Colors of Scandal

Miss Caroline Sloane is on her way to Poughill, Cornwall. In highhanded fashion, her estranged grandfather has arranged a marriage for her to a sea captain she’s met but once, and she wishes to convince him otherwise. She’ll marry for love or not at all, but an accident with the crowded mail coach on which she’s traveling throws her existence into chaos.

The honorable Olivia Beaumont, eldest daughter of Viscount Hereford, wants revenge. Following an ill-advised game of faro with a powerful duke, her father lost everything and then suffered a fatal heart attack. Now, she wants that duke to pay and suffer as much as her father did. But the only way she can do that is to enlist the help of the most shunned man in the ton: the disgraced duke of Skeffington.

Miss Louisa Harcourt’s life isn’t exactly what she’d envisioned for herself. Widowed by the war, she returned home to protect her younger brother from domestic threats, but that put her into the soup as well. After constantly rebuffing unwanted attentions, she’s wearied of living in fear. Knowing something must be done, she hires someone who can teach her the skills she needs to defend herself - a champion in fisticuffs - but her trust in men has been dented.

Lady Amelia Jane Coventry-Smythe wants nothing more than to shut herself away to mourn in private all the people she lost from her life over the years. Unfortunately, peace is not hers, for the one man she never hoped to see again has just landed in her parlor by mysterious circumstances, with an invitation to her Christmastide house party in hand, and her addiction to him flares anew.

It’s the year 1819, and as Valentine’s Day approaches, Lady Grace Norrington is still unwed at nearly 30. Tired of the pitying glances, she means to have a husband before her upcoming birthday by hook or by crook, and she’s expected to make a good ton match. Except all her plans are thwarted by the handsome new butler and her disturbing attraction for him. Mr. Harrison Conrad’s livelihood wins him respect in whatever household he manages. What he doesn’t need is scandal in the form of an enchanting daughter of the house.

Widowed Lillian Fernsby has been buffeted by life’s ills, and the grief is sometimes unrelenting. Keeping sadness at bay by making merry or being an outrageous flirt is all well and good, but what she really wants is to marry again. So, when her brother’s best friend comes back into her life to protect her from a unidentified stalker, she’s intrigued by the mystery and challenge he represents. A flirtatious game of cat and mouse begins between them and desire builds, but so does danger.

Ambrose Colin Heathermore, the fourteenth Marquess of Hereford, wants to be left alone. Now that he’s back in London and has put life as a celebrated spy behind him, he must take up the reins of his real life and attend to his title. Which he will, after a quick tryst with an experienced lightskirt at a ball. If it will help him forget the woman he first loved in France, all the better. Lady Mary Clarke, a daughter of the Duke of Tarkington, is tired of proper ton life. She’s spent more time as a widow than she has as a wife, so she’s ready for excitement and adventure.

Sometimes fate doesn’t give you what you want because something better is in the offing. Captain Elias Frampton is a man without purpose. Five months after being jilted, he’s ready for a new chapter of his life. Undecided about whether he should return to the sea or find a position in England, he embarks on a trip up the Cornwall coast, but his coach is caught in a winter storm squall, forcing him to take the last room at a posting inn of a fishing village.

Miss Evelina Aston is the youngest child of a viscount. Through no fault of her own, she’s fallen headfirst into the scandal of the Season. With her father on the brink of bankruptcy, when she’s caught alone and in a compromising position with an earl, he calls for an immediate proposal. It doesn’t matter that the man she’s being forced to wed is a rake high on the instep, she has no say in the proceedings.