The newly-minted Marquess of Hadlow thought the campaign against Napoleon was risky, but nothing could prepare him for the onslaught of debutantes arriving at his door with marriage on their minds.
Unequipped for this dangerous new mission of finding a well-dowried bride, he trades places with his family’s elderly, loyal butler. That way, he can hide in plain sight and safely observe his guests from a distance.
It’s the perfect plan.
Heiress Amelia Collingwood is on a campaign of her own.
Thrilled to be attending her first house party, she seeks out the butler’s advice for ways to earn the Marquess’s favour.
The trouble is, this suspiciously young butler is so tempting, Amelia’s having trouble keeping her eyes on the prize.
Ladies of the quality do not engage in anything approaching trade.
Well, unless they have the camouflage of a widowed aunt to be the face of an enterprise, and grant it respectability.
Amelia Remington believes that she will continue as she has been, helping others find the perfect match, and never marrying herself.
It is a belief which is sorely challenged by a most unusual customer, and a series of events which begin to unravel everything she has built for herself.
Can she trust the solution she is offered?
Or is love too much to risk?
Wallflower Carys Talbot is desperate to keep her late father’s Swansea tramcar company running, but patronage is down and winter is closing in.
She needs a business partner, and quickly.
Everyone thinks Rhys Jones is a lad from the valleys.
If anyone discovered his secret, he’d be run out of town.
That’s why he needs Carys Talbot to make an honest man out of him.
Mary Callingsbrooke knows there’s something terribly wrong with her. Her body reacts in such an unnatural way when she’s close to a handsome gentleman. How will she secure a husband when her potential suitors are clearly so disgusted with her?
At the urging of Charlotte, her widowed cousin, Mary meets the mysterious Mister Smith at the Soho Club.
Mister Smith shows Mary that her ‘faults’ are in fact incredibly attractive features. He’s more than happy to marry Mary, but why is this secretive man in such haste?
In the beating of a judge’s gavel, Miss Anne Sloane becomes the daughter of an Earl.
Her first marriage proposal arrives immediately.
It's more of a demand than a proposal ... and it’s not even signed!
As Anne unravels the mystery behind these rude demands-disguised-as-proposals, she finds herself falling for the most unsuitable man imaginable.
Miss Jane Bartholomew, innocent and dutiful, has just been married to a Baron more than three times her age. A Baron with grown children who resent her existence, and the threat to their inheritance. She knows that she needs to bear him an heir as soon as possible, even if that looks to be challenging to achieve.
When the Baron expires at the worst possible moment, Jane, with the help of the most handsome footman she has ever seen, must take desperate measures to keep the truth from the rapacious relatives, lest she, and all of the staff, end up cast out, penniless.
Will desperation lead to love or disaster?