A murdered opera singer. A duke drenched in her blood. For Bow Street Officer Hugh Marsden, the brutal killing is a straightforward case. Ever since his exile from polite society, the chance to arrest a high and mighty peer of the realm has never presented itself. Hugh won't snub the opportunity now. But Audrey Sinclair, the Duchess of Fournier, is certain her husband is wrongly accused, and she's determined to prove it to the arrogant Bow Street officer, even if she must employ her most peculiar ability—or perhaps curse—to guide her investigation. After all, a duchess can do as she pleases.

Wyoming Territory, 1876. US Marshal John “Hawk” Hawking is one of the most respected lawmen in the West, so when a telegram arrives from the small town of Sand Creek warning him of a death threat against him, he immediately begins an investigation. Posing as a farmer, Hawk heads to Sand Creek, a town ruled by a violent and corrupt sheriff. Only one person is trying to stop him―Liesl, the sheriff’s own daughter. When Liesl meets the self-assured and attractive new farmer, John, she hopes he might help her in the fight for justice.

In the eyes of London Society, Gillian Phelps is suitable enough. Though the ton whispers about her change of residence, any speculation remains just that: ballroom gossip. No one—not even the other Huntresses, the group of ladies she calls her dearest friends—knows that she is harboring a devastating family secret. Gillian has become adept at hiding the reality of her circumstances, but the close quarters of a house party will test her ability to conceal the crushing truth. And with so many people to deceive, the late arrival of another guest is a most unwelcome surprise.

As nursemaid to the eight-year-old Duke of Kielder, Robbie will spend her holidays with her young charge as a guest of Lord and Lady Jonquil. While the couple makes the child’s holiday magical, the handsome gardener works his own magic on Nurse Robbie’s heart. A Christmas house party offers two members of the ton an irresistible weekend of anonymity. But their charade comes with unexpected romantic consequences. Alice Hunt is searching for a Christmas miracle: a husband of her choosing. With the threat of an arranged marriage looming, she looks to an unlikely matchmaker for help.

The Civil War left its mark on Dr. John Turner. He turns his back on medicine and sees his unexpected inheritance in England as an opportunity to start over. But he never imagines how God intends to use his new role as lord of Ashford Hall or the beautiful woman he finds there to ease his troubled soul. A tragic loss led Penelope Howard to bury her heart and dreams in her work for the Hall and the village of Woodley. But the arrival of the new heir stirs not only her discarded longings but her compassion as well.

In a bid to escape the incessant attentions of a man she does not love, governess Lucy Hayes embarks on a journey to begin a new post. But when she’s stranded in a storm, her plans go shockingly awry. Desperate times call for desperate measures: against her better judgment, she agrees to a foolhardy scheme presented by a handsome stranger, known to her as only William. But when her mysterious benefactor falls ill, she finds herself unwittingly drawn into his family home in a case of mistaken identity: they believe she is William’s betrothed.

Miss Miranda Bartley is in love with the Honorable Ethan Roderick, their engagement all but official. But as she basks in the success of her London Season, her joy is cut short when Ethan ends their courtship, claiming she is too insensitive. In the wake of her heartbreak, Miranda is dealt yet another blow, one that changes everything. In a harsh twist of fate, she quickly falls from Society darling to servant in her uncle’s home.

The last thing Amelia Kennington wants is to participate in the London Season. But the daughter of a duke is not afforded such opinions. She must put forth a subdued facade, but beneath it is a well-hidden fire that surfaces only when provoked—such as when an overly familiar gentleman startles her and she falls into the Serpentine.

Hidden away in rural Devonshire, Phyllida Satterthwaite has always been considered more odd than beautiful. But in London, her oddity has made her a sensation. Far worse, it’s caught the eye of the sinister Duke of Moreland - a notorious art collector obsessed with acquiring one-of-a-kind treasures. To escape the duke’s clutches, she’s going to need a little help. Captain Arthur Heywood’s days of heroism are long past. Grievously injured in the Peninsular War, he can no longer walk unaided, let alone shoot a pistol. What use can he possibly be to a damsel in distress?

Northern California girl Charlotte “Charlie” Lucas has two great loves: Diet Coke and Pride and Prejudice. But her passion for Regency classics is tempered by a very real fear: Charlie is terrified of having to endure the fate of her namesake—spinsterhood. Despite her best attempts to maintain a modern sensibility, she can’t say no when an elderly neighbor asks Charlie to attend a charity ball with her grandson. Blind date or not, Charlie is powerless to resist the allure of a real-life ball. Soon it’s clear that she will struggle to resist the charms of her blind date too.

Rebecca Jennings’s first London Season has been absolutely ruined, and one person alone is responsible: Mr. Ben Fortescue. If her new neighbor hadn’t startled her, she would never have broken her ankle, leaving her bored and frustrated at home in the country while her sister enters the London Season alone. Although, it was rather gallant of him to carry her home....

Despite living at her father’s inn her entire life, Elizabeth Doyle has always managed to avoid involvement with the smugglers who frequently gather there. Until now. When a handsome smuggler is brought to her with dire injuries, Elizabeth risks everything to hide him - completely unaware that the wounded man is not who he appears to be. When an opportunity arises to infiltrate the notorious smuggling gang he believes caused his father’s death, Jonas Ainsworth, the Viscount Langton, pretends to be one of them.

Newly returned from finishing school, Lady Juliette Thorndike is ready to debut in London society. Due to her years away, she hasn't spent much time with her parents, and sees them only as the flighty, dilettante couple the other nobles love. But when they disappear, she discovers she never really knew them at all. They've been living double lives as government spies-and they're only the latest in a long history of espionage that is the family's legacy.

December 1899. After the death of her beloved grandmother, Cleopatra Fox moves into the luxury hotel owned by her estranged uncle in the hopes of putting hardship and loneliness behind her. But the poisoning of a guest on Christmas eve throws her new life, and the hotel, into chaos. Cleo quickly realizes no one can be trusted, not Scotland Yard and especially not the hotel’s charming assistant manager.

Julia Cummings has long been acquainted with loss - her mother, her brother, her sister, her friend, all gone too soon. But the loss that pushed her grief to the limit as a young girl was that of her best friend, Lucas Jonquil, who abandoned her without looking back. Now, eight years later, Lucas has returned to Lampton Park, and Julia has steeled herself - she will never forgive the man who broke her heart.

Miss Miranda Bartley is in love with the Honorable Ethan Roderick, their engagement all but official. But as she basks in the success of her London Season, her joy is cut short when Ethan ends their courtship, claiming she is too insensitive. In the wake of her heartbreak, Miranda is dealt yet another blow, one that changes everything. In a harsh twist of fate, she quickly falls from Society darling to servant in her uncle’s home.

Despite living at her father’s inn her entire life, Elizabeth Doyle has always managed to avoid involvement with the smugglers who frequently gather there. Until now. When a handsome smuggler is brought to her with dire injuries, Elizabeth risks everything to hide him - completely unaware that the wounded man is not who he appears to be. When an opportunity arises to infiltrate the notorious smuggling gang he believes caused his father’s death, Jonas Ainsworth, the Viscount Langton, pretends to be one of them.

When Felicity Thurston is caught alone with a man at a ball, she must marry him to avoid a ruined reputation. But what she doesn't know is that he's the brother of the man she loves.

Lady Elizabeth Spaulding’s world has fallen apart. Despite living her entire life to please her demanding parents, the Duke and Duchess of Marwood, she has little to show for it. After Elizabeth’s second failed betrothal, her father’s debts and appalling acts of retaliation force him to flee the country, consigning Elizabeth and her bitter mother to a life of poverty and exile. But Elizabeth’s fortunes change one day when an elderly acquaintance makes her an offer she can’t refuse.

Lady Susan Vernon, middle-aged and recently widowed, has retained her looks and appealing vivacity. She makes use of her bereavement and her loss of wealth by imposing herself on the hospitality of relatives, and by amusing herself in flirtation with the various men who fall under her spell. Lady Susan has a daughter, Frederica, who is bashful and innocent—in stark contrast to her unfeeling and manipulative mother. Her mother is anxious to marry Frederica off to a spouse of appropriate wealth and social standing, and also, perhaps, to capture a new mate for herself.

The course of true love never did run smooth.... When Fitzwilliam Darcy departs Hunsford after his disastrous proposal to Elizabeth Bennet, he does not expect their paths to cross again. Indeed, knowing the lady's true feelings for him, he makes every effort to see that they do not. But when a chance encounter leaves him stranded in an abandoned cottage with the one woman he can never have, Darcy quickly realizes there is more at risk than just Elizabeth's reputation.

As a fussy baby, Anne de Bourgh was prescribed laudanum to quiet her, and now the young woman must take the opium-heavy tincture every day. Growing up sheltered and confined, removed from sunshine and fresh air, the pale and overly slender Anne grew up with few companions except her cousins, including Fitzwilliam Darcy. Throughout their childhoods, it was understood that Darcy and Anne would marry and combine their vast estates of Pemberley and Rosings. But Darcy does not love Anne or want her.

Desperate times call for daring measures as Honor Cabot, the eldest stepdaughter of the wealthy Earl of Beckington, awaits her family's ruin. Upon the earl's death she and her sisters stand to lose the luxury of their grand home - and their place on the pedestal of society - to their stepbrother and his social-climbing fiancée. Forced to act quickly, Honor makes a devil's bargain with the only rogue in London who can seduce her stepbrother's fiancée out of the Cabots' lives for good.

Let the wicked be ashamed, and let them be silent in the grave. These ominous words, slashed from the pages of a book of Psalms, are the last threat that the darling of London society, Sir Edward Grey, receives from his killer. Before he can show them to Nicholas Brisbane, the private inquiry agent he has retained for his protection, Sir Edward collapses and dies at his London home, in the presence of his wife, Julia, and a roomful of dinner guests.

Katherine Cartwright knows through bitter experience that true love is fiction and trust should not be bestowed easily. Now, after two unsuccessful London Seasons, her atrocious father has decided to marry her off to the highest bidder to pay for his gambling debts, ridding himself of the daughter he never wanted. A profitable deal is struck, and Kate is packed off to the home of her betrothed, an earl she has never met. Or so she believes.

Constantly stifled by the rules of Society, spirited Rebecca Rowley enjoys finding ways to quietly - or not so quietly - rebel. But riding bareback and avoiding nosy neighbors are nothing compared to the thrilling secret she is keeping from her family. When Rebecca’s quick thinking saves the life of a young girl, she unwittingly attracts the attention of the child’s dashing brother, Lieutenant Nicholas Avery. As that attention turns flirtatious, Rebecca is forced to tell him the truth: She is secretly engaged - to the one man her family would never approve of.

Rosalind Newbury is counting down the days until her wedding to the Duke of Marlow, a man she has only met twice. The marriage is more an agreement between two families and less a romantic connection between two hearts, but Rosalind becoming a duchess will elevate her family’s status to dizzying heights. And the duke is a kind man who will care for Rosalind, even if he doesn’t love her.

Newly returned from finishing school, Lady Juliette Thorndike is ready to debut in London society. Due to her years away, she hasn't spent much time with her parents, and sees them only as the flighty, dilettante couple the other nobles love. But when they disappear, she discovers she never really knew them at all. They've been living double lives as government spies-and they're only the latest in a long history of espionage that is the family's legacy.

Olivia Moreland prides herself on discrediting charlatans, particularly the false mediums that flock to London. But when Lord Stephen St. Leger requests her help in investigating an alleged psychic's claims, she can't deny the ominous feeling she has within the walls of his ancient estate - or the intimately familiar connection she has with Stephen himself. The last time he'd called Blackhope Hall home, Stephen had watched as his elder brother claimed both the family title and the woman he loved.

In this romance anthology, 15 Austenesque authors assemble to sketch Darcy's character through a series of reimaginings, set in the Regency through contemporary times - from faithful narratives to the fanciful. In The Darcy Monologues, the man himself reveals his intimate thoughts, his passionate dreams, and his journey to love - all told with a previously concealed wit and enduring charm.