A Spinster by the Sea Read online

  “You’d best concede, Anne,” Lily said. “You cannot have a spinster duke on your conscience.”

  Tindale kissed Anne’s hand, batted his lashes, and looked like he was preparing to do the bended-knee bit again.

  “I concede,” Anne said, barely restraining her laughter. “Two weeks, meaning two weeks from this very day, I will become your duchess. But they will be a long two weeks, Tindale.”

  Her intended kept hold of her hand as every guest in the ballroom came up to wish them well. When the dancing began, Tindale ignored protocol and danced only with his intended, and not a soul—not a gossip, not a tattler, not a matchmaker, nor a footman—remarked the duke and his prospective duchess’s choice.

  Two weeks later, Augustus, Duke of Tindale, married Miss Anne Baxter in a chapel overlooking the sea. All present agreed that the bride and groom were clearly a love match, and those guests were absolutely, entirely correct!

  What happens when the proprietress of a seaside inn discovers the romantic charmer she's been corresponding with is the same villain turning her beloved hotel into a gaming hell? Find out in LOVE LETTERS BY THE SEA!

  To My Dear Readers

  I first met Augustus and Anne as secondary characters in a novella titled, Architect of My Dreams. That tale can be found in one of my Republished Regency duets, Gentleman Seeks a Lady. I learned just enough backstory about Augustus to know he was deserving of his own true love. Then Erica Ridley and I started trading ideas about the Siren’s Retreat Novella Quartet, and who should come strolling along the beach, but Augustus himself?

  If you found A Spinster by the Sea all on its lonesome, the complete series is (read in any order):

  * * *

  A Tryst by the Sea—Grace Burrowes (March 1, 2022)

  An Affair by the Sea—Erica Ridley (March 15, 2022)

  A Spinster by the Sea—Grace Burrowes (March 29, 2022)

  LOVE LETTERS BY THE SEA—Erica Ridley (April 12, 2022)

  * * *

  I’ve included an excerpt from LOVE LETTERS BY THE SEA below.

  If you are in the mood for a longer happily ever after, Never A Duke, Book Seven in the Rogues to Riches series comes out April 26, and I’ve included an excerpt from that tale below as well. If you enjoy historical mysteries with a romantic series arc, you might be interested to know that I’ve just published the first six Lady Violet Mysteries. You can read more about the initial title, Lady Violet Investigates, on my website.

  And if you are wondering what’s up in the Mischief in Mayfair series, book four, Miss Desirable, comes out in June (May from my web store). Monsieur Xavier Fournier and Miss Catherine Fairchild are not looking for entanglement or complications, but they just might be in need of some true love. Order your copy here!

  I anticipate more Mischief in Mayfair and more Regency sleuthing with Lady Violet and friends later in the year. If you’d like to keep track of my new releases, discounts, and web store special offers, following me on Bookbub is probably the easiest way to do that. I also publish a newsletter about once a month (unsubscribing is easy), and I have a Deals page on my website where I post any early web store releases, freebies, or discounts.

  However you like to keep in touch, I wish you, as always…

  Happy reading!

  Grace Burrowes

  * * *

  Read on for an excerpt from LOVE LETTERS BY THE SEA!

  Love Letters by the Sea—Excerpt

  LOVE LETTERS BY THE SEA – By Erica Ridley

  * * *

  When not responding to advice column letters, entrepreneurial widow Mrs. Deborah Cartwright runs the bright, beautiful Siren’s Retreat inn, legendary for helping her lovelorn guests find their perfect match. Deborah experienced love years before, and lightning does not strike twice. Although there might be a light flirtation with a certain anonymous letter-writer she’s definitely not falling for, there’s no time for romance. Not whilst a heartless blackguard is in town to wrest her beloved inn out from under her!

  * * *

  Clever, career-minded Mr. Patrick Gretham is the trusted man-of-business for a powerful lord, who is eager to turn this perfectly situated property wasted on lovebirds into a gambling hell the likes of which no one leaves with their fortunes intact. Over Deborah’s dead body! The beautiful proprietress hates everything Patrick stands for and will fight him every step of the way. Except when they find themselves on opposite sides of a plume. Or falling into each other’s embrace…

  * * *

  …Mr. Gretham reared back in horror. “You gave up a promising career as the main attraction in an opera with national acclaim…for a man?”

  “I didn’t ‘give up’,” Deborah protested defensively, although she had in fact quit the opera that same night. “And it wasn’t just ‘for a man.’ I chose love. Siren’s Retreat—”

  “—is not the opera. Your stage has shrunk to a three-foot by six-foot space behind a wooden counter. Your audience is now whomever pauses long enough to make a reservation or sign the registry.”

  “That’s a horrid interpretation of my life.” She gestured at the sand and sea around them. “I’m not at Siren’s Retreat now, am I? I give tours on occasion. I don’t live in a box.”

  “Don’t you? How ‘occasionally’ do you offer tours? Before today, when was the last time you escaped your box for more than an hour or two?”

  She crossed her arms and glared at him. There was nothing truthful she could say to refute his unsolicited observations.

  “I don’t mean to judge,” he said, his voice soft.

  “You’re judging,” she said flatly.

  “I’m definitely judging,” he agreed. “I just don’t mean to. If you tell me giving up your love of singing professionally was the right decision for you, and that you never once regretted trading that life for this one…I’ll believe you.”

  She rubbed her arms. “How can anyone know, at the moment of making a life-changing decision, whether they’re making the right one? Any choice inherently means not choosing the other option. No matter which path you take, it would be perfectly normal for a small, fanciful part of you to occasionally wonder…”

  “It’s not too late. You’re young. The opera—”

  “It’s definitely too late. I’m thirty-five. The opera was fifteen years ago and firmly in my past. Siren’s Retreat is my present.”

  “It doesn’t sound like a present to me. It sounds like a lot of work for less fame and fortune. If you suddenly found yourself with unexpected time on your hands, I should hope that you would consider the possibility resuming your dreams and doing something active with your talent.”

  “As you correctly—and infuriatingly—pointed out,” she said dryly, “I never have free time on my hands.”

  “But if you did,” he insisted. “Your life wouldn’t be over. It would simply be the beginning of a new act.”

  She tilted her head and considered him. He seemed oddly passionate about her happiness and well-being. As if he wanted to be certain that no matter what happened, she would thrive.

  But why should he think otherwise? She was thriving here in Brighton. Siren’s Retreat was a popular destination—and soon to be more financially sound than ever.

  “I’m truly happy,” she assured him. “Siren’s Retreat is my life, and it is a good life. I wouldn’t wish to do anything else, or to be anywhere else. I wake up every morning grateful that this is the path I chose. It’s the right one for me.”

  He did not look assuaged by her assurances. “Mrs. Cartwright—”

  “Deborah,” she corrected with a chuckle. “If I am to be baring my heart to you.”

  “Patrick.” He took her hands in his and held them tight. “I have no right—none at all—”

  She waited, but he said nothing more. Just gripped her hands and stared at her beseechingly, belligerently, besottedly. As if he were confused and angry and half in love all at the same time and would rather not be any of it.

  Deborah wanted him to see she had no such anguish. She was very happy—very!—with no regrets at all, none, not for a single moment. She certainly was not plagued by sudden indecision or fighting unexpected amorous impulses. Not for her dearest LostInLondon, and certainly not for handsome Mr. Gretham…er, Patrick…whom she’d first-named in a fit of…

  Nothing. Deborah didn’t have fits of any kind. Her world was steady, predictable, unchanging. Fulfilling. Her life was already one hundred percent fulfilling.

  As for walking away at any time from the earnest gentlemen standing right before her… well, that was a little trickier. In part because her hands were clutched in his. Possibly clutching him right back.

  Which, again, was not romantic in any way. This long, leisurely stroll along the most picturesque beach in all of Brighton contained no hidden meaning.

  She was just a humble proprietress on the hunt for a big fish in order to pay her rent. And Patrick was the big fish. Or at least, the medium-sized fish who worked for the bigger fish. This was business, not pleasure.

  None of which explained why he had taken her hands in his so passionately.

  Or why she had left them there, to be caressed gently by the pads of his thumbs. As if he were just as resistant to romance—and just as powerless to stop himself.

  “Deborah,” he said softly.

  His eyes were heavy-lidded and unblinking. Drinking her in, as if her face was the elixir of life. As though he were thinking about kissing her. As if she might let him.

  He leaned closer. Definitely considering kissing her. And clearly unsure if she would let him—or if it was a wise decision, even if both parties were willing.

  Which she wasn’t. She’d had and then lost the only man for her. She’d never know love like that again or hold a partner tight in an embrace. Her lips would never again kiss, or be kissed.

  All of which was why she was going to put Patrick in his place right this second. Before he got any further ideas. Before he tried something.

  Before she stood here and let him.

  * * *

  Order your copy of LOVE LETTERS BY THE SEA, and read on for an excerpt from Never a Duke!

  Never a Duke—Excerpt

  Never a Duke—Book Seven in the Rogues to Riches series by Grace Burrowes

  * * *

  Ned Wentworth, de facto manager of His Grace of Walden’s banks, has been summoned from his duties by a note from an anonymous lady claiming to need his aid and offering to compensate him for his efforts…

  * * *

  What could a well born lady have that would make troubling on her behalf worth Ned’s while? He gathered up the dog’s leash, bowed a farewell to Lord Stephen, and strode off for the park.

  The scene along Serpentine put Ned in mind of Burns’s admonition about the best laid plans, for on the third bench along the water’s edge sat none other than Lady Rosalind Kinwood in all her prim, tidy glory.

  She was the farthest thing from a damsel, and a stranger to distress unless she was instigating it. Her devotion to various causes was both articulate and unwavering. Her ladyship of course occupied the one bench in all of London she should not occupy at the one hour when Ned needed her to be elsewhere.

  He bowed and touched a finger to his hat brim. “My lady, good day. Might I join you for a moment? The water makes a lovely prospect and the dog could use the respite.”

  She twitched her skirts aside. “We haven’t much time. I sent my companion off to purchase corn for the water fowl, and she’ll be back any minute.”

  Doom yawned before Ned, the same sensation that had enveloped him when as a boy, he’d been grabbed by the collar after a bungled attempt at snatching a purse. One blunder, and he’d been tossed into Newgate, his life over, his prospects forever ruined.

  Lady Rosalind wasn’t nearly so dire a fate, but not for lack of trying. She was the scourge of fortune hunters, the worst nightmare of climbing cits, the subject of witty pub songs, and the despair of the matchmakers.

  Ned unfastened Hercules’s leash, and let the dog go nosing off along the bank. “You sent me that note?”

  “Don’t you dare sit,” she snapped. “Your presumption will be noted by every busybody in the Home Counties and the gossips will have us engaged before Monday.”

  Clearly, an awful fate as far as her ladyship was concerned, and Ned agreed with her. “I heeded your plea for help out of an abundance of gentlemanly concern. Say your piece and nobody need fear Monday’s arrival.”

  She huffed out a sigh, and because Ned was studying the curve of her resolute jaw, he noticed what half the bachelors in London had noticed late at night after a few philosophy-inducing brandies: Lady Rosalind, for all her tart tongue and waspish opinions, was well formed, and her features would not have been out place on a Renaissance tapestry. Features like that could entice otherwise wary unicorns to have a closer look.

  The Almighty was nothing, if not perverse in His generosity.

  She watched the dog, who snuffled about the reeds near the water’s edge. “My lady’s maid has gone missing.”

  “So you summoned a banker? Did she go missing in a Wentworth establishment?”

  “Don’t be odious. Bad things happen to young women who go missing.”

  “Elopements?” Ned replied. “New posts? A return to village life and the adoring swain who pined away in silence when his beloved left him for the blandishments of the capital?”

  Lady Rosalind rose. “You trivialize a tragedy. I thought you would understand. Arbuckle is a village girl, but she’s been in London long enough to know its dangers. She needed her wages, and believe me, the post paid well.”

  And she had the effrontery to leave your employ without notice? But no, Ned could not say that. He might never be a gentleman in the eyes of Mayfair society, much less a duke, but he could be civil to an obviously upset woman.

  “What exactly is it that you expect me to do?”

  Lady Rosalind gave him a brooding perusal. She was neither tall nor short, but she carried her ire before her like regimental colors. Her temper directed itself to bumbling younger sons, drunken baronets, the monarch’s extravagances, and countless other targets. In the main, Ned agreed with her exasperation, as most of her peers doubtless did.

  But a young lady did not remark on such matters until she was safely married and presiding over her nursery, and then she mentioned them to only her closest friends and in strictest confidence.

  “I had hoped you could find her,” Lady Rosalind said. “I cannot. I have tried, but the grooms and crossing sweepers won’t talk to me, my brothers won’t listen to me, my father is threatening to send me to take the waters with Aunt Ida. Arbuckle has nobody else to worry for her, and she could be in very great danger.”

  Ned whistled for the dog, who trotted to his side like the well-trained beast he was. “And you believe the crossing sweepers and such will talk to me?” He’d been managing the Wentworth banks since finishing that purgatory known as university studies. He had some wealth of his own; he spoke French, German, and Mayfair passably well, and he was accounted a competent dancer.

  But Lady Rosalind had sought him out because his native language was Cockney and his home county was the stews. Still. Society never flung his origins in his face, but they never flung their marriageable daughters at him either.

  “Arbuckle is pretty,” Lady Rosalind said, gaze fixed on the mirror-calm surface of the Serpentine. “She has lovely features and a quick mind. She’s sweet and quiet, not like me, and that means she’s at greater risk of harm.”

  Ned sensed in Lady Rosalind’s words an admission of sorts, an insight into the woman whom most of society invited to their gatherings out of unwillingness to offend her titled father.

  “You fear for her.”

  “I do, terribly.”

  The calm façade wavered, as Hercules panted gently at Ned’s side. For an instant Lady Rosalind looked not affronted, not impatient, not any of her usual repertoire of prickly expressions, but desperate.

  Ned knew desperation well and hated it in all of its guises. That Lady Rosalind, termagant at large and spinster without compare, was in the grip of desperation affronted him.

  “I’ll see what I can find out.”

  “Thank you.” Two words, though like all of Lady Rosalind’s other pronouncements, Ned believed she meant them. “There is more to the situation than I can convey at the moment, and I am so worried.”

  “I apprehend that your companion approaches.” At a good clip, just shy of a trot. “I will shop tomorrow at Hatchards among the biographies at ten of the clock. Prepare to recount for me all you know of the situation.”

  He snapped the leash back onto Hercules’s collar.

  “Thank you, Mr. Wentworth. Thank you so very much.”

  Ned tipped his hat and sauntered on his way, though some dim back corner of his heart put those words of thanks in a special hiding place, where they would be well guarded and much treasured.

  * * *

  Order your copy of Never a Duke!

 

 

  Grace Burrowes, A Spinster by the Sea

 

 

  Thank you for reading books on Archive.BookFrom.Net
Share this book with friends