Tag: Christmas Romance

Greetings Lovely Readers,

Christmastide is almost upon us, and with that comes house parties, games, wassail, and… seduction. This is a tale that began six or seven years ago. Our younger readers may want to ask their elders regarding the earlier details.

It concerns a certain viscount who was once rumored to be close to an “announcement” with Lady C. Much to everyone’s surprise, while the viscount was away, his rakish best friend took the reins. Poor Lord P returned to find his heart’s desire betrothed to Lord W.

The forlorn Lord P spent the next year drinking away his sorrows until Lord W. unexpectedly died. (Perhaps not too unexpected considering Lord W’s propensity for gambling, drinking, and dangerous vices.) We waited to see the original couple reunited, but the said widow fled to the country and away from prying eyes and pushy viscounts.

Blink those lashes and move ahead to the present. This widow has grown quite the reputation for annual house parties. Only this upcoming event has a very short and unique guest list. Even more interesting is the invitation. Lady W challenges the guests to a series of contests, and she will accept the proposal of the winner.

Guess who was seen riding pell-mell to Lady W’s country estate? On the eve of Christmas Day? According to our sources, an unrequited love may soon be resolved. Will the banns soon be read for Lord P and Lady W? Or will the viscount accept a final defeat and leave the widow to her own vices?

Stay tuned for the results of this passion puzzle. We’ll be waiting to see who is left standing after the wassail is gone and the yule log has been snuffed out.

A Scoundrel’s Christmas Challenge

By Aubrey Wynne

A contest to win her fortune…

Lady Winfield, a wealthy widow of six years, is infamous for her outrageous house parties. While hosting her annual Christmastide gathering, Christiana proposes a new game: a daily challenge of her choice. She will accept the proposal of the man who can best her at three or more competitions by Twelfth Night. Though all agree to the diversion, no one expects the games to include marksmanship, archery, and fencing.

A contest to win her heart…

Lucius, Viscount Page has held a torch for the countess since his university days. But he doused the flames of passion after she married his best friend. Ten years later, the embers begin a slow burn when he learns Christiana may be ready for another husband. Lucius, determined not to waste this second chance at love, presents the audacious Lady Winfield with a secret challenge that she can’t resist.

Will their midnight rendezvous and private contests end in certain victory for one or a dual attraction for both?

Excerpt:

“Brother,” cried William, “it’s good to see you again. My apologies for not being able to meet you at White’s before you left London.”

“Happy Christmas,” Lucius said as they thumped one another on the back. “Have you just arrived?”

“Yes. We ran into Nettie and Weston outside.” Will turned to the man beside him. “May I introduce Mr. Charles Wilkens, whom I work with in London. If you ever need a solicitor, he’s your man. Charles, this is my brother Lord Page.”

“Mr. Wilkens.” Lucius inclined his head. William was a barrister, and solicitors often required him to present a legal action for a client. But Will was supposed to be bringing the final suitor for his sister. “Where is…”

“The gentleman was unable to make it. However, I ran into Charles on his way to another house party. So, I convinced him to stay with us a night before he continued on to Falcon Hall.” Will grinned, his hazel eyes twinkling as he mentioned the location.

Falcon Hall.

Lucius’s head snapped up. “Are you well acquainted with Lady Winfield?” he asked, ignoring the mad thumping of his heart.

“No, my lord. My uncle, Sir Horace Franklin, has been trying to buy two slate mines from her. It’s in Wales and close to two that he owns. She has put him off for over two years, and then he received an invitation to her estate over Christmastide.” Charles shrugged. He was tall with brown hair, kind brown eyes, and a genuine smile. Lucius liked him immediately.

“It seems one must have a personal invite to be admitted. The wording is quite cryptic.” Will grinned at his friend. “Would you mind showing it to him?”

Charles set down his satchel, opened it, and pulled out a thick lavender card with holly and ivy entwined around the edges. He handed it to Lucius.

Admits bearer to the private house party

Of the Countess of Winfield at Falcon Hall.

Guests shall arrive 24 December.

The competition for the desired prize begins 25 December thru 6 January.

Lady Winfield will only accept the proposal of the gentleman

Claiming victory of three or more challenges.

The favor of an answer is requested.

His mouth fell open. What was the chit up to? The vague wording of this left too many questions. Marriage? “Mr. Wilkens, I have questions and a proposition for you.”

Buy link:

https://books2read.com/scoundrelschristmaschallenge

About the Author

USA Today Bestselling author Aubrey Wynne resides in the Midwest with her husband, dogs, horses, mule, and barn cats. Obsessions include wine, history, travel, trail riding, and all things Christmas. Her Chicago Christmas series and historical romances have received multiple awards and nominations as a Rone finalist by InD’tale Magazine.

Aubrey’s first love is medieval romance but after dipping her toe in the Regency period in 2018 with the Wicked Earls’ Club, she was smitten. This inspired her sweet Regency spin-off series Once Upon a Widow, and a steamy Scottish Regency series, A MacNaughton Castle Romance. Her Regency detective series, Paddy’s Peelers, will launch in 2025.

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Can Love Be Blind?

By Alina K. Field

On October 16, 2024

In Teatime Tattler

A Scandalous Rogue has been rescued in Hampshire!

Dearest Readers,

You will hardly need reminding of the scandalous doings of Mr. James Thornton some years past, who refused to marry his betrothed, the lovely Miss Plimpton, even on pain of suit! The rapscallion blithely paid the financial damages but has found the social costs not so easy to dismiss. After having respectable doors closed to him for so long, however, reports have reached me that one family at least has been willing to shelter this man of dubious reputation: Sir Miles and Lady Arden of Ardenmere, Hampshire.

Now, now, before we storm the baronet’s gates, let me say in their defense that they were constrained by charity, Thornton having gravely injured himself in a hunting accident. If his life had not been in danger, they would never have relented, I am certain, not only for their own sake, but also because they have staying with them Miss Blinker of Winchester, an unmarried friend of the family.

Lady Arden reports that though she is sorry Mr. Thornton has been afflicted with blindness among his other injuries, she cannot but be grateful his condition will protect her guest from any attempts on her heart or virtue.

I am certain all well-meaning readers will join her in this hope, for how ill-mannered would it be to remind Lady Arden of blindness being Love’s proverbial status quo?

Yours in concern,

A Hampshire Neighbor

A Winter’s Romance: A Regency Anthology

“Epiphany Day” is a short story found in A Winter’s Romance: a Regency Anthology

Can blindness and deception keep them from love? When scandalous James Thornton suffers an accident, he is carried broken and unconscious to Ardenmere, where schoolteacher Eliza Blinker is spending her holidays. All hands are required to nurse the patient, but for Eliza’s protection Lady Arden insists she pose as an older, plainer woman. Blinded as he is, Thornton may be told anything, after all. But what if love truly is blind, and he begins to care for Eliza despite what he’s been led to believe?

Available for preorder on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Winters-Romance-Regency-Anthology-ebook/dp/B0DG3R12L1

About the Author

Christina Dudley is the author of two complete series of sweet Regency romances, The Hapgoods of Bramleigh and The Ellsworth Assortment, as well as contemporary Austen adaptation Pride and Preston Lin. Her novels have been called “sparkling,” “swoon-worthy,” and “compulsively readable” (Publishers Weekly). Pride and Preston Lin was the February 2024 Fiction Editor’s Pick for Kirkus Reviews (starred review) and chosen as a 2024 Top 10 Best Debut Romance by Booklist (starred review).

Goings-on at Lord C’s Estate

By Alina K. Field

On November 25, 2023

In Teatime Tattler

My dear Clarissa,

Such goings on we have had here in Kent at F Manor with our new Lord C and his mother and their house party guests!

We, of course were invited tonight to dinner and the ball that followed. Lord C’s mother, Mrs. Y, puts on such airs, if you ask me, and was in a fair snit when the weather gods had the nerve to spoil her plans for a late night of dancing. It was a perilous and very wet walk home—yes, my beloved refused to take out the carriage—and though I was soaked and chilled to my bones, I could not rest tonight until I put pen to paper and write to you.

I tell you, Clarissa, there is something funny about that woman, Mrs. Y, and that household, with servants coming and going as if Lord C… Well, anyone could see that his attention was on one guest in particular, a Scots lady, in a very fine gown though I couldn’t work out whether she fancied him or not.

There are wedding bells on the horizon, mark my words, if he can but convince that red-haired hoyden to accept, and if he can untie his mother’s apron strings. Not that Mrs. Y would condescend to wear one of those.

But oh, what a grand pool of interesting tidbits there were, for those who could see, like you and me, my dearest friend. No less than a duke and his duchess, a marquess—a very shady one if I do say so, and I do—and our Sir H, (you remember I wrote that he is home now?) whispering in the corner with the shady marquess’s sister.

What occurred after we left? And what will the morrow bring? I have fortuitously left behind my vinaigrette—my old one, not the silver filigree case you sent me for Christmas. My Betsy will fetch it back for me tomorrow, along with whatever news she can learn. She is very good at ferreting out information.

I just may have a juicy ondit for Mr. Clemens at the Teatime Tattler!

I must hasten to bed. My lord and master is calling.

Your dear friend,

Harriet

The Earl’s Scottish Hoyden

When her family’s business reunites a Scottish lass with the English earl who jilted her last Christmas, she vows, by all means, to protect her heart.

Edme Beecham was not disappointed in love last Christmas when Lord Cottingwith abruptly departed the Duke of Kinmarty’s Yuletide party. No, the Earl was too old to be so shy, but there it was. He’d latched on to her own talkative self because he’d found Edme, a girl among a multitude of brothers of all ages, comfortable company.

Thus, when an invitation to join a Yuletide party at Furningwood, his family’s estate, arrives, she’s alarmed to feel her hopes rising, and determined to stay home. But the earl is a valuable political and business connection, and her brother insists she go.

After one youthful lapse, Trenton Yardley, Earl of Cottingwith, has set about being a better man than his late uncle and cousin, and restoring the fortunes of his family, without submitting himself to the sort of fortune-hunting marriage his mother wants for him. He has a secret, and only the right woman will do for him, one with a generous heart and a sense of humor. He’d thought he’d found her last year in Edme Beecham, but an emergency had called him home before he could press his suit further.

The cold, aloof girl who appears at his home for Christmas could not be his Scottish hoyden, could she?

The Earl’s Scottish Hoyden is a standalone romance, Book 5 in The Upstart Christmas Brides Series.

Release day is December 5, 2023.

Universal Pre-order Link:

https://books2read.com/TheEarlsScottishHoyden

About the author

USA Today bestselling author and Bluestocking Belle Alina K. Field earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English and German literature but prefers the happier world of romance fiction. Her roots are in the Midwestern U.S., but after six very, very, very cold years in Chicago, she moved to Southern California where she shares a midcentury home with a golden-eyed terrier and a feisty chihuahua.