Book picks similar to
The Dark Duke by Laura Landon


historical-romance
romance
historical
mystery

The Stranger She Married


Donna Hatch - 2008
    Desperate to save her family from debtor's prison, Alicia vows to marry the first wealthy man to propose. She meets the dashing Lord Amesbury, and her heart whispers that this is the man she is destined to love, but his tainted past may forever stand in their way. Her choices in potential husbands narrow to either a scarred cripple with the heart of a poet, or a handsome rake with a deadly secret.Cole Amesbury is tormented by his own ghosts, and believes he is beyond redemption, yet he cannot deny his attraction for the girl whose genuine goodness touches the heart he'd thought long dead. He fears the scars in his soul cut so deeply that he may never be able to offer Alicia a love that is true.When yet another bizarre mishap threatens her life, Alicia suspects the seemingly unrelated accidents that have plagued her loved ones are actually a killer's attempt to exterminate every member of her family. Despite the threat looming over her, learning to love the stranger she married may pose the greatest danger to her heart.

A Wallflower's Wish Boxed Set: Three Regency Romances


Maggie Dallen - 2021
    Or at least, she was. But this season her prospects are brighter and, much to her mother's delight, she may just make a match. When the duke she once adored from a distance arrives at the house party she's attending with her friends, she knows for certain her luck has changed.Until she meets him.A Lord for Miss LilyLily’s lord is her long lost friend. He’s also her worst enemy.Lord Merrick is perfectly handsome and charming…but this lord is a complete traitor. Lily knows this for a fact as she is the very person he turned his back on. Now she’s determined to avoid him at the house party she’s been trapped at with her former friend.The only problem? Lord Merrick is like the plague… he just keeps cropping up.A Marquess for Miss MarigoldAll this wounded marquess wants is solitude. Instead, he stumbles across a wallflower…literally.It wasn’t as though Marigold was hiding, she was just…lying low. In an abandon shed. Admidst a houseparty where both her best friends had managed to become engaged.In a few days she can escape to her quiet life a solitude and books. Alone. Forever. But then the prodigal son returns to the manor and charges into her life with the military precision one might expect from a war hero. Even more terrifying, he refuses to ignore her like the rest of society. Of course, he doesn’t.

Secret Dreams of a Fearless Governess


Abby Ayles - 2019
    But angels are fragile things… After the death of his parents, Edmund Hardwicke, the young Earl of Kelt, finds himself burdened with enormous responsibilities - none heavier than being in charge of his many younger siblings. When Joanna Warrick, the new governess, arrives at his home, she breathes life into everything. Like a wind of light and hope after the family’s misfortunes, she even awakens Edmund’s sleeping heart. But a storm is brewing, and that storm has a name: Christopher Hardwicke. Edmund’s younger brother will do everything in his power to see him suffer and ruined, and his unexpected arrival foretells nothing but trouble. Now, Joanna will have to deftly navigate secrets, lies, and the battle of wills between two stubborn brothers who have both lost too much. But while her heart secretly dreams of a happy future and seeks to bring peace in a home divided, an old enemy reawakens, threatening them all… If you like engaging characters, heart- wrenching twists and turns, and lots of romance, then you’ll love “Secret Dreams of a Fearless Governess!” Buy “Secret Dreams of a Fearless Governess” and unlock the exciting story of Joanna today!

Pride of Honor


Andrea K. Stein - 2020
    She must ensure her marriage to a “suitable gentleman of the ton” before her twenty-first birthday or she’ll be destitute, per the terms of her ducal grandmother’s will. Close to having her own poems published, Sophia has her hopes dashed each time by someone revealing her secrets. That same someone so desperately wants her to fail the terms of the will, they’re willing to commit violent acts to ruin her reputation. Captain Arnaud Bellingham has ascended the ranks of the Royal Navy in spite of his half-French heritage by proving himself at the Battle of Algiers and with the West African Squadron. He seeks a simple marriage of convenience to a mature woman, a widow who has been his sometime mistress the last several years. The very thing he does not want, an exotic Italian innocent, literally falls into his life when he rescues her from kidnappers, although she disputes she needed saving. And now, honor and duty dictate he has to waste the rest of his leave guarding her through the mad whirl of the Season.

Risky Rules of a Passionate Governess


Henrietta Harding - 2019
    Upon running into the son of Roland de Bowes, the Duke of Easterly, something secret and mysterious stirs within her. She can’t help but sign for the job of governess at Bonhomie,where the Duke’s estate is located. What she didn’t expect though were the intense and inspiring emotions sparked by Lord Garret, the Duke’s handsome brother. Will this sizzling passion cost her position? Or will she find a way to tame her feelings? Family is the most precious thing for Lord Garret, who is a remarkably serious and proud man. After the death of his sister in law, he came to a conclusion that his brother is unable to take care of the estate. Even though Lord Garret regards Katherine with suspicion when she is hired, as time goes by, he can’t hide his tremendous admiration and desire for her. Will this rigid man lay aside his doubts for a chance to love passionately? Although Katherine and Lord Garret find themselves madly in love, it only takes one miscommunication for it to be torn apart. Is Lord Garret strong enough to admit to his weaknesses, and keep Katherine at Bonhomie, not as a governess, but as his bride? For Lord Garret de Bowes, it will take admitting to himself that his heart is captured. For Katherine, it means succumbing to the greatest love she has ever known. Will their love overcome society’s expectations? Or will they accept fate and distance themselves forever?

The Secret Admirer of an Extraordinary Lady


Bridget Barton - 2019
    But when she unexpectedly starts receiving anonymous letters from a secret admirer, she begins to dream of a love she never knew she could have. The situation becomes further complicated when she starts to see a different side of her childhood friend, someone she used to despise as a young girl. Will she dare to fall for someone she has never even met, or will she realise that someone else entirely is worth her attention?Anthony Boyle has always found pleasure in teasing his best friend’s little sister. When one day he takes it too far and she walks off leaving him standing with everyone looking at him, he starts plotting his revenge. But the lesson he’s planning to teach her is one he will be taught himself when he starts realising that he has fallen in love with her. How will he be able to resolve the situation he created without losing the only woman he has ever loved? Anthony and Lydia will find themselves in amusing situations where one will always be a step ahead of the other. Who will be the one to claim Lydia’s heart when all the cards are on the table?

Crimes Of The Brothers


D.L. Carter - 2013
    caring... supportive... protective. Catherine Walman's brother, however, is not. He has maligned her reputation until no honorable man will seek her company, wasted her dowry and endangered her home with his gambling and now his new wife has made it clear Catherine is no longer welcome. The hand of fortune intervenes when a letter arrives advising Catherine that a stranger has bequeathed to her "a home and money to keep it." Catherine seizes upon this chance, hoping that it might be enough for her to be independent, to be free - only to discover this stranger also had a brother, or two, or three.

Lady Fiasco


Kathleen Baldwin - 2004
    Without a mother to restrain her, she spends her days riding her horse neck or nothing across her father’s fields and swimming like a sea nymph. But inside a prim and proper Regency sitting room Fiona is bound to overturn the teapot or accidentally trip the footman. Her illustrious Aunt Honore decides to take the hoyden in hand, but amidst the strictures of the Beau Monde, Fiona is a fish out of water. When she was younger, Lord Wesmont was her hero. Sadly, he came home from fighting Napoleon a hardened man. Nothing can breathe life back into his cold heart, nothing except, perhaps, the love of an unusual young woman who regularly turns his life upside-down. Lady Fiasco is a Sweet Traditional Regency Romance.

The Waylaid Heart


Holly Newman - 1990
    Suspecting the culprit traveled in society circles, she diverts attention from eavesdropping and prying with constant and tiresome complaints of illness.But nothing is as it seems...Sir James Branstoke sees straight through Cecilia's feigned fragility. Intrigued by her odd behavior, he believes she has secrets—secrets that could lead to her demise. So, the hunter follows the huntress through society, never imagining that what has started as a chance inquiry could lead to a surprising love greater than either had ever known.But will the cost of uncovering a murderer be too high? Can Cecilia and James reveal the culprit so love can blossom in the end?

A Dangerous Pursuit


Laura Beers - 2021
    A spy. And a love worth fighting for.Welcome to book 1 in the exciting new series Regency Spies & Secrets from bestselling author Laura Beers.Miss Madalene Dowding was devastated when her mother died, leaving her all alone. To honor her mother's legacy, she decides to use part of her fortune to open an orphanage. When a teacher at the orphanage goes missing, Madalene takes it upon herself to start looking for her, even if it means taking her deep into the unsavory parts of London.Baldwin Radcliff, the Marquess of Hawthorne, is working on his last case as an agent of the Crown, since he is about to retire and take up his seat in the House of Lords. He is tasked with finding a French spy that is in league with a growing group of radicals. As he searches for the enemy, he discovers a meddling heiress that keeps stumbling in at the most inopportune times, making him wonder if she is perhaps the spy he has been sent to find.Despite mutual dislike, Baldwin agrees to help Madalene, but only if she stays far away from the investigation. A promise that Madalene has no intention of keeping. Will headstrong Madalene and duty-driven Baldwin be able to work together, especially since so much is at stake? Will Baldwin choose between saving the Crown or saving an obstinate woman that he has unwittingly fallen in love with?

My Fair Lily


Meara Platt - 2014
    Nothing can tempt him to remain, not even Lily, the beautiful bluestocking determined not only to restore relations between him and his grandfather, but to turn Ewan into a proper gentleman. Ewan, proud of his Scottish heritage, refuses to admit that Lily, a blue-eyed, English girl, has claimed his heart. It doesn’t matter that his big lump of a sheepdog is madly in love with her. Nor is it significant that Ewan can always tell Lily apart from her identical twin sister. Always. Lily Farthingale, the scholarly twin, dreams of becoming the first female member of the Royal Society. She grabs at the chance when the elderly Duke of Lotheil approaches her with a proposition - he’ll admit her into the Royal Society, if she helps him to establish a relation with his estranged grandson, Ewan Cameron, a very rough-around-the-edges Scotsman who hates everything English. Between shootings, explosions, and Lily’s abduction, Ewan ends up falling in love with Lily in this Pygmalion-inspired story.

Rescued by a Wicked Baron


Scarlett Osborne - 2019
    He is her dusk of wounds... Closed within her shell and withdrawn from society, Catherine Barnet suffers both from shame over her brother’s actions and the scars his abusive behavior left on her. Patrick Conolly, Baron of Ramshay, has been loving Catherine from afar all of his life...until the day she finally notices him. But they are unaware of something crucial: someone is watching them and, enraged by their sudden closeness, things are about to change for both of them... When Catherine finds out that Patrick, just like her brother, is involved with notorious criminals, she loses her trust in him. Desperate to win her back and clear his name, Patrick visits Catherine’s brother in prison. But he is not prepared for what he is about to hear...

Grace


Deneane Clark - 1998
    The world, she had noticed, expected nothing more from women than that they be submissive, demure brood mares, allowed absolutely no rights or even opinions of their own. And yet, at twenty, an age at which most of Society considered her well past her prime, she need only wait a little longer to be safe. No—she was fairly comfortable declaring—she would never marry, no matter the temptation set before her.He Would...With a flashing green gaze potently combining warmth, humor and seductive promise, Trevor Christian Caldwell was resisted by few women. When one factored in the earldom of Huntwick and his legendary charm, his conquests became all the more indubitable. But never had there been a woman he truly respected. Not until now. Here, in Pelthamshire, a spirited redhead forced a decision he had never before considered: He would marry Grace Ackerly, no matter what protestations, no matter what travails.It was yet to be seen who would prevail. And how.

Seductive Secrets


Carrie James Haynes - 2012
    Shunned from London society for being the daughter of England’s most notorious spy, Alyce Hythe desires only to clear her father’s name. For years, she has been hidden away from all prying eyes, given a new identity and told to forget who she was. But strange things have been happening causing old rumors to once more be whispered.Long has Lord Julian Casvelyn lived with guilt brought on when his brother was murdered by England’s most infamous traitor. But one eventful night has changed everything Lord Julian believed about his brother’s death. Never did he suspect the woman he has just saved from certain harm is the daughter of that man. Now Julian is caught in midst of a conspiracy and desire for that woman.Thrown together by fate, the two search for answers long denied them and along the way discover a love that can free them both.Previously published as Daughter of Deceit under Carrie James Haynes

An Untamed Governess for the Rogue


Olivia Bennet - 2019
    She is his ultimate risk... After losing both her parents, Teresa Dowels' future seems uncertain. Forced to leave the house she grew up in, she finds employment as a governess at the Duke of Rowfex’s mysterious manor. Luke Morton, second son of the Duke of Rowfex, is trying to preserve a well-hidden family secret. But life as he knows it changes the day he saves his younger sibling’s ravishing governess from rape. However, it is only a matter of time before the attacker, a notorious criminal with an ulterior motive, strikes again... When Luke disappears, all pieces seem to connect. With Teresa discovering the ugly truth about his family, time is against her. And only a miracle can keep them both alive... *If you like a realistic yet steamy depiction of the Regency and Victorian era, then An Untamed Governess for the Rogue is the novel for you. This is Olivia's 5th novel, a historical Regency romance novel of 80,000 words (around 400 pages). No cheating, no cliffhangers, and a strong happily ever after. Pick up "An Untamed Governess for the Rogue" today to discover Olivia's amazing new story!