The Heir is coming soon!

Book 4—the finale!—of the Rags to Richmonds series is almost here. December 10 is the big day and we can’t wait to see how everyone enjoys the story of Lord Oakley, the heir to the Tipton earldom. A JAV-exclusive excerpt is below, and I hope you’ll enjoy the read!

Preorder THE HEIR here: https://geni.us/theHeirR2R

Oakley gazed around the dinner table, taking in the charming domestic scene with no little satisfaction. His sister, Lady Scarlett Worthe, presided over her London table beautifully; she had decorated the middle with a profusion of spring flowers, cherry blossoms and peonies and some white flower Oakley swore he had never seen before, all surrounding the gleaming silver candelabra which marched proudly down the middle. Scarlett’s husband, Lord Worthe, smiled at her from his seat at the other end of the table.

Oakley allowed his gaze to roam, taking in Lord and Lady Tipton, Adelaide—now Lady Kemerton—and her husband Lord Kemerton, his baby sister Frederica, or rather Duchess, and her husband, the Duke of Penrith.

And then him. The numbers were matched save for his place. He threw the numbers as he always did. At least, he thought gloomily, Scarlett does not put an empty chair beside me. His other sister Adelaide always did, and then made a great show of having the footman take it away. “I thought you might invite someone,” she invariably protested when he mentioned it to her.

Scarlett rose from her seat, wine glass in one hand and her fork in another as she tapped gently to get everyone’s attention. “I thought we might forgo the separation this evening,” she said with her customary sweet firmness. “Let us all continue to enjoy our time together in the drawing room.”

With that she moved away from her chair, Frederica and then Lady Tipton and Adelaide trailing behind her, then the men behind them. As the lowest-ranking male, it meant that Oakley entered the drawing room last, finding his three sisters already settling together onto a small sofa, opposite which was one chair. “Sit there,” Adelaide instructed him, with an indelicate point of her finger.

“There? Mother, perhaps you would…” He turned towards Lady Tipton who smiled and shook her head, then took a seat nearer to the fire, beside her husband. The other men also seemed to scuttle into some preordained arrangement.

Leaving him the chair.

He walked towards it suspiciously, sensing that something was afoot, something everyone else knew about save for him. They all looked up at him expectantly, gentle smiles urging him into place. “What is this about?” he asked suspiciously as he sank into the chair. It was a nice, plush wingback; clearly they wanted him to get comfortable.

“Can we not wish to speak to our brother?” Frederica asked innocently.

“Yes,” he said, drawing the word out. “But what do you wish to speak of?”

“Let us get drinks first,” Scarlett said just as her housekeeper and a maid entered bearing the trays with tea and coffee. There was a short silence while everyone was served; Scarlett poured Oakley’s for him, adding a great deal of cream and sugar, just as he liked it. As she handed it to him, he cast his eyes longingly towards the fire where Worthe and the duke were laughing in reply to some tale Kem was telling; Oakley strongly suspected he might rather be among them instead of being spoken to by his sisters like a schoolboy called up by the headmaster!

“How busy the next week is!” Adelaide exclaimed as she took a sip of her tea. “I declare I have received five times as many invitations as I had even last week!”

“As have I,” Frederica reported. “So many invitations!”

“I daresay that anyone who plans to be here for the Season is here now, and I wholly expect the next weeks to be a whirlwind.” Scarlett also took a sip of her tea, her eyes on Oakley above the rim of her cup. “A whirlwind of amusements.”

Oakley looked at the trio, all of whom returned looks of practised innocence. “Yes-s-s,” he said again. “The Season is diverting, but I am not so silly as to imagine that we are having this conference to discuss how much diversion we might anticipate.”

“Oakley, it is time for you to marry,” Lord Tipton boomed abruptly from across the room. “We have shilly-shallied long enough now. Find a woman, marry her, and get started on the next generation!”

His outburst was greeted by despairing looks from his nieces, a not-so-subtle nudge to the ribs from his wife, and repressed guffaws from the other men in the room. Oakley twisted in his seat to look at him. “Sir, forgive me, but my sisters and their husbands have led you to believe it is such an easy matter!”

“It is an easy matter when one does not go scampering about London, seeming to purposely seek out the unsuitable—what?” The last was directed at Lady Tipton, who had more forcefully intervened in the scene, interrupting her husband with whispers in his ear. When his lordship spoke again, he was far less gruff.

“This business of the past years…Damian, the title—”

“The emergence of an untold quantity of sisters from various cellars and corners of England,” Adelaide added, making them all laugh.

Lady Tipton chuckled. “Happy gossip along with the not-so-happy. In any case, the family has provided ample diversion for the ton, to be sure.”

Lord Tipton rose from his chair. Oakley—and he suspected his sisters as well—watched with fondness at the ease with which he stood. Lord Tipton suffered from rheumatism, and wintry months were more difficult with each passing year. Every winter they all worried it would never abate, and every spring they were relieved to see it did, at least partly. He had one hand on the walking stick he always kept with him now, but leant on it less heavily than he had in recent weeks as he paced towards the mantel.

“What I mean to say is that new scandals, old scandals, all of it has—may I say tarnished?—the family reputation. People do not know whether we are coming or going these days.”

“The ton will move on to the next thing soon, I am sure,” Oakley replied uneasily.

“I still hear so much nonsense,” Lady Tipton exclaimed. “Tales of Damian’s bastard children, hidden fortunes… Why, Lady Abernathy told me that she heard Damian had planned a scheme to have Oakley killed!”

“To be fair, he might have done,” Oakley said cheerfully. “Only it failed because here am I!”

Lady Tipton cried out as if a murderer had just burst into the room, then raised her fan and began to waft herself vigorously. Ever the caretaker, Frederica rose and went to her.

Kem spoke then, and Oakley had to crane his neck a little to see him. “What his lordship means to say, Oakley, is that we should very much like to become uninteresting for a while.”

“Hear, hear,” Oakley said, raising his coffee cup. “To the courting of tediousness!” No one laughed and Oakley lowered his cup. “Well then. How does one go about pursuing dullness?”

“There is one more subject that raises a great deal of tattle among the matrons,” Lady Tipton said. “And that is your marriage.”

“My marriage? Not much to say in that quarter, is there?” Oakley forced a heartier chuckle than he felt. A niggling suspicion had begun to form, and he was wary of it. To get ahead of any demands, he added, “Happily, I am only five-and-twenty, so I have plenty of time.”

Lord Tipton began to shake his head at the word ‘only’. “Our surest hope to take the eyes of the gossips off you—and by extension the family—is for you to settle down. There is nothing to say about a man who has done what men must do: take wives, beget heirs.”

“A titled man who is not married will always be of interest to everyone,” Penrith added quietly. “You simply cannot imagine the things that go on. I had only just begun to take calls of condolence for my first wife’s death when a young lady attempted to put me in a compromising position and make demands upon my honour.”

A gasp went around the room with Adelaide adding, “Hussy!” while Scarlett enquired, “How did she do that?”

“You must marry, Oakley,” Lord Tipton said firmly, overriding the twins’ comments. “There is nothing else for it. Yes, you are a bit young, but I should like to dandle the future earl on my knee before I die.”

VISCOUNT OAKLEY, THE HANDSOME AND WEALTHY HEIR to the Tipton earldom should have no trouble whatsoever wooing women. After all, there is nothing a society lady likes more than someone of good fortune and family, who will also make them a countess one day, or at least that is how it seems for other young noblemen. And yet, dance after dance, flirtation after flirtation, he is always left standing alone. Somehow, in some way, he always manages to lose his heart to the wrong lady.

THE DISCOVERY OF THREE YOUNGER SISTERS put aside his nuptial worries for some time, intent as he was on seeing them situated in happy marriages. Alas, with that accomplished, all eyes are once again on him, all the family urging him to marry a suitable young woman and begin a family with her. Each of his sisters think they have just the lady for him and so begins a seemingly endless round of parties, each of them designed to present some matrimonial hopeful to his notice.

BUT THE HEART DOES REMEMBER and a part of his heart will always beat for a love he lost to a scoundrel. What’s done is done he supposes, and determines to put the past aside and find a new love among the beauties before him, hoping for once his heart will not lead him astray.