It Happened One Night: Six Scandalous Novels

by Grace Burrowes

  “All failures,” Axel said, kissing her cheek, the roses catching at his cravat. “All of it so much treasured failure without you, Abigail. Come bloom with me, and I shall bloom with you.”

  The roses got the worst of that kiss, for Abigail grew enthusiastic, lecturing Axel with lips, embrace, hands…everything. The door to the conservatory did not lock, and thus after a frustratingly brief period of enjoying Abigail’s acceptance of his proposal, Axel allowed her to lead him into the house.

  Axel’s bouquet soon graced Abigail’s bedroom, as did Axel.

  In the years that followed, he graced the bedroom with her rather a lot, and the glass house, and a few follies, the occasional picnic blanket, the odd hammock—a renowned professor of botany might be expected to enjoy natural settings—but also the library, the stillroom, a parlor or two, and nearly every room at Candlewick.

  Wherever Abigail transplanted him, Axel Belmont thrived, though he left pursuit of the thornless rose to those of more modest dreams and hopes than he enjoyed with his beloved Abigail.

  For he’d scaled the tower, earned the love of the lady, and—thorns, roses, and all—earned the happily ever after reserved for only the most intrepid of damsels and bravest of botanists.

  Author’s Note

  To my dear readers,

  I hope you enjoyed Axel and Abigail’s story. They struck me stoic people stuck in one of life’s periodic winters, and I think we can all relate to that. If you’re in the mood for more Jaded Gentlemen, Jack’s story finishes out the series (we know him as Sir John Dewey Fanning), while Thomas and then Matthew are the opening pair.

  If you’re looking for my next release, A Rogue of Her Own comes out March 6, 2017, and features one of my fave couples, Lucas Sherbourne and Charlotte Windham. She’s the last unmarried Windham, he’s the least likely husband she could end up with, but not even a pair this stubborn can win out against true love. Excerpt below!

  To get the latest on all of my new releases, special deals, and bundles, the best option is to follow me on Bookbub. For periodic updates, cover reveals, and other announcements, you can sign up for my newsletter.

  Happy reading!

  Grace Burrowes

  Preview: A Rogue of Her Own

  Wealthy Welshman Lucas Sherbourne is considering offering for the very blue-blooded Charlotte Windham. To his surprise—and pleasure—Charlotte asks for a kiss before Sherbourne can list all the reasons why he’d make her an ideal, if unlikely, husband…

  I must learn to discuss the weather.

  On the heels of that thought, Lucas Sherbourne had another: Charlotte Windham could teach him to prattle on about the weather more proficiently than any titled dandy had ever discussed anything.

  Having asked him for a kiss, she looked bravely resigned. Her face upturned, lips closed, shoulders square.

  Sherbourne started there, rubbing his thumbs over her shoulders, learning the contour and muscle of them.

  “Relax, Charlotte. This is a kiss, not a tribute to your posture board.”

  She opened those magnificent blue eyes. “Then be about the kissing, please, and dispense with the lectures.”

  Sherbourne kissed her cheek and slid his hands into her hair. “A kiss is generally a mutual undertaking. You might consider putting your hands on my person.” Her hair was soft, thick, and at her nape, warm. She smelled of orange blossoms with a hint of lavender.

  “There’s rather a lot of you,” she replied. “One hardly knows where one’s hands might best be deployed.”

  Deployed, in the manner of infantry or weapons. “Surprise me.”

  Surprise him, she did. She put her right hand over his solar plexus, the softest possible blow, and eased her fingertips upward, tracing the embroidery of his waistcoat. Her left arm went around his waist, getting a good, firm hold.

  As her hand meandered over his chest, Sherbourne touched his lips to hers. She neither startled nor drew back, so he repeated the gesture, brushing gently at her mouth.

  Charlotte reciprocated, like a fencer answering a beat with a rebeat. Sherbourne drew her closer, or she drew him closer. She might have been smiling against his mouth.

  The kiss gradually became intimate, wandering past playful, to curious, then bold—the lady tasted him first—to thoughtful, then on to daring. By the time Charlotte had sunk her fingers into Sherbourne’s hair and given it a stout twist, he was growing aroused.

  He stepped back, keeping his arms looped around Charlotte’s shoulders. “That’s a taste of torrid, a mere sample. A lovely sample, I might add.”

  “You torrid very well, Mr. Sherbourne. May I prevail on you to ruin me?”

  Charlotte felt wonderful in his arms, real and lovely. She neither put on the amorous airs of a courtesan or a trolling widow, nor endured his overtures with the long-suffering distaste of a woman eyeing his fortune despite his lack of a title. He’d kissed a few of both and had thought those were his only options.

  “I would rather not ruin you,” he said, stepping back. “I am far more interested in marrying you.”

  The softness faded from Charlotte’s eyes, and Sherbourne was sorry to see it disappear. He’d put it there, with his kisses, and now—with his honest proposal of marriage—he’d chased it away.

  “If you’re jesting, Mr. Sherbourne, your humor is in poor taste.”

  “I’m entirely in earnest. Look at the facts logically, and you’ll see that marriage to me offers you much more than being ruined would.”

  He expected her to laugh. Charlotte was as blue-blooded as he was common, and she’d been turning down proposals for years. His reconnaissance mission had gone badly awry—wonderfully, badly awry—and proper society set a lot of store by courting protocols.

  Which did not include torrid kisses during an initial call.

  “Shall we sit?” Charlotte said. “Not that my knees are weak, of course, but the tea will grow cold.”

  Sherbourne’s knees were weak.

  He sat, taking the enormous, torrid liberty of positioning himself a mere fifteen inches from his possible future wife.

  Order your copy of A Rogue of Her Own!

  More books in the Jaded Gentleman series

  Thomas (The Jaded Gentlemen Book 1)

  Matthew (The Jaded Gentlemen Book 2)

  Axel (The Jaded Gentlemen Book 3)

  Jack (The Jaded Gentlemen Book 4)

  About Grace

  GRACE BURROWES started writing as an antidote to empty nest and soon found it an antidote to life in general. She is the sixth out of seven children, raised in the rural surrounds of central Pennsylvania. Early in life she spent a lot of time reading romance novels and practicing the piano. Her first career was as a technical writer and editor in the Washington, DC, area, a busy job that nonetheless left enough time to read a lot of romance novels.

  It also left enough time to grab a law degree through an evening program, produce Beloved Offspring (only one, but she is a lion), and eventually move to the lovely Maryland countryside.

  While reading yet still more romance novels, Grace opened her own law practice, acquired a master’s degree in Conflict Transformation (she had a teenage daughter by then) and started thinking about writing…. romance novels. This aim was realized when Beloved Offspring struck out into the Big World a few years ago. (“Mom, why doesn’t anybody tell you being a grown-up is hard?”)

  Grace eventually got up the courage to start pitching her manuscripts to agents and editors. The query letter that resulted in “the call” started out: “I am the buffoon in the bar at the RWA retreat who could not keep her heroines straight, could not look you in the eye, and could not stop blushing—and if that doesn’t narrow down the possibilities, your job is even harder than I thought.” (The dear lady bought the book anyway.)

  Keep up with Grace:

  graceburrowes.com

  For Love of the Duke

  By Christi Caldwell

  Part I

  Winter 1814

  �
�Suffering is permanent, obscure, and dark.

  And has the nature of infinity.”

  —William Wordsworth

  Chapter One

  Lady Katherine Adamson discovered very early on that all bad ideas began with her twin sister.

  Far too many erroneously assumed because Katherine was a whole six minutes and seventeen seconds younger than her sister, that she must aspire to the model of ladylike decorum and beauty as evinced by her twin.

  Only Katherine, however, seemed to realize Anne had proven a rather poor influence over the years.

  She sighed. And yet, for all the years of bad decisions, she continued to follow along with her sister’s madcap schemes. After all, that is what you did when you were a sister, a twin sister, no less.

  “It is not here, Anne,” Katherine said gently. Her breath stirred a puff of white, cold winter air.

  Her sister, spun around so fast the bonnet atop her golden crop of curls tipped over her brow. She shoved it back and glared at Katherine. “Of course it is here. I have it on good authority the gypsy woman passed along the pendant to a vendor who would be at the fair upon the Thames River.” She looked pointedly at Katherine. “Surely she spoke of the Frost Fair. Now, we merely need to find the vendor, and…” She prattled on, and continued tugging Katherine along.

  Katherine fell into step beside her sister. For the better part of a fortnight, she’d tried to convince Anne of the foolishness in hunting around for the small heart pendant their sister Aldora had once worn around her neck. The pendant had been fashioned as a kind of talisman by Aldora and her four friends. They’d sworn the trinket would lead them to the heart of a duke. In the end, all the ladies had found love. Only one had landed a duke. Which in itself should disprove the validity of the claim, and yet…

  “Ah, it is there, I know it,” Anne exclaimed, drawing to an abrupt stop. She stared victoriously out at the bustling Frost Fair upon the frozen Thames River.

  Katherine stumbled against her side. “Of course it is,” she said dryly.

  Her sister either failed to hear or failed to care about the sarcastic twist to those four words. She spun to face Katherine, her hands clasped close to her emerald green cloak. “I feel it is here. And as soon as we find the merchant, who will sell us the pendant, then I…er, we can claim the heart of a duke.”

  Katherine’s lips twitched with wry mirth. “Does the pendant stipulate as to the qualities of the duke? Must he be handsome? Or can he be a doddering, old letch?”

  Anne wrinkled her nose. “Whyever would any young lady desire a doddering, old letch?”

  “Why, indeed? So then, it is the heart that is more important? Or the ducal title?”

  Anne angled her head, and again the bonnet pitched lower over her eyes. She nibbled at her lower lip, and then said, “Why, I rather think they are of equal importance.”

  Katherine took a deep breath and forced herself to count to ten before speaking. “Anne, there is not an overabundance of eligible young dukes in the market for a wife.”

  Her sister held up a finger encased in the white kidskin glove. “Ahh, but we do not need an overabundance of dukes, Katherine. We merely require two.”

  “But—”

  Anne planted her arms akimbo. “If it is all the same to you, then you can marry the old, doddering letch. I, well, I shall have the heart of a handsome, young, affable duke. Now, come.” She reached for Katherine’s hand.

  But Katherine withdrew, and took a hasty step backwards. She eyed the frozen expanse of the Thames, filled with tents and carts and skaters, it seemed entirely safe. And yet…

  “Never tell me you are still afraid of the water,” Anne said with a touch of impatience in her voice. She stomped her boot in apparent frustration.

  Katherine swallowed, not caring to admit to the shameful weakness. And yet, for all the great logic and reason she prided herself upon, she’d never been able to overcome the gripping terror of the day she’d fallen into the river of her father’s Hertfordshire cottage. She’d been nearly seven years old, and the horror of that moment, the water filling her throat, burning her lungs, stinging her eyes, still gripped her.

  It had been the last time she’d entered the water.

  “Katherine?” Her sister prodded.

  Katherine drew in a steadying breath. “Go ahead without me. I’ll wait here.”

  The loud squealing laughter of ladies, blended with the rumbling chuckles of their gentlemen; the sounds of merriment upon the ice filtered around them.

  Her sister frowned. “You know I cannot attend the Frost Fair without you.” She glanced around. “We are unchaperoned.”

  Yes, that had been the second foolish part to her sister’s madcap scheme to hunt down a gypsy’s bauble. Anne had a remarkable ability to lose her, and subsequently their, chaperone.

  Katherine could not, however, bring herself to take the necessary steps to move onto the frozen patch of ice. She wet her lips. “I can’t do it,” she whispered.

  Anne passed a searching gaze over Katherine’s face. The annoyance seemed to seep from her sister’s pretty blue eyes to be replaced by a momentary contriteness. “They passed an elephant across just yesterday,” she said on a rush.

  Katherine shook her head. Even the custom of leading an elephant from one end of the river to the Blackfriar’s Bridge did little to alleviate her fears. What if the enormous creature merely was fortunate enough to miss the single thin patch? What if…?

  “Please,” Anne said, her eyes imploring.

  Ever the romantic, bold-spirited of the sisters, Anne had always managed to drag Katherine along on whatever flights of fancy she was set on. Because if Katherine was being truthful with even just herself, she yearned to be so lighthearted and adventurous.

  And because it was nearly Christmastide, and the cool, crisp winter air infused her with holiday excitement; Katherine took a tentative step onto the ice. Her breath caught and held in her chest…

  And nothing happened.

  She released the pent up breath, and took another step. Then another. Each step more freeing than the next.

  Anne laughed. She took Katherine’s hand and raised it to her chest. “See, Kat, why there is nothing to be afraid of!” She paused, forcing Katherine to a halt and perused the barbers’, butchers’, and bakers’ tents along the frozen waterway.

  There had to be very nearly thirty tents, perhaps more. Ever the optimist, however, Anne looked over at Katherine with a wide grin. “Come along then. We’ll never find the pendant standing here.”

  They weaved their way in between the couples skating upon the ice, onward toward the boisterous vendors loudly peddling their wares.

  “Would ye ladies care for an ale?” a young merchant called out to them. He held out two tankards of ale, a wide-gap toothed grin on his pockmarked face.

  “No, thank you,” Katherine murmured automatically.

  Her sister shot her a reproachful look. “You are so very rude, Katherine.”

  Katherine blinked. “I am not rude.”

  “Well pompous, then.” Anne gestured to the young man in his frayed trousers, who stood at the entrance of his vibrant crimson tent. “That young man is merely trying to earn his livelihood, and you’d condescend him.”

  “I am not condescending him.” A defensive note threaded Katherine’s words.

  “Just because he isn’t as neatly put together, as the other vendors.”

  The young man seemed to hear Anne’s not so discreetly spoken words, for he cocked his head, and his smile dipped into a frown.

  Katherine reached into her reticule and withdrew several coins. “Here, sir. Two ales, please,” she said, with a glare for Anne. She most certainly had not been condescending the young man, and she most certainly was not rude or pompous. She merely recognized the folly of two, unchaperoned young ladies purchasing spirits of any sort, in the very public event.

  The peddler’s smile reappeared and he proceeded to hand them each a tankard.


  “ ’Ere ye are, m’ladies.”

  Katherine handed the coins off to the man, and accepted her ale. As she cautiously picked her way over the ice, trailing after her excited sister’s much more hurried movements, she sipped her ale. She grimaced at the bitter taste of the brew upon her tongue, but then tried another. And another. And by the fourth, it really wasn’t all that bitter, but rather a tad sweet, and a good-deal too delicious.

  Anne paused alongside a purple tent lined with black stripes. “I will speak to this vendor.” She hesitated, chewing at her lower lip.

  Oh, dear. Katherine recognized her sister’s distracted movement.

  “We shall never manage to speak to all the merchants before dark falls.”

  The first bells of warning rang in Katherine’s head.

  “It would be much wiser if…”

  The ringing grew louder.

  “We speak to different peddlers.”

  Katherine took another sip, and frowned as she realized her tankard was empty.

  “Katherine?”

  Her head shot up, as she pondered her sister. What had Anne said? Katherine knew there had been a bad idea there, but the warmth that filled her from the ale had also warmed her resolve and stolen her ability to think with the clarity she usually prided herself upon. “Er, yes, fabulous idea,” she said, instead.

  Anne’s eyes widened, and then her smile grew. “Lovely!” She stuck her finger toward a nearby sapphire blue tent. “Off you go, then.”

  Without waiting to see if Katherine followed her succinct instructions, Anne turned around and slipped inside the purple tent lined with black stripes.