The Spinster is coming October 8!

My author partner and I have been so gratified by the interest in the first book of our Rags to Richmonds. Believe it or not its already almost time for book 2 in the series, The Spinster! We hope you’ll enjoy it as much as you did The Maid. All books in this series will be available in kindle unlimited to we hope that will make it easy for our JAFF friends to give it a try!

Release day is October 8 and you can preorder it right HERE.

Excerpt

In a short time, the three ladies were dressed, coiffed, and on their way to the Tiptons’ residence in Grosvenor Square. It was an incredibly short journey that Scarlett thought surely could not have equalled a mile, but her queries on why they did not merely walk were met only with indulgent smiles. In truth, Scarlett would have much preferred to walk, for butterflies had taken flight in her stomach and, mixed with the unfamiliar fullness of bacon and jam, produced an uncomfortable sensation she had hoped a walk might dispel.

The horses stopped in front of a handsome red brick edifice that boasted a view of Hyde Park. Lady Leighton sent in her card and was quickly granted admittance. Scarlett tried not to gape at the house as she was handed down from the carriage, but she thought she had never seen a building with so many storeys before. As they shook out their skirts and prepared to enter, the front door opened and two men strode out. The first gentleman, tall with broad shoulders, looked at her and broke into a beaming smile. “Well, what good luck! I should have thought you would be getting pinned and poked at the dressmakers’ all day. Oakley and I were just off to look in at our club.”

With quick paces, he came to Scarlett. Possessing himself of her hand, he bowed and kissed it. In a trice, he leapt back as if he had been burnt, dropping her hand and exclaiming, “I beg your pardon!”

‘Oakley’s’ attention had been on the curricle being brought up behind the Leightons’ carriage, but on his friend’s exclamation, he turned his attention to them. Scarlett felt a little jolt as their eyes met.

The other man, the one who had—clearly mistakenly—kissed her hand, said, “You are not Adelaide.”

“No,” she said. “I am Miss Scarlett Margrave.”

A brief pandemonium ensued. The gentleman who had mistaken her for Adelaide commenced to apologise and offered one handsome cheek for her to slap. The man called Oakley proclaimed that he was her relation and began to enumerate the family similarities between them, at one point wishing her to remove a stocking, which scandalised her. Scarlett did not know whether she wished to run away, cry, or embrace them all.

Somehow, they were all herded into a shockingly large drawing room, so large the entire ground floor of the parsonage would surely have fitted into it. Scarlett’s mind was awhirl, taking in the sights and sounds while simultaneously trying to remember who was who and also to make some sense of it all. Lord Oakley—her cousin? He certainly believed he was, although whenever he said so, he said it with a little wink that Scarlett did not know the meaning of.

The handsome gentleman who had mistaken her for Adelaide, Lord Kemerton, said, “Call me Kem, as I daresay I shall soon claim the privilege of a brother.”

“You will?” Scarlett tilted her head and wrinkled her brow. “But why?”

“He is engaged to Adelaide,” Oakley explained. “Your sister.”

“My sister,” Scarlett echoed faintly. It was like being thrust into the middle of a play. She knew not how she was meant to feel about any of it, and a small part of her still wondered whether they were all mistaken. How could Lord Oakley be so certain? So eager to claim her? The words of the reverend echoed through her mind. ‘No one has ever shown the least interest in you. Not a single soul has ever sent a letter of enquiry, not in eighteen years.’

“Bring champagne!” Lord Oakley ordered the butler. “I daresay we must celebrate! And when Lady Tipton and Adelaide return—”

“They have not yet departed, sir,” the butler told him. “I expect they will both be down directly.”

The butler then quit the room. Lord Oakley’s eyes shone with his enthusiasm as he turned his attention back to Scarlett. “I have sent for his lordship at his club, but pray do not say a word until he gets here! We will want to hear it all, I assure you, but you will likely grow weary of repeating it!”

“It?” Scarlett asked. She glanced at Bess and Lady Leighton who had been struck silent by the unusual circumstances of the call.

“Your story! Where you have been, what you have done. Is this your family? Your adoptive family, that is?”

Lady Leighton, it appeared, was still gathering her wits about her, but Bess had recovered sufficiently to answer, “No, sir, but Scarlett has been my dearest friend since…why, since forever!”

“And it was you who brought her to town?” Lord Oakley’s smile, unaccountably, grew even larger when directed at Bess. “So very good of you!”

Lady Leighton at last found her voice. “No, not exactly, sir.”

“No? How did—but no! Pray do not tell me! Not yet!” Lord Oakley cried out. “See there? I am simply mad to know, but no sense telling it now! Must wait until all of us are present!”

Scarlett heard then the sound of the door opening and she turned, only to feel her jaw drop agape. For a moment, she forgot to breathe. A lady who was the veriest imitation of herself had just entered the room and paused, hand on her chest, before exclaiming, “Merde!”

SCARLETT MARGRAVE IS CONVINCED there is more to life than her day-to-day existence as the spinster daughter of a widowed parson in the small town of Stanbridge. She longs to experience more of life, even though her father insists there is nothing worth having anywhere beyond the safe confines of his parish, serving as his helpmeet in place of her late mother. Though only eighteen, she has resigned herself to life as a spinster. After all, when would she ever even meet a man, much less fall in love with one?

A CHANCE ENCOUNTER WITH THE EARL OF WORTHE at Scarlett’s first-ever assembly exposes a shocking truth that could change everything. A twin sister she never knew she had, a family she never knew was hers, and a man who was never the father she has always believed him to be—nothing about her life is what she thought it was.

SUDDENLY UNSURE OF WHERE SHE BELONGS and who she is, Scarlett sets off on a journey to find out where she came from and who her family really are, helped along the way by the amiable and gregarious Lord Worthe, a man she felt drawn to from the instant she met him. But will love at first sight be worth the fight to save it? Or will her previous life–the drab life of a discontented spinster–lay claim to her once and for all?