Their Inconvenient Yuletide Wedding - Joanna Johnson A wedding they can't escape, a Christmas they'll never forget! The last person that Samuel Beresford expected to fish out of a freezing, perilous river was Julia Livingston. The girl who was once an outcast in his village is now a woman and the talk of the Ton for her beauty. When his daring rescue compromises them into marriage, but Julia is hesitant to trust anyone from her childhood, can Samuel prove he's no longer the boy she knew? Regency Reunions At Christmas - Diane Gaston, Laura Martin & Helen Dickson 'Tis the season...for three reunion romances! In The Major's Christmas Return by Diane Gaston: at her friend's house for Christmas, Caroline's shocked her fellow houseguest is Major Nashfield -- who left her at the altar! In A Proposal for the Penniless Lady by Laura Martin: Isobel's always regretted obeying her father and turning down Thomas's proposal. Now he's back for Christmas, is this their second chance? And in Her Duke Under the Mistletoe by Helen Dickson: Sophie is stunned by her convenient husband Tristan's return -- and their thrilling new attraction...
New York Times and USA Today Bestseller They call him the Duke of Ruin. To an undaunted wallflower, he's just the beast next door. Wealthy and ruthless, Gabriel Duke clawed his way from the lowliest slums to the pinnacle of high society—and now he wants to get even. Loyal and passionate, Lady Penelope Campion never met a lost or wounded creature she wouldn’t take into her home and her heart. When her imposing—and attractive—new neighbor demands she clear out the rescued animals, Penny sets him a challenge. She will part with her precious charges, if he can find them loving homes. Done, Gabriel says. How hard can it be to find homes for a few kittens? And a two-legged dog. And a foul-mouthed parrot. And a goat, an otter, a hedgehog . . . Easier said than done, for a cold-blooded bastard who wouldn’t know a loving home from a workhouse. Soon he’s covered in cat hair, knee-deep in adorable, and bewitched by a shyly pretty spinster who defies his every attempt to resist. Now she’s set her mind and heart on saving him. Not if he ruins her first.
Example in this ebook Chapter I This book might be called also The Triumph of Love. Bertha was looking out of window, at the bleakness of the day. The sky was sombre and the clouds heavy and low; the neglected carriage-drive was swept by the bitter wind, and the elm-trees that bordered it were bare of leaf, their naked branches shivering with horror of the cold. It was the end of November, and the day was utterly cheerless. The dying year seemed to have cast over all Nature the terror of death; the imagination would not bring to the wearied mind thoughts of the merciful sunshine, thoughts of the Spring coming as a maiden to scatter from her baskets the flowers and the green leaves. Bertha turned round and looked at her aunt, cutting the leaves of a new Spectator. Wondering what books to get down from Mudie’s, Miss Ley read the autumn lists and the laudatory expressions which the adroitness of publishers extracts from unfavourable reviews. “You’re very restless this afternoon, Bertha,” she remarked, in answer to the girl’s steady gaze. “I think I shall walk down to the gate.” “You’ve already visited the gate twice in the last hour. Do you find in it something alarmingly novel?” Bertha did not reply, but turned again to the window: the scene in the last two hours had fixed itself upon her mind with monotonous accuracy. “What are you thinking about, Aunt Polly?” she asked suddenly, turning back to her aunt and catching the eyes fixed upon her. “I was thinking that one must be very penetrative to discover a woman’s emotions from the view of her back hair.” Bertha laughed: “I don’t think I have any emotions to discover. I feel ...” she sought for some way of expressing the sensation—“I feel as if I should like to take my hair down.” Miss Ley made no rejoinder, but looked again at her paper. She hardly wondered what her niece meant, having long ceased to be astonished at Bertha’s ways and doings; indeed, her only surprise was that they never sufficiently corroborated the common opinion that Bertha was an independent young woman from whom anything might be expected. In the three years they had spent together since the death of Bertha’s father the two women had learned to tolerate one another extremely well. Their mutual affection was mild and perfectly respectable, in every way becoming to fastidious persons bound together by ties of convenience and decorum.... Miss Ley, called to the deathbed of her brother in Italy, made Bertha’s acquaintance over the dead man’s grave, and the girl was then too old and of too independent character to accept a stranger’s authority; nor had Miss Ley the smallest desire to exert authority over any one. She was a very indolent woman, who wished nothing more than to leave people alone and be left alone by them. But if it was obviously her duty to take charge of an orphan niece, it was also an advantage that Bertha was eighteen, and, but for the conventions of decent society, could very well take charge of herself. Miss Ley was not unthankful to a merciful Providence on the discovery that her ward had every intention of going her own way, and none whatever of hanging about the skirts of a maiden aunt who was passionately devoted to her liberty. They travelled on the Continent, seeing many churches, pictures, and cities, in the examination of which their chief aim appeared to be to conceal from one another the emotions they felt. Like the Red Indian who will suffer the most horrid tortures without wincing, Miss Ley would have thought it highly disgraceful to display feeling at some touching scene. She used polite cynicism as a cloak for sentimentality, laughing that she might not cry—and her want of originality herein, the old repetition of Grimaldi’s doubleness, made her snigger at herself. She felt that tears were unbecoming and foolish. “Weeping makes a fright even of a good-looking woman,” she said, “but if she is ugly they make her simply repulsive.” To be continue in this ebook
Few novelists have conveyed the subtleties and nuances of their own social milieu with the wit and insight of Jane Austen. Through her vivacious and spirited heroines and their circle, she paints vivid portraits of English middle-class life as the eighteenth century came to a close. The seven novels in this omnibus edition contain some of the most brilliant, dazzling prose in the English language.
New York Times and USA Today Bestseller He’s been a bad, bad rake—and it takes a governess to teach him a lesson The accidental governess After her livelihood slips through her fingers, Alexandra Mountbatten takes on an impossible post: transforming a pair of wild orphans into proper young ladies. However, the girls don’t need discipline. They need a loving home. Try telling that to their guardian, Chase Reynaud: duke’s heir in the streets and devil in the sheets. The ladies of London have tried—and failed—to make him settle down. Somehow, Alexandra must reach his heart . . . without risking her own. The infamous rake Like any self-respecting libertine, Chase lives by one rule: no attachments. When a stubborn little governess tries to reform him, he decides to give her an education—in pleasure. That should prove he can’t be tamed. But Alexandra is more than he bargained for: clever, perceptive, passionate. She refuses to see him as a lost cause. Soon the walls around Chase’s heart are crumbling . . . and he’s in danger of falling, hard.
Its mysterious symbols and rituals had been used in secret for centuries before Freemasonry revealed itself in 1717. But where had this powerful organization come from and why had Freemasonry been attacked by the Roman Catholic Church? Robinson answers those questions and more.
Grammar, Meaning, and Concepts: A Discourse-Based Approach to English Grammar is a book for language teachers and learners that focuses on the meanings of grammatical constructions within discourse, rather than on language as structure governed by rigid rules. This text emphasizes the ways in which users of language construct meaning, express viewpoints, and depict imageries using the conceptual, meaning-filled categories that underlie all of grammar. Written by a team of authors with years of experience teaching grammar to future teachers of English, this book puts grammar in the context of real language and illustrates grammar in use through an abundance of authentic data examples. Each chapter also provides a variety of activities that focus on grammar, genre, discourse, and meaning, which can be used as they are or can be adapted for classroom practice. The activities are also designed to raise awareness about discourse, grammar, and meaning in all facets of everyday life, and can be used as springboards for upper high school, undergraduate, and graduate level research projects and inquiry-based grammatical analysis. Grammar, Meaning, and Concepts is an ideal textbook for those in the areas of teacher education, discourse analysis, applied linguistics, second language teaching, ESL, EFL, and communications who are looking to teach and learn grammar from a dynamic perspective.
