Lady Elizabeth's Comet

by Sheila Simonson

Overview

Elizabeth Conway's greatest ambition is to discover a comet. Unfortunately, she is the eldest of eight daughters of an earl, so her relative expect her to take her rightful place in Society. The heavenly bodies she views through her telescope hold far more fascination for Elizabeth than any mere male, although her perpetual beau, dashing Lord Bevis, would change that if he could. When Tom Conroy, a distant cousin and the new Earl of Clanross, appears after a year's delay, Elizabeth offers him a cool welcome. He is a dull stick and ill-mannered to boot. Yet he is the only man who has shown respect for her astronomical work, and his concern for her younger sisters' welfare reveals a different side to him. Then his heir, Elizabeth's cousin Willoughby, appears with the obvious intent of making a match between his lovely but silly sister and Clanross--and with making as much mischief as he can. Lord Bevis presses his suit with Lady Elizabeth, until she agrees, at long last, to marry him.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781601740465
Publisher:	Histria Romance
Publication date:	04/18/2008
Series:	The Conway Family , #2
Sold by:	INDEPENDENT PUB GROUP - EPUB - EBKS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	285
File size:	546 KB

About the Author

Simonson is one of the best of the current Regency novelists. Here her heroine, Emily, having lost both husband and baby daughter, offers to take in other children to raise with her own son, Matt. Captain Richard Falk deposits his infant son and young daughter with her before returning to fight Napoleon. Emily falls in love with his children and, during their correspondence, with him. However, Falk, illegitimate son of a duchess, is in danger from his mother's family, who see him as a threat to the dukedom. With a little help from friends, all ends well. The characters are well drawn and appealing, and if the plot seems a bit preposterous, the reader is having too much fun to worry about it.Marylaine Block, St. Ambrose Coll. Lib., Davenport, Ia.

Read an Excerpt

How came I to feel so strongly? I had not loved Clanross when I poured laudanum down his throat. My feeling for Clanross was not an overnight flower. It had been growing for some time. When was it planted?

It happened, I reflected, after he started walking the grounds and bathing in the lake and began to feel better and look less wan and sleepless. It is a dreadful thing for a woman of intellect to admit so physical a criterion for love. I wanted to evade the fact but there it was. I was a mere animal after all, drawn by a bright eye and a healthy complexion. Alas. I knew that I had persuaded myself to love Bevis the better because he was beautiful. Clanross was not, but he was now far from being an antidote, and he had very fine eyes. And excellent shoulders and well-shaped, long-fingered hands, and a pleasant voice, too.

Of course I had liked him for a long time--since he had organised the dinner for the Chactons and put Willoughby's nose out of joint. Clanross was a generous, civilised man with a lively sense of humour and a sharp mind. I liked him enormously.

But he thinks of you as a combination of Galileo and his nanny, I told myself, suppressing a strong wish to howl, and he is consulting Aunt Whitby about suitable brides.

With a stab I recalled making up my mind to find him a wife. "Not Cecilia." Of all the wrongheaded, arrogant, blind, feebleminded nitwits. Oh, wretched, wretched woman. Complete ninnyhammer. Goat. I abused myself roundly. At least Cecilia knew her own feelings.

As I lay staring up at the blonde satin bedhangings it crossed my mind that I might as well be at the bottom of the ornamental lake at Brecon. It is a curious fact that if oneweeps while lying on one's back the tears eventually trickle into one's ears.

There was no doubt that I loved Clanross. Like, love, lust--I was deep in all three with very little idea how I had come to such a predicament. I believed Clanross liked me, at least sufficiently to enjoy our exchanges and chess games. Try as I might, however, I could not push the evidence beyond that.

Editorial Reviews

... probably the best regency I have read in a long long time... The supporting cast is varied and interesting from the servants to the members of the Ton... The various romantic tangles were fun and add much to the plot. This is another well-written Regency for Ms. Simonson. 4 1/2 Hearts!

The Romance Studio - Maura Franklin