The Accidental Servants is now available as a delightful audiobook, read by the talented Katherine Anderson. Ms. Anderson divides her time between France and England, so she was just perfect for this Ellsworth Assortment prequel, telling the story of how Charles and Jeanne Ellsworth came to be married.
Available wherever you find your audiobooks, you can listen to a sample of the prologue here on Soundcloud.
Summer 1805. Now that Frances Barstow is twenty, her benefactress decides it is time for her to marry and has even chosen her a suitable bachelor. The only problem? He’s as slow-witted and vacuous as he is handsome! Not a match for the clever Frances.
With no pressing interest in marriage, Adam Hearne was willing to help his friend shine by comparison, even if it meant pretending to be a dunce less interesting than most vegetables.
But when a house party’s amateur theatricals throw Frances and Adam together, will their play within a play reveal their hearts before the curtain rings down?
♥♥♥Frances Sets the Fashion is a clean and wholesome traditional Regency romance, second in the Lord Dere’s Dependents series. Each book can be read as a standalone or in order.♥♥♥
Tyrone Ellsworth’s career as a literary lover-in-lieu began at university, where he found amusement and steady spending-silver in writing poetry, love letters and offers of marriage for fellow Oxonians. So when schoolmate Gareth Boulton purchases his pen in order to win the wealthy Miss Agatha Weeks, what could be the harm? The task will be all the easier, in fact, because Tyrone has known her for years as his sister’s dearest friend.
Miss Agatha Weeks has never felt for any young man what she felt for the one who broke her heart years earlier. And while she doesn’t pine for him any longer, she has begun to doubt there are any worthy, honest young men left. But then suddenly there are two! Mr. Gareth Boulton, whom she dismissed earlier as a callow fortune hunter, begins to reveal new depths in his pursuit of her. And Tyrone Ellsworth—thoughtful, scholarly, kind, comfortable through long acquaintance—if Tyrone cannot be trusted, no one can.
Murder will out, however, and so will mendacity. Can the deceiver escape the consequences of his own deception, or will the beloved deceived be lost to him forever?
Unexpected widowhood leaves Miranda Ellsworth a wealthy woman in the prime of life, but she is too busy with her son and stepdaughter and too leery of fortune hunters to marry again. So when her boy’s schoolmate entangles her with his charmer of a father, she is determined to keep her distance, no matter the unfamiliar emotions which assail her.
As a younger man, Colin Wolfe married to please his family. But now that heaven has called his wife onward and his son has gone to school, he intends to enjoy his liberty. The only problem is, his son seems to prefer another family to his own, and Colin can’t stop thinking about the quiet woman at the center of it.
Avoiding each other proves impossible when Miranda must play chaperone to her stepdaughter and the dean’s flirtatious granddaughter, but she refuses to compete with younger women for Colin’s attention. Can Colin convince the respected Miranda he has her best interests at heart and that his admiration has grown into far, far more?
Coaxed by family members to the seaside, Beatrice Ellsworth nearly loses her life in a bathing-machine mishap, only to be rescued by a quick-thinking young man. The grateful Ellsworths embrace him, and he soon steals Beatrice’s heart, despite him being engaged to another. If these are the consequences of Beatrice’s first pleasure trip, will she ever be persuaded to make another?
Penniless John Clayton was apprenticed in his adolescence to a rising engineer. Years later, when the successful man lay dying, he entrusted his orphaned daughter and her inheritance to John, encouraging them to marry when she was older. What else could John do for this man who was more than a father to him? He agreed to it all, hoping love would come later. By the time he met Beatrice Ellsworth he knew better, but by then he could no more alter his path than he could the Grand Junction Canal.
When the two meet again in London, Beatrice dutifully tries to forget him. But knowing she is the only one he can love, John struggles to find an honorable escape from his heartbreaking arrangement.
Florence Ellsworth reluctantly lives in the shadow of her family’s notoriety. Mortified that her widower father is on the hunt for his fourth wife, she accepts an engagement to a staid clergyman in the desperate hope for propriety. But she’s unprepared when her sire’s newly hired attorney proves to be young, sincere, and handsome.
Robert Fairchild feels a bit awkward in society. Aware of how his modest background is perceived, the humble lawyer is surprised by his longings when he gains the confidence of his client’s lovely daughter. But with her already betrothed to another, he dares not be dishonorable by confessing his interest and losing her respect.
Disturbed by her growing feelings for the charming solicitor, Florence works all the harder to find the appeal in her sober intended husband. Meanwhile Fairchild is inadvertently pulled into a lady’s schemes and fears any chance with the object of his affection has been forever lost.
Will they find a way out of their tender traps to capture happily ever after?
♥ The Belle of Winchester
Out of all the swains she collected, Miss Lily Ellsworth knew Mr. Gilbert Wright was the one she would choose in the end. Rich, well-connected, dashing, daring, he was exactly the sort of man to turn heads, even if he hadn’t much of one himself. Lily didn’t mind—a dim husband would be more easily controlled than a clever one. And after seeing how her father chose his several wives, Lily sometimes doubted clever men even existed.
There was the new curate of St. Eadburh’s, of course, but Mr. Simon Kenner might be altogether too clever for comfort. Where every other gentleman of Lily’s acquaintance thinks her an angel, Mr. Kenner shows an alarming tendency to catch her out. And where every other gentleman envies Mr. Wright’s favor with her, Mr. Kenner thinks his cousin is making a colossal mistake.
Between these two opponents, will either gain the whip hand, or will love defeat them both?
♥ Minta in Spite of Herself
Tomboy Miss Araminta Ellsworth and her dearest friend Aggie were the most backward graduates Mrs. Turcotte’s Seminary for Young Ladies ever produced, more interested in batting and bowling than sewing and simpering. How then could Araminta ever have predicted Aggie’s unprecedented passion for the reprobate Mr. Francis Taplin? If Minta is going to keep her friend’s person and fortune out of Taplin’s dangerous hands, she’ll need to think of something—fast.
Mr. Nicholas Carlisle has always lived in his stepbrother Francis’s shadow: at school, at university, and in his family’s prospects. So when Miss Ellsworth approaches him for aid, she finds a willing accomplice. Nicholas fashions a new personality for her, transforming her into Francis’s ideal. To this he adds a counterfeit courtship, to stir his brother’s competitive side.
Their scheme succeeds.
Wildly.
But the victory might cost them the only prize worth winning—their own chance at love.
The formerly spirited—and even wild—naval man Horace Langworthy returns to England having lost his best friend and two years of his life as a prisoner of war, only to find his childhood sweetheart engaged to another man. And though the promises made to him have been broken, he determines now on keeping his own. He will care for the widow and orphan entrusted to him by his late friend Sebastian Barstow. But his attempt at being a new man meets unexpected obstacles, including the very widow and orphan he is trying to save.
Two years after losing her beloved husband Sebastian, Sarah Barstow has learned to be content with what remains: her young son Bash and a permanent home with her late husband’s lively and affectionate family. But when little Bash falls for the new curate, Sarah wonders if she should follow suit. Certainly he would be a wiser choice than the young man who appears out of nowhere, offering to marry her and claiming Sebastian entrusted her to him! Horace Langworthy, whom Sarah always thought set such a bad example to her husband and other navy men? Utter nonsense.
But when Langworthy’s thwarted duty becomes thwarted love, can the belle-passion prove stronger than her prejudice?
She’s determined to learn from her mistakes. He’s determined to marry a girl who’s never made any. What if love has lessons for them both?
Jane Merritt’s impulsive first marriage was a thoroughgoing disaster, so much so that she vowed she would never marry again. But when a young man in every respect the opposite of her first husband appears, she discovers her heart has a will of its own.
Philip Egerton has always known the plan for his life: take his Oxford degree, win a fellowship, and serve a curacy until he comes into the living promised by his uncle, at which time he will marry his uncle’s angelic ward. Certainly a woman such as the widowed Mrs. Merritt, with her spotty past, has no place in his vision. So why does she constantly obtrude upon it?
But an unreformed rake’s attentions to Jane might be just the right arrow in Cupid’s quiver to bring this match about…
♥♥♥Mrs. Merritt’s Remorse is a clean and wholesome traditional Regency romance, second in the Lord Dere’s Dependents series. Each book can be read as a standalone or in order.♥♥♥
Clever and capable, she’s been trusted with her family’s future. But can masterful Margaret manage her own unruly heart?
With her two older sisters married, governing family affairs has fallen to capable Miss Margaret Hapgood, leaving little time for thoughts of marriage. But a trip to Bath to find her uncle a wealthy bride throws her in the path of a handsome recuperating soldier, who is equally determined to keep his mother’s fortune out of grasping hands.
♥ The Purloined Portrait ♥
She lives for her art. He has adored her as long as he’s known her. When her masterpiece goes missing, can love take its place?
Youngest of the Hapgoods of Bramleigh, Edith is more interested in art than the love of her distant cousin Lionel. As she grows as an artist, however, her own brush has something to teach her, and her portrait of Lionel not only attracts admiration and danger, but reveals to her the true state of her feelings. When it goes missing, so does a piece of her heart.
♥ A Fickle Fortune ♥
Scandal makes its own rules…
Harriet Hapgood has always delighted in arranging the lives of others, while generally doing as she pleased. And after having thwarted her cousin Caroline’s engagement the previous summer, what better way to pass a dull winter than in helping Caroline to a new husband? Her cousin sets her sights on the glittering Mr. St. John Rotherwood, so Hetty cheerfully puts her shoulder to the matchmaking wheel.
Oxfordshire, 1800. When a series of disasters strikes the Barstows, oldest daughter Adela devises a secret plan for their salvation: she will marry their elderly benefactor, Lord Dere of Perryfield. But her pursuit encounters obstacles, first in the form of the handsome household tutor, who openly disdains her efforts, and then from her own unpredictable, unruly affections.
Tutor Gerard Weatherill faces struggles of his own. Determined to shoulder his way into respectable society, he cannot let anyone draw too close, lest his own secrets be discovered. And clearly the person he must avoid above all others is the observant Miss Bristow. Observant, mischievous, marvelous Miss Bristow. But if he keeps her at arm’s length, will he lose something worth far more than his sterling reputation?
♥♥♥By His Grace and Favour is a clean and wholesome traditional Regency romance, first in the Lord Dere’s Dependents series. Each book can be read as a standalone or in order.
She’s a reluctant tourist. His future does not allow for detours. Will they find each other in the terra incognita of love?
England, 1814. Coaxed by family members to the seaside, Beatrice Ellsworth nearly loses her life in a bathing-machine mishap, only to be rescued by a quick-thinking young man. The grateful Ellsworths embrace him, and he soon steals Beatrice’s heart, despite him being engaged to another. If these are the consequences of Beatrice’s first pleasure trip, will she ever be persuaded to make another?
Penniless John Clayton was apprenticed in his adolescence to a rising engineer. Years later, when the successful man lay dying, he entrusted his orphaned daughter and her inheritance to John, encouraging them to marry when she was older. What else could John do for this man who was more than a father to him? He agreed to it all, hoping love would come later. By the time he met Beatrice Ellsworth he knew better, but by then he could no more alter his path than he could the Grand Junction Canal.
When the two meet again in London, Beatrice dutifully tries to forget him. But knowing she is the only one he can love, John struggles to find an honorable escape from his heartbreaking arrangement.
Charles Ellsworth is a young Englishman on his triumphant Grand Tour when the dissolution of his family fortunes and his own recklessness leave him stranded and in debt. He enters service as a tutor in the household of M. Tremblay, with nothing but his wits and the kindness shown him by an elderly maid to depend on.
Pretty Jeanne Martineau played ingenue roles with a traveling theatre company before the manager absconded with the receipts. Now she works as a maid for the rakish M. Tremblay to avoid starvation, but escaping his groping hands requires she don the disguise of a hideous old woman.
When Charles glimpses Jeanne without her disguise, he quickly falls for the lovely young woman, but how can she reveal the truth without them losing everything to M. Tremblay’s terrible ire and desire?
She’s hiding in plain sight. He’s disappointed his parents. Will their love grow into a tangled scandal or a beautiful blossom?
She’s beautiful but practical. He’s charismatic and disreputable. When duty conflicts with love, will their hearts win?
In the eye of the beholder…
Buy this boxed set of three happily-ever-afters today!
Winchester, England, 1812. Unexpected widowhood leaves Miranda Ellsworth a wealthy woman in the prime of life, but she is too busy with her son and stepdaughter and too leery of fortune hunters to marry again. So when her boy’s schoolmate entangles her with his charmer of a father, she is determined to keep her distance, no matter the unfamiliar emotions which assail her.
As a younger man, Colin Wolfe married to please his family. But now that heaven has called his wife onward and his son has gone to school, he intends to enjoy his liberty. The only problem is, his son seems to prefer another family to his own, and Colin can’t stop thinking about the quiet woman at the center of it.
Avoiding each other proves impossible when Miranda must play chaperone to her stepdaughter and the dean’s flirtatious granddaughter, but she refuses to compete with younger women for Colin’s attention. Can Colin convince the respected Miranda he has her best interests at heart and that his admiration has grown into far, far more?
Tyrone Ellsworth’s career as a literary lover-in-lieu began at university, where he found amusement and steady spending-silver in writing poetry, love letters and offers of marriage for fellow Oxonians. So when schoolmate Gareth Boulton purchases his pen in order to win the wealthy Miss Agatha Weeks, what could be the harm? The task will be all the easier, in fact, because Tyrone has known her for years as his sister’s dearest friend.
Miss Agatha Weeks has never felt for any young man what she felt for the one who broke her heart years earlier. And while she doesn’t pine for him any longer, she has begun to doubt there are any worthy, honest young men left. But then suddenly there are two! Mr. Gareth Boulton, whom she dismissed earlier as a callow fortune hunter, begins to reveal new depths in his pursuit of her. And Tyrone Ellsworth—thoughtful, scholarly, kind, comfortable through long acquaintance—if Tyrone cannot be trusted, no one can.
Murder will out, however, and so will mendacity. Can the deceiver escape the consequences of his own deception, or will the beloved deceived be lost to him forever?
Tomboy Miss Araminta Ellsworth and her dearest friend Aggie were the most backward graduates Mrs. Turcotte’s Seminary for Young Ladies ever produced, more interested in batting and bowling than sewing and simpering. How then could Araminta ever have predicted Aggie’s unprecedented passion for the reprobate Mr. Francis Taplin? If Minta is going to keep her friend’s person and fortune out of Taplin’s dangerous hands, she’ll need to think of something—fast.
Mr. Nicholas Carlisle has always lived in his stepbrother Francis’s shadow: at school, at university, and in his family’s prospects. So when Miss Ellsworth approaches him for aid, she finds a willing accomplice. Nicholas fashions a new personality for her, transforming her into Francis’s ideal. To this he adds a counterfeit courtship, to stir his brother’s competitive side.
Their scheme succeeds.
Wildly.
But the victory might cost them the only prize worth winning—their own chance at love.
Out of all the swains she collected, Miss Lily Ellsworth knew Mr. Gilbert Wright was the one she would choose in the end. Rich, well-connected, dashing, daring, he was exactly the sort of man to turn heads, even if he hadn’t much of one himself. Lily didn’t mind—a dim husband would be more easily controlled than a clever one. And after seeing how her father chose his several wives, Lily sometimes doubted clever men even existed.
There was the new curate of St. Eadburh’s, of course, but Mr. Simon Kenner might be altogether too clever for comfort. Where every other gentleman of Lily’s acquaintance thinks her an angel, Mr. Kenner shows an alarming tendency to catch her out. And where every other gentleman envies Mr. Wright’s favor with her, Mr. Kenner thinks his cousin is making a colossal mistake.
Between these two opponents, will either gain the whip hand, or will love defeat them both?
Harriet Hapgood has always delighted in arranging the lives of others, while generally doing as she pleased. And after having thwarted her cousin Caroline’s engagement the previous summer, what better way to pass a dull winter than in helping Caroline to a new husband? Her cousin sets her sights on the glittering Mr. St. John Rotherwood, so Hetty cheerfully puts her shoulder to the matchmaking wheel.
St. John Rotherwood didn’t always glitter.
A magnificent inheritance has catapulted the erstwhile impoverished Oxford mathematics tutor to the top of London society, where he finds himself eagerly pursued as a matrimonial prize. This apotheosis has not been an unqualified blessing, however. The attention is wearisome, and his formerly humble mother has been transformed by ambition. Is it nostalgia for his university days that draws St. John to Miss Hapgood, sister of his former pupil?
Hetty feels the lure of the season’s most eligible bachelor, but when an evening’s lark leads to scandal, she discovers society has laws as rigorous as any found in mathematics.
She could let Mr. Rotherwood rescue her, but if the world breaks her will, will it also break her heart?
England, 1814. Edith Hapgood only has eyes for art. As the darling pride of her family, she has been encouraged in her passion for painting, making it easy for her to overlook other objects of affection. But her distant cousin, one of her chief friends and companions from the age of eleven, has no intention of being forgotten as the creative world opens to her.
Lionel Hapgood has long struggled to keep his feelings for Edith secret and his head down while he finishes his degree and she pursues her artistic studies. But an ardent young man can only stand so much, and when he impulsively declares himself, he loses what he has so carefully built.
As Edith grows as an artist, her own brush has something to teach her as well. Her portrait of Lionel, captured on the fateful day he spoke his love, not only attracts admiration and danger, but reveals to her the true state of her feelings. When it goes missing, so does a piece of her heart.
Will the loss of her celebrated portrait lead to the loss of the one she learns to hold even dearer?
With her two older sisters married, governing family affairs has fallen to capable Miss Margaret Hapgood, leaving little time for thoughts of marriage. But a trip to Bath to find her uncle a wealthy bride throws her in the path of a handsome recuperating soldier, who is equally determined to keep his mother’s fortune out of grasping hands.
At age thirty, the kindly and helpful Miss Rosemary DeWitt assists the vicar with the parish school, burying her disappointment that life seems to promise nothing more. But a chance encounter with an unknown, brooding gentleman sets her on a new path—one which might lead where her heart never dreamed.
Though Hugh Hapgood was trapped for years in an unhappy marriage, the sudden loss of his wife only spells further disaster. Left with three motherless children whom he hardly knows, Hugh finds everyone about him wants to choose him a second wife, including his own children. But will the fates allow Hugh to have the woman his own heart chooses?
Somerset, England, 1808. Elfrida Hapgood keeps her eyes on the prize. Born to a penniless squire, she’s determined to follow common sense and marry an upstanding and steadfast gentleman. So when her brother-in-law’s handsomely rakish sibling attempts to woo her, she rigidly ignores the flutter in her chest.
Frederick Tierney enjoys a flippant and frivolous life. But when he needs to escape a vengeful former mistress, the lovely older sister to his sibling’s bride strikes him as an apt solution. Yet despite his efforts, he’s shocked to discover the oh-so-proper lady is impervious to his charms.
In spite of herself, Elfrida begins to like the well-dressed man-about-town until an unsavory encounter reignites her doubts. And when Frederick realizes he has truly fallen for the alluring woman, he struggles to prove there’s more to him than his reputation.
Will this unlikely pair take a chance at forever?
She’s working two jobs to get through college. He’s the golden boy who doesn’t know the meaning of struggle.
One fateful night at the family’s restaurant, Lissie Cheng accidentally serves a dish containing shellfish paste to an allergic customer, running afoul of the wealthy Lin family and wonder boy Preston in particular. Preston Lin, star swimmer and Stanford Ph.D. student, who is as handsome as he is self-righteous. When his response to the incident threatens the family livelihood, Lissie must scramble to outwit him. If only he didn’t keep popping up in her life, so she could despise him in peace!
Preston’s life hasn’t always been picture-perfect. Before Lissie came on the scene, he worked hard not only at school and at swimming, but also at burying a few things he’d rather forget. But that girl–! The past isn’t the only thing she’s stirring up.
In this sparkling contemporary riff on Austen’s classic, the beloved story gets a fresh spin. Who will prevail over Lissie’s heart? Her pride or Preston Lin?
To all who know him, Mr. Norman DeWitt is famous for his few words. But the events of an afternoon at the Blagdon Hill fair force him into action and speech, with telling consequences to his heart.
Enjoy this companion novella to the Hapgoods of Bramleigh series of Regency romances!
Florence Ellsworth reluctantly lives in the shadow of her family’s notoriety. Mortified that her widower father is on the hunt for his fourth wife, she accepts an engagement to a staid clergyman in the desperate hope for propriety. But she’s unprepared when her sire’s newly hired attorney proves to be young, sincere, and handsome.
Robert Fairchild feels a bit awkward in society. Aware of how his modest background is perceived, the humble lawyer is surprised by his longings when he gains the confidence of his client’s lovely daughter. But with her already betrothed to another, he dares not be dishonorable by confessing his interest and losing her respect.
Disturbed by her growing feelings for the charming solicitor, Florence works all the harder to find the appeal in her sober intended husband. Meanwhile Fairchild is inadvertently pulled into a lady’s schemes and fears any chance with the object of his affection has been forever lost.
Will they find a way out of their tender traps to capture happily ever after?
Tempted by Folly is the delightful first book in The Ellsworth Assortment clean Regency romance series. If you like sparkling personalities, witty dialogue, and endearing couples, then you’ll adore Christina Dudley’s swoonworthy novel.
Somerset, England, 1808. Alice Hapgood is obsessed with studying flora and fauna. With upper-class standards taking a dim view of a lady dirtying her hands, the science-minded woman wears boys’ clothing to pursue her passion. And when an assistant position for a handsome member of the Royal Society crops up, she impulsively dons her disguise and risks ruin.
Joseph Tierney has no desire to join the clergy. Going against his family’s wishes to become a researcher of the natural world, he takes on a bright young man to help with his latest assignment. And while the brilliant scientist is frustrated that the locals only see him as a candidate for marriage, he grows closer and closer with his enthusiastic aide.
As the work under her charming mentor unexpectedly sparks her feminine side, Alice longs to open up to him as her true self. But Joseph suddenly finds himself caught in a jealous triangle not of his making that threatens his career, standing, and freedom.
Will this unlikely team’s greatest discovery be happily ever after?
The Naturalist is the engaging first book in The Hapgoods of Bramleigh clean Regency romance series. If you like clever-but-impetuous heroines, dedicated heroes, and humorous romps, you’ll adore Christina Dudley’s delightful tale.
