Description:
Manchester, 1840
Mary Isabella “Ellie” Angela Wilson Dillard, daughter of an abdicated Earl, lives a remarkably ordinary life as a seamstress in a dress shop. That is until the day a workers’ protest in the streets of Manchester sees her joining forces—and lips!—with a handsome and mysterious stranger she knows only as “Cal.” Ellie is soon drawn into his world and it isn’t long before she finds herself falling for this wicked stranger with a secret.
Cal has three desires: to reform the mills of Manchester after the death of a friend, to keep his efforts secret from his opposing wealthy peers, and to win the heart of the compassionate woman who agrees to help him, no questions asked. But the mills are not the only thing in need of reform. As the stakes grow higher, Cal struggles to overcome his past and the secret that may put Ellie out of his reach forever…
She is a Baron's only daughter, desperately trying to find love and freedom in a world where she has no control...
He is a former bond servant struggling to come to terms with his new found independence...
Neither expected to make a connection, especially not such an unlikely and wicked one...
As the only daughter of a Baron and the only female born to her family in generations, the birth of Angela Bennett is seen as nothing short of a miracle. She becomes an instant sensation in society and has her choice of any man as a husband. Except that Angela doesn't want a husband, especially if he can't see past her social image to the woman she really is. All she truly wants is for someone to understand her feelings of captivity among the social masses...
After lifelong servitude, Andrew Wilson is finally free. Free from his debt that is--he is not free from the secrets that surround his inheritance of the debt from his mother. While he is thrilled to finally control his own lot in the world, Andrew is struggling to come to terms with who he is, as he longs to make a connection with a similar soul...
Lady Mary Cartwright played at love like others played at sport. To her it was a freeing rebellion that had nothing at all to do with feelings and everything to do with scandalously giving in to pleasure. But when an intriguing new title holder arrives in town and shakes up her world, Mary is faced with the reality that love may be more than a game after all.
When Gregory Howard, Viscount Lincoln, met Mary, he was instantly captivated by her wit and her brazen attitude. A decade later, their chance meeting has blossomed into a deep, supportive friendship in every endeavor of life and love. But when a new arrival to town catches Mary’s eye in a different way, Greg no longer feels supportive. For the first time ever, he finds himself sabotaging Mary’s arrangements and before long the friends are forced to consider something wicked: their true feelings for each other.
EXCERPT:
When Ellie imagined her first kiss, she always pictured it happening shortly after the words “I love you,” not shortly before the words “who are you.”
But it was a minor point to know the person she was kissing.
Wasn’t it?
Ellie didn’t know this man from Cain but maybe he knew her. Perhaps he was an old friend of the family, a distant cousin, or a secret promised fiancé from her parents’ long forgotten days in high society.
It was probably something like that, wasn’t it?
And kissing, it was just the touching of lips. Skin really. It was pressing together skin. People did it every day. They touched when they exchanged goods in the marketplace as coin and product changed hands, or when they worked their way through the crowded Manchester streets sometimes having to push and shove, or when they sat by each other in a carriage that bumped along over the cobblestones, swaying to and fro. Sometimes the touches were avoidable and sometimes they were not. But that was of no matter. It was all the same in the end.
Just person touching person. Just skin touching skin. Just an everyday occurrence.
Except this time, that everyday occurrence left Ellie all warm and sweaty and confused.
Maybe this happened to other people—all people. Maybe touching skin always caused this rush of feelings. Or maybe it was supposed to and Ellie had just never noticed it.
She thought to her day-to-day life. The connections she made and the people she connected with. The brush of a knuckle while looking over fabric choices with the patrons, a light touch on the arm as they spoke. But none of that stood out. No rush of feelings. Nothing exciting or special. It was all perfectly ordinary. And normal.
But no one had ever accused Ellie of being normal, after all. It was Ellie the Flustered, Ellie the Anxious, Ellie the Eccentric—not Ellie the Average. So maybe what she’d always felt was the exception, and maybe what she felt now—this euphoria and lightness—was the rule. Maybe this was something that people were supposed to experience when they connected.
Or maybe she was wrong entirely and kissing had rules all its own...
But there was something more pressing to consider than whether or not these feelings were normal. There was a question literally lingering on her lips.
With great effort Ellie pushed away from him, breaking their kiss, and breathed out the words, “Who are you?”
His lashes fluttered and his emerald eyes darted around frantically from left to right. “Well, bloody hell… It didn’t work…”
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About the author:
Olivia Fuller began writing at the age of 4. She self-published her books using folded paper and a stapler, and gave a new story to her kindergarten teacher every day. She no longer writes about baby dinosaurs, now preferring to write romances instead. In her spare time she watches too much Netflix, laughs with her husband, and playfully narrates the lives of her cats, Cher and Rocket Kitty.
Olivia Fuller began writing at the age of 4. She self-published her books using folded paper and a stapler, and gave a new story to her kindergarten teacher every day. She no longer writes about baby dinosaurs, now preferring to write romances instead. In her spare time she watches too much Netflix, laughs with her husband, and playfully narrates the lives of her cats, Cher and Rocket Kitty.
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