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When Lillian Pearson arrives at the palatial Yorkshire estate of Lord Grantwell in December 1817, she’s freezing, starving, and utterly frantic. Her Portuguese former brother-in-law is tailing her, convinced that she murdered her late husband.
Lillian knows she’s innocent, and she takes risks in asking Grant to hide her. They’d had a passionate affair years earlier, in Lisbon, until he caught her giving Wellington’s secret plans to the French—or so he believes. He’s never forgiven her.
Having recently become the guardian of his late brother’s orphaned stepchildren, Grant’s hands are full. But when he sees how well Lillian cares for young William and Anna, his heart starts softening.
The children are adorable, though traumatized from their earlier life; frustratingly, we don’t get the full backstory for their odd situation (they’d previously lived with their hard-hearted grandfather, not their mother and stepfather). Readers get to experience the joy of Regency-era Christmas traditions and children’s pastimes as Lillian and Grant try to give William and Anna a happy holiday, falling in love in the process.
Lord Grantwell's Christmas Wish is a Harlequin Historical title and the second in the author's Captains of Waterloo series, though it stands alone. I reviewed it initially for the Historical Novels Review last month. The first book, Her Gallant Captain at Waterloo, told the love story of Grant's estate manager and good friend Rhys Landon, a fellow soldier he'd met in Portugal, and the woman he married. Rhys and his wife are major secondary characters in this volume. This romance has impressive depth for a novel of just over 200 pages.
This sounds delightful. So good for right now!
ReplyDeleteYes, it's a perfect read for this time of year!
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