou much
money she’ll bring to the family. We’ve anly got one chance at this.” Sorcha’s
black hair was pinned tight to her head. Of the seven plain gowns in the room,
hers was the plainest.
“Well.” Teresa bit
her lip. “I don’t know exactly how much it is. I only know that my mother, who
spends far beyond her allowance every quarter, seems satisfied with the amount.
So, I—”
He took a step
toward her, effectively closing her throat with lock and key.
“I’m no set to
wed anybody, Sorcha.” He looked directly at Teresa. “As this lass knows.” He
tilted his head. “Dinna ye, miss?”
He was so large,
his shoulders and arms straining at the fabric of his rather shabby coat and
the muscles in his thighs defined in trousers that had probably seen too many
seasons.
She was staring
at his legs. Her gaze snapped up.
Her breath
caught somewhere in the region of her ankles. The slightest crease had appeared
in his right cheek.
“You are not set
to wed me, of course,” she managed. “But I hope you will consider it.”
A gasp sounded
from a sister of no more than seventeen. “Are ye a doxy then, miss?”
“Effie, hold yer
tongue,” Sorcha said.
“Dinna ye
remember? Mither was always going on an on about Father’s doxies an hou they
always wanted him to keep them like little goodwifies in their own houses an
such.” Effie brushed a lock of curly hair from her eyes to peer more closely at
Teresa. “Mebbe our brither’s more like Father than we kent. Are ye our
brither’s doxy, miss?”
“No!” she exclaimed
at the same moment the earl said, “No.”
She looked at
him hopefully. Hidden within his scowl, a grin seemed to lurk. But she was
certainly imagining that. A gentleman would not find such a thing amusing.
“She’s a leddy,
Effie,” the sister who’d dropped the book said.
“Hou do ye ken
that, Abigail?” Effie challenged.
“She’s no
wearing perfume, powder, or baubles,” Abigail said with great sense, Teresa
thought.
“Una,” the earl
said, “take yer sisters to the park.”
The one that had
fetched him, who was about Teresa’s age with eyes like her brother’s, moved
toward the door.
“But I want to
stay an see what he says,” Effie complained.
“Me too.” This
one was near enough in appearance to be Effie’s twin but smiling with an open
friendliness at Teresa.
“Duncan—”
“Go, Sorcha. All
o’ ye. Go.” He waved them toward the door.
“Come on nou. Ye
heard our brither.” Una lifted a brow at the earl. He shook his head almost
imperceptibly and returned his attention to Teresa.
Taking up
threadbare cloaks and dart-mended shawls, each sister gave Teresa a curious
perusal and headed out the door. Then she was alone with the man she had been
dreaming of kissing her and touching her for eighteen months. But now that he
stood before her, big and muscular and handsome and studying her intently, he
was again abruptly a real man and not only a distant fantasy.
“What do ye have
in mind, lass?”
She didn’t know
what she had expected him to say, but this wasn’t it.
“I—” She cleared
her throat. “I told you.” Her palms were so wet that her bonnet was slipping
from her fingers. “I have marriage in mind.” And kisses. And touches of the
most intimate sort.
He lifted a hand
to his chin and his fingertips scratched the whiskers skirting his mouth. “Yer
an odd one to be sure, lass.”
“I am not a
lass. I am a lady.”
He swept her
figure briefly. She wore her green and ivory pinstriped muslin with the lace
collar and tiny sleeves to draw out her mossy eyes and show off her arms. She
had even artfully draped a delicate shawl of cream fringe over her elbows.
Earlier when she departed Diantha’s house claiming she was going to the shops
she’d felt perfectly fetching.
Lord Eads did
not appear impressed.
“Aye.” He
nodded. “I’ll no doubt yer a gentleman’s daughter.”
“You needn’t
doubt anything I say,” which was certainly a first for her with anybody and
felt very odd indeed. “I am whom I have said and I wish only what I have
indicated.”
“Anly, hm?” His
eyes narrowed. “Lass, a leddy that walks into a stranger’s flat an—”
“You are not a
stranger. Not—that is—a complete stranger.”
He tilted his
head.
“You saw me at
Lady Beaufetheringstone’s ball a year and a half ago.” Fire erupted in her
cheeks. “You stared at me. And I . . .” She couldn’t breathe. “I stared at
you.”
“Did ye, then?”
“I did. You
don’t remember it?”
He stepped
toward her. Up close he towered. Then he did what she’d been dreaming
about for months: He touched her . . .
Review:
I am a fan of
Katharine Ashe and have read several of her other works, so I was excited to
get my hands on this novella. I read this in one sitting and thoroughly enjoyed
the characters and dialog/dialect. Teresa is a little before her time, she
knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to do what she needs to get it! Duncan
loves his sisters and wants to see them happy and maybe along the way to their
happiness he will find a little himself. I give this a solid four stars! If you
haven’t read Katherine Ashe I highly suggest you give her a shot and this
novella is the perfect place to start!
Paperback :Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Author Info:
In 2012 Amazon chose Katharine’s How To
Be a Proper Lady as one of the Ten Best Romances of the Year. Upon
the publication of her debut in 2010, the American Library Association named
Katharine among its “New Stars of Historical Romance”. She is a two-time
nominee and 2011 winner of the Reviewers’ Choice Awards for Best Historical
Romantic Adventure, and her novella A Lady’s Wish launched HarperCollins
Publishers’ Avon Impulse imprint in 2011. Her books have been recommended
by Woman’s World Magazine, Booklist, Library Journal, Barnes & Noble,
the San Francisco & Sacramento Book Review, Durham County Libraries, and
the Library of Virginia.
Katharine lives in the wonderfully warm
Southeast with her husband, son, dog, and a garden she likes to call romantic
rather than unkempt. A professor of European history, she has made her home in
California, Italy, France, and the northern US. She adores hearing from readers.
Author Links:
