Not So Sweet Maria (Sisters by Marriage Book 1)

Description

The ton calls her Sweet Maria and, even in her fourth Season, eligibles continue to offer her marriage. They do not know Lady Maria despises the hypocritical ways of polite society and is trying to sail away to America.

Though the granddaughter of a duke, Lady Maria is a child of scandal because her mother was an American commoner. She blames the duke and the duchess for her parents’ death. Had they not disowned them, her parents’ would not have died of a virulent fever in America, leaving her an orphan at the age of five.

She agrees to an arranged match to ward off her persistent suitors, treating the engagement as a sham, one to be ended at her convenience.

Then, most unexpectedly, she finds love with a commoner.

Only he isn’t a commoner, but the Earl of Daventon.

Gareth, Earl of Daventon, is no stranger to scandal. Rumor has it that his father had banished his mother for adulterous behavior. He remembers his mother as a sweet, gentle woman and knows the late earl yearned until his last breath to have her back.

Love is a quagmire, and I shall not be caught in it, he decides. But love finds him. The object of his ardor is a mysterious young woman who dresses like a shop girl and behaves like a lady.

Lord Daventon remedies the situation by accepting an arranged match, his betrothed being Lady Maria, whom he hasn’t met.

All of which leads to a delightful tangle of affairs.