“This is preposterous,” Hollybrooke said, pushing his wire-rimmed spectacles back up his thin nose. The diabolical thief was known as the Wraith for his uncanny ability to slip in and out of the houses of the nobility. Somewhere in the clutter lay the proof Simon needed to put Gilbert Hollybrooke behind bars. Heaps of books and papers covered every available surface. The meager furnishings included a pair of brown upholstered chairs, a battered oak desk, and a narrow cot in the adjoining bedchamber. A plate containing the remains of breakfast sat on a rickety table beside the unlit fireplace. The gray light of a rainy morning showed a scene of cozy domesticity. As he methodically searched the tiny, two-roomed flat, Simon heeded the villain’s protests with only half an ear. If Simon Croft, the Earl of Rockford, had discovered one truth in his years of covert detective work, it was that criminals always claimed to be innocent. “Off with his head!” -King Richard III, III.iv Martin’s Paperbacks Titles by Barbara Dawson Smith The Duchess Diaries The Wedding Night One Wild Night With All My Heart Tempt Me Twice Romancing the Rogue Seduced by a Scoundrel Too Wicked to Love Once Upon a Scandal Never a Lady A Glimpse of HeavenĬontents Prologue 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 “Barbara Dawson Smith is a consummate storyteller who always keeps me turning pages long after my bedtime.” -Teresa Medeiros, New York Times bestselling author of After Midnight And soon, he threatened my schemes as well, for Simon had secrets of his own… -Claire, the Countess of Rockford I had no use for such a rogue, yet from the moment of our first meeting, he tempted my unruly heart. Arrogant, charming, and too handsome for his own good, he might have walked straight off a pedestal in a museum. And little did I know, my daring plan would throw me into the path of Simon Croft, the almighty Earl of Rockford. To them, I was merely a servant, an invisible hireling. Determined to uncover the true criminal, I posed as an impoverished widow and secured a post in the grand household of a noble family – the very family that had cruelly cast out my mother many years ago. But that was before my father was wrongfully imprisoned as a jewel thief.
Nor did I ever envision myself entering the gilded ballrooms of society where indolent aristocrats nibbled cake and traded gossip. As a spinster of five-and-twenty, I was much too practical to imagine myself tracking a dangerous criminal or falling prey to ardent nonsense. I never set out to be the heroine in a romantic tale of derring-do. New York Times bestselling author Barbara Dawson Smith mesmerizes readers once again in her latest novel of a woman forced to enter the aristocratic world she despises-only to find a man she can’t live without…ĭear Reader, This is the story of how I, a penniless upstart, became a countess.
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