NO GROOM AT THE INN
Dukes Behaving Badly #2.5
Megan Frampton
Releasing Nov 10th, 2015
Avon Books
In this Dukes Behaving Badly holiday novella, a
young lady entertains a sudden proposal of marriage-to a man she’s only just
met.
What does a lady do when a man she’s never seen
before offers his hand in marriage? Lady Sophronia Bettesford doesn’t scream
and run away. Instead, she accepts the shocking proposition. After all, what’s
her other choice? To live with her cousin, caring for six children and a
barnyard full of chickens?
James Archer has roamed the world, determined
never to settle down. He’s faced danger and disaster…he fears nothing and no
one except his mother and her matchmaking ways. So when ordered to attend a
Christmastime house party filled with holiday cheer and simpering young misses,
he produces a fiancée!
Sophronia and James vow to pretend to be in love
for one month. But when they each promise to give each other a Christmas kiss
it becomes clear that this pact made out of necessity might just be turning
into love.
Excerpt #3
“Excuse
me, miss,” a gentleman said in her ear. She jumped, so lost in her own foolish
(fowlish?) thoughts that she hadn’t even noticed him approaching her.
She
turned and looked at him, blinking at his splendor. He was tall, taller than
her, even, which was a rarity among gentlemen. He was handsome in a dashing
rosy-visioned way that made her question just what her imagination was thinking
if it had never inserted him—or someone who looked like him--into her dreams.
He had
unruly dark brown hair, longer than most gentlemen wore. The ends curled up as
though even his hair was irrepressible. His eyes were blue, and even in the
dark gloom, she could see they practically twinkled.
As
though he and she shared a secret, a lovely, wonderful, delightful secret.
Never
mind that all those words were very similar to one another. Her word-specific
father would reprimand her—if that gentle soul could reprimand someone, that
is—if he heard how cavalierly she was tossing out adjectives that all meant
nearly the same thing.
But he
wasn’t here, was he, which was why she was here, and now she was about to find
out why this other he was here.
Far
too many pronouns. Her attention returned to the tall, charming stranger.
Who
was talking to her. Waiting for her response, actually, since she had spent a
minute or so contemplating his general magnificence. And words, and her father,
and whatever other non-chickened thoughts had blessedly crossed her mind.
“Can I
help you, sir?” Sophronia asked. He was probably lost on his way to the
Handsome Hotel where they only allowed Exceedingly Handsome guests.
That
he might think she’d know where the Handsome Hotel was gave her pause. Because
she was not handsome, not at all.
But
what he said was next was even more unexpected than being asked to provide
directions to some establishment where one’s appearance was the only
requirement for entry.
“Would
you marry me?” he said in a normal tone of voice as though he hadn’t just
upended Sophronia’s entire world.
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Megan Frampton writes historical romance
under her own name and romantic women’s fiction as Megan Caldwell. She likes
the color black, gin, dark-haired British men, and huge earrings, not in that
order. She lives in Brooklyn, NY, with her husband and son.
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