Lisa Kleypas

“I was right, wasn’t I?”

“It was a mistake for us to dance.”

“Then I suppose this waltz will be our first and our last,”

“Good evening, my lord, and thank you for—”

“A troubled soul,” the dowager said, with a smile that combined irony and affection and a hint of challenge that bewildered Lara. “Well, that is your forte, is it not?”

As the only surviving offspring of the Peyton family, Annabelle and her younger brother had always been unusually close despite the ten-year difference in their ages

This is Mr. Simon Hunt

He’s an entrepreneur.”

“You mean a financial speculator?” Annabelle

“Hush, bychan, little one, my dove. Nothing is worth your tears.”

The word “mistress” sounds like a cross between mistake and mattress.