Lord Dere's Dependents

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.

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.

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.