Do you love historical romance novels?

Edmund, Earl of Warenne, accepts a challenge to win an impossible wager. At the risk of losing his favourite snuff box and being saddled with an ugly wife, Edmund agrees to court a desperate old maid sight unseen, and have his honourable marriage proposal rejected in front of witnesses...

Miss Lily Leigh's life is like a badly written fairytale. When her parents die she's enslaved to Rosamund, her heartless older sister. After more than a decade of pain and humiliation, the only thing that keeps her going is the hope that one day she'll catch another glimpse of Mr Penryth Bowen, the man her sister jilted eighteen years ago.

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Miss Eve Venables knows nothing about the man who's persuaded her parents to deliver her to a country church in the middle of the night, not even his name. Her parents have wisely withheld his identity knowing their daughter would hunt him down and give the man cause to change his mind. Four men in black hooded cloaks escort Eve up the aisle where she's married by proxy to a man named Adam Harold Damian Latham, sixth Earl of Latham.

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Marshall Godfrey the 8th Viscount Raynham is in need of a wife, but his strenuous efforts to acquire one through normal channels have failed. He’s out of patience and out of time. His twin sisters are being launched into society, but he can only hear within a very short distance. His plan is to hire a woman to hover at his shoulder and repeat into his ear what people are saying, but he can’t take a secretary into polite society.

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The wealthy Miss Juliana Browne has a number of problems; she's twenty-five, her hair is red, she’s on the shelf, life is hateful and her only known admirer is Hervey De Vere, a freckled orange haired fortune hunter who looks eighteen. After three years of continuous snubs, he’s still chasing her with endless offers of gallantry and proposals of marriage. When Juliana's mother suggests she solve her problems by marrying the said Hervey, Juliana is revolted until her mother reveals that Hervey has a reputation as a charming, attentive and discreet lover.

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Geoffrey Lyndsey Grayson, the thirteen Duke of Lyndhurst, is trapped in an emotional winter. His childhood dream of finding love is frozen under thick sheets of ice along with his heart. He feels nothing but discomfort as he passively waits for death to end the nothingness. He knows it's too late for love...

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Timothy Cranston’s heart is bone dry; reason enough to hate the world. He hates everyone, especially his two Elizabethan ancestors who’ve been cursed to ensure ten generations of their progeny marry for love. The absence of privacy has soured Timothy's tender introverted heart. He's resolved to die a bachelor; any other ending is unthinkable. As far as Timothy is concened, love is a myth made up by old ladies to inflict feelings of failure on the young.

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This free short story is an introduction to John Smirke, who is the main character in my full-length novel, An Unlikely Hero.

This story is recommended reading prior to reading An Unlikely Hero.

John Smirke’s black marble heart has an insatiable need to be loved and admired, but his only developed talent is causing creative misery. Outside his immediate family he’s universally hated. The word love has no emotional definition in his brain while the word romance can only be conceived as a state of heightened sexual pleasure. As he meets death at the end of a rapier in a senseless duel of honour he belatedly longs to find a woman who can love him, whatever that means.

It is recommended that you read Introducing Smirke before commencing this book.

Read four free chapters now.