Second Chances

SECOND CHANCES

An anthology of four previously published novellas, including “Another Dream,” a Bedwyn story, featuring Eleanor Thompson, sister-in-law of surely my best-known, best-loved character, Wulfric Bedwyn, Duke of Bewcastle. Most of the Bedwyns make an appearance in the story.

Another Dream

Eleanor Thompson, spinster head of a girls’ school in Bath, is not as content with her chosen life as she had expected when she purchased the school from its previous owner. She is restless and a bit lonely. On her way to a house party to celebrate the 40th birthday of her brother-in-law, Wulfric Bedwyn, Duke of Bewcastle, she is stranded by a torrential thunderstorm at a country inn and enjoys a brief romance with a gentleman who is staying there with his two young children. When they continue on their separate ways the next day, neither realizes that they are bound for the same destination.

The Treasure Hunt

Constance Manning is eagerly looking forward to her twentieth birthday and the return home of the man who has been her best friend all her life—and for some time, her secret fiancé. They plan to make the public announcement of their betrothal at her birthday party. Her betrothed, however, is having second thoughts and in a fit of cowardice sends his elder brother ahead of him to make his excuses—the brother who has secretly loved Constance for a number of years.

The Forbidden Daffodils

For five years Kate Buchanan has been living with her aunts in a remote part of Wales, where she was exiled by her father after she was embroiled in a scandal in London. She has come to love being there and has convinced herself that she is happy. That conviction is put to the test, however, when the Marquess of Ashendon takes up residence nearby and insists upon showing both her aunts and her marked attention. He also happens to be the very man who caused her banishment.

The Betrothal Ball

The Earl of Dearborne is making a rare visit to his country home to entertain house guests, among them the beautiful, alluring young lady to whom he intends to propose marriage. When he meets Laura Melfort, his young ward’s governess, he considers her everything he most abhors in a woman. She is intelligent, well-read, plainly dressed—and she speaks her mind. Yet it is the governess to whose company he finds himself drawn even while she irritates him and does nothing whatsoever to attract him.  It is the governess with whom he chooses to waltz at his own betrothal ball.