When Elsinore Cosgrove escapes a ballroom in search of adventure, she has no idea it will lead to a hasty marriage. The youngest daughter of a duke, all she wants is to make her own choices. Now she’s engaged to an infuriating, handsome Scottish baron who doesn’t even know her name! Using all her feminine wiles, along with advice gleaned from a training guide for hunting hounds, Elsinore is determined to mold her baron into the husband she wants.Quin Graham is a man with many secrets. If another scandal can be avoided with a sham marriage, so be it. Only his fiancee isn’t at all what he expected and the clumsy, curious, and clever Elsinore refuses to be set aside. For reasons he’s unwilling to explain, the last thing Quin needs is to fall in love with his wife.
“How long do neglected brides wait before they’re allowed to retire?” This particular subject was sorely missing from her recollection of Oglethorpe’s. There had been a chapter about building trust between hound and master, but she could not recall how to repair the bond of trust once it had been broken.
“None of that now, little sister, he’ll be here,” Imogen reassured her.
“He will, if he knows what’s good for him,” her mother added, her voice betraying her distress for the first time that morning. “Your brother has gone to look for him.”
Feeling suddenly short of breath, Elsinore reached up and touched the gold necklace her not-quite-husband had handed to her on the day of his proposal. Everyone else thought it lovely, but to her it was nothing more than a symbol of falsehood and lies. She lied to him, he lied to her, and they all lied to each other. Would it ever end?
“And if they don’t find him?” Her knees began to tremble. His absence settled everything. She’d be quietly sent off to one of her father’s country estates to live her life
away from polite society—a slightly tarnished woman left to survive on the capricious whims of her male relatives. She should be happy, she supposed, but she wasn’t.
“Papa is ready to call him out. The only acceptable excuse for not being here is that he’s already dead.” Verona took her turn at fussing with Elsinore’s veil.
Dead? Had her father already struck him down? “I need to sit,” Elsinore whispered. She was pushed into a chair just before her knees gave out.
“Fetch a vinaigrette,” her mother shrieked, “she’s fainted dead away!”
“Mama, I only needed to sit…” Her protest was cut short by a commotion in the hallway, and she looked up to see Lord Graham striding into the room with her father, her brother, and all four brothers-in-law following on his heels.
“My apologies for being late, Your Grace,” Quin addressed the duchess, bowing low and ignoring his bride. “I have been engaged in a most illuminating discussion with my solicitor, and time got the better of me, I’m afraid.” Quin handed his hat to a footman and began removing
his gloves slowly, pulling one finger loose at a time. Only then did he turn to face her. “Good morning…Elsinore.”
The cold, raw anger radiating from his stare struck her to the core. Her father’s face reflected the bitter disappointment that she’d seen all too often lately. Even her sisters’ husbands looked peevish and irate. It was all her fault.
The room began to spin.
Diana Lloyd, mother of gingers, first of her name, is a stay-at-home wife, a hockey mom, and writer of stories with kissing in them. Diana defends her writing time like a rabid goalie while simultaneously volunteering for things she doesn’t really have time for. Diana is a member of Hearts Through History chapter of Romance Writers of America and was a 2017 RWA Golden Heart Finalist. Her Regency romp, HOW TO TRAIN YOUR BARON, the first book in the “What Happens In the Ballroom” series, is scheduled for publication in July 2018. Connect with Diana on Twitter at @DianaLloydBooks, or give her a shout-out on Facebook at www.facebook.com/DianaLloydBooks.
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