Bøker av Martha Keyes

She dreams of marrying a nobleman. Too bad he's only pretending to be one.Cecilia Cosgrove's beauty opens doors and hearts everywhere she goes. With a marquess courting her, the status and wealth her family is counting on her to obtain is finally within her reach-until she meets Jacques Levesque, the French nobleman who immediately pegs her as affected and superficial. While piqued and offended, Cecilia secretly begins to wonder whether he might not have a point. Poor French émigré Jacques Levesque has been disguised as a French nobleman for almost as long as he can remember, trying his hardest to keep his head down in a society obsessed with rank and high birth. But when Cecilia Cosgrove comes into his life, he finds it hard to maintain his façade-or to want to. While Cecilia struggles between the desire to please others and the wish to pursue her own course, Jacques's interest in her provokes a powerful enemy intent on taking him down. With love, acceptance, and the future on the line for them both, Cecilia and Jacques must decide whether a life lived behind a mask is any life at all.

Summer on the seaside . . . a perfect place for romance.Join us for three novellas in one collection:The New Countess by Josi S. KilpackDiane knows why the earl asked her to marry him; he needed a mother for his daughter, an heir for his title, and a hostess to assist with his position in Parliament. With two sons of her own, and no security to speak of, she never thought twice about accepting his proposal. Summering at his holiday cottage at the sea was meant to be reward for a busy first year as the new countess, and a time for her to rest before their baby is born. She is expecting lazy days on the beach with the children, simple meals, and keeping her own schedule. When the earl surprises her with a visit, she does her best not to resent the intrusion. When she learns that he came for the sole purpose of being with her and getting to know her better, she realizes that perhaps this marriage can be more than she expected. Is she ready for him to know her and love her and explore this new possibility together? She wants to be, but it is not an easy thing to let go of expectations and open up to an entirely new way of life.Mishaps and Memories by Martha KeyesJudith Jardine's one chance at a brilliant match is doomed from the start when she is ignored and then mocked by the ton's most sought-after gentleman. Under a gloomy cloud of failure, Judith is exiled to a seaside cottage to spend the summer helping her sister-and living a life far below the one she experienced for her week in Brighton. When she discovers the man responsible for her misfortune unconscious on the beach, she heeds her better impulses and has him brought to the cottage to be seen to. But James Carlisle has no recollection of who he is, what happened to him, or how he has wronged her, and Judith sees the opportunity to teach him a valuable lesson-unless the deception and her feelings get the best of her first.Moonlight Summer by Heather B. MooreOscar Rosewell's life is not lacking in many things even though he lives on the fringes of society due to his father's ruined reputation. He's sworn off having any personal relationships with ton members-his only interest lies in keeping his business thriving. He's content with his day-to-day anonymity, and business keeps his heart from getting exposed. It's safer that way. Until Oscar meets Miss Dorothea Atkinson. A woman capturing his interest is a rare thing, but Miss Atkinson is nearly engaged to a man of her parents' choosing. Would it be wrong to wish for something to go terribly wrong between the couple? Soon, Oscar learns that wishing can become a reality, but often, the price is an even heavier thing to pay.

A lady intent on refusing the fortune she desperately needs. A gentleman caught up in a smuggling scheme. Kate Matcham needs a fortune or a husband. She wants neither. With a tainted inheritance in the balance, she receives one offer to become a scoundrel's mistress and another offer of a marriage of convenience. Before resigning herself to a choice, she accepts the invitation to visit a childhood friend, considering it a last hurrah before embarking on a bleak future. The visit goes sideways when she falls for the gentleman her friend intends to marry, a man well out of Kate's league--and one who seems to be hiding something. Smuggling has overtaken the county, and it seems that everyone is complicit in the trade that killed her father. One by one, her options dwindle as she struggles against her strengthening feelings for a duplicitous man, a determination not to hurt her friend, and keeping the promise she made long ago: to stand up to the people who killed her father.

A gentleman's impulsive wager to marry a stranger. A young woman's determination not to marry the man she wants. When Isabel Cosgrove is informed by her father that he lost her hand in marriage while playing cards with Charles Galbraith-the gentleman she's been admiring from a distance for years-she is filled with dismay. How can she agree to wed a man whose reason for marriage is part-revenge, part-indifference? Intent on avoiding a painful union where her regard cannot be returned, she concocts a plan. Charles Galbraith didn't intend to become engaged as a result of a drunken wager at cards, but after the woman he loves spurns him, what does it matter whom he marries? But even Miss Cosgrove, the fiancée he won by wager, seems intent not to marry him-a fact that both relieves and piques him. She instead suggests a plan that has the potential to temporarily appease her father's demand of marriage while also winning back the love of the woman Charles truly wants. But when Charles and Isabel are thrown into the midst of a brewing scandal and another man's potential disinheritance, their plan begins to unravel thread by thread, challenging what Galbraith thinks he wants-and just how much more time with him Isabel's heart can stand.

The lines around the friend zone are blurrier than everStephanie "Stevie" JacobsMarriage to an A-list actor has its perks, but no one ever tells you about the drawbacks-paparazzi infesting your life like cockroaches after the divorce, for one. So when my longtime friend Troy offers me the empty side of his duplex while I get back on my feet again, the only possible answer is, "How soon can I come?"I've never seen Troy as anything but a friend, but when the gossip columns pin down my location, they're determined to make more of things between us, despite my assurances he's dating someone. The media are a tenacious bunch. Heck, they almost have me convinced, which is totally crazy. Right?Troy SheppardMy friendship with Stevie has survived a lot, including the day I caught the crazy bug and told her I wanted to be more than friends. Thankfully, that's far behind us. I'm here for Stevie-as a friend-now that she needs a soft place to land away from the gossip-hungry tabloids.There's just one problem: I may have seriously underestimated the power of the paparazzi-and possibly my feelings. Both seem bent on bringing the past into the present, but there's no way I'm going down the road to rejection a second time.

It started as a marriage of convenience, but falling in love has made it anything but convenient.Fresh from the humiliating annulment of the love match she always wanted, Lady Anne Vincent meekly agrees to the marriage of convenience her father has arranged. She feels hopeful that this marriage can be one of cordial indifference, protecting her from the hurt she knows so well.Tobias Cosgrove isn't meant for marriage, free spirit that he is. And yet, as the only son, marry he must. He is thus relieved when his father reveals his future wife to be the calm, collected Lady Anne Vincent, for he is confident she won't plague him with neediness or hysterics like so many of the other young women in society.But when Lady Anne's past reappears on their doorstep, she and Tobias are forced to confront whether a marriage of convenience is the type of marriage they wish for after all.

The arrangement may well be suitable, but is it bearable? As the new Earl of Lismore, it is Sandy Duncan's duty to save both his family and Lochlarren Castle from impending ruin. He has always known he must marry well, but his father's deathbed revelation of a slew of other debts creates an unexpected urgency to the situation. With his last breath, Sandy's father extracts a promise from him to accept the match he has arranged: a marriage to the daughter of a low-born but wealthy English merchant.While Juliana Godfrey has never had the recognition of Society's most elite, she has been able to take comfort in what she does have: money-and she has that in spades. Her father's newest ambition to marry her into the aristocracy, however, could provide her with both things. The fact that the Duncans are Scots-and Highland ones, at that-is not ideal, but an earldom simply cannot be refused.Despite being the face of the Duncan family's salvation, Juliana's reception at Lochlarren Castle is less than warm. As for the earl, he is bewildered to find his prospective bride arrogant and condescending, evidently expecting her future family to be barbaric. In spite of such shaky foundations, however, the match must proceed, bleak as the future may be to both participants. Will first impressions stand against the intimacy marriage brings, or are money and title all Sandy and Juliana can truly hope for from their union?***Enjoy the other books in the multi-author Castles & Courtship series, which can be read in any order: An Amiable Foe by Jennie GoutetTo Know Miss May by Deborah M. HathawayA Heart to Keep by Ashtyn NewboldA Noble Inheritance by Kasey StocktonThe Rules of Matchmaking by Rebecca ConnollyA Suitable Arrangement by Martha KeyesAn Engagement with the Enemy by Sally BrittonCharming the Recluse by Mindy Burbidge Strunk