Miss Amelia Fleming has a very good reason to hate the Earl of Langley. A year ago, her father drowned in the Thames after losing a fortune to Langley at cards. Now her family is broke, her fiance has broken their engagement, and the debt still hasn't been paid. Someone has to deal with the earl, but Amelia's brother doesn't have the nerve and her mother has fled to France. It's no business for a gently bred young lady, but the Earl of Langley is about to learn that Amelia Fleming is not your typical young lady . . .

Isabelle Rackham knows she will not marry for love. Though arranged marriages have fallen out of fashion, hers has been settled for some time to combine the upper-middle-class wealth of her father’s coal mines with Alexander Osgood’s prospering Northern country textile mills. Though not a man prone to romantic gestures, Alexander is well known as an eligible bachelor. His good looks have turned more than one head, so Isabelle is content to think of herself as Alexander’s wife.

Hidden away in rural Devonshire, Phyllida Satterthwaite has always been considered more odd than beautiful. But in London, her oddity has made her a sensation. Far worse, it’s caught the eye of the sinister Duke of Moreland - a notorious art collector obsessed with acquiring one-of-a-kind treasures. To escape the duke’s clutches, she’s going to need a little help. Captain Arthur Heywood’s days of heroism are long past. Grievously injured in the Peninsular War, he can no longer walk unaided, let alone shoot a pistol. What use can he possibly be to a damsel in distress?

Rosalind Newbury is counting down the days until her wedding to the Duke of Marlow, a man she has only met twice. The marriage is more an agreement between two families and less a romantic connection between two hearts, but Rosalind becoming a duchess will elevate her family’s status to dizzying heights. And the duke is a kind man who will care for Rosalind, even if he doesn’t love her.

I’ve had a crush on my brother’s best friend my entire life. Once, in high school, I even got a taste of what it would be like to be with him thanks to some well-placed mistletoe: incredible and humiliating. We always spend Christmas with Max’s family at our cabin, and every year I have to suffer through a blissful week with him in a completely platonic way. His steady stream of girlfriends have made him off limits . . . until now. It’s Christmas. We’re at the cabin together. And Max Dawson is single.