The Harper stud farm is in jeopardy when Olive’s lifelong enemy—also known as the scoundrel who stole her first kiss, only to publicly humiliate her—rides back into town with an offer she absolutely must refuse!
Join the passionate feud in Ten Days With a Duke, the next romance in the 12 Dukes of Christmas series!
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Author’s Note
Black people have been living in England since the 1100s.
Numbers increased significantly from the 17th century onward, but the presence of Black people would not have been a surprising sight in Shakespeare’s time, and certainly not unusual by the Regency era.
Jane Austen’s unfinished manuscript Sandition features a sought-after mixed-race heroine. It is a truth universally acknowledged that an heiress from the West Indies in possession of a large fortune must be in want of a husband.
Long before slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire in 1833, free Black people lived a full range of lives, from paid servants to working class to fame and fortune. Musicians, sailors, preachers, businessmen, inventors, political activists. Black princes and dignitaries from African nations were celebrated in Polite Society.
There was still virulent racism, widespread disenfranchisement, and countless atrocities, despite one’s status and supposed freedom. Even African princes could pay a white sea captain for transport to England only to find himself sold into slavery instead.
You may like to learn more about:
Ignatius Sancho (composer, writer 1729-1780)
Dido Elizabeth Belle (heiress 1761-1804)
George Africanus (entrepreneur 1763-1834)
Olaudah Equiano (writer & abolitionist 1745-1797)
Bill Richmond (pugilist & pub owner 1763-1829)
Joseph Emidy (musician & composer 1775-1835)
George Bridgetower (virtuoso violinist 1778-1860)
Cesar Picton (merchant & gentleman 1755-1836)
Reasonable Blackman (silk merchant 1579-1592)
Queen Charlotte (African-Portuguese ancestry 1744-1818)
For further reading, you may like Black London by Gretchen Gerzina, which at the time of this writing can be downloaded for free from the Dartmouth College website.
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Boxed Set Collections:
12 Dukes of Christmas (Books 1-4)
12 Dukes of Christmas (Books 5-8)
Rogues to Riches (Books 1-3)
Rogues to Riches (Books 4-6)
Dukes of War (Books 1-4)
Dukes of War (Books 5-7)
Gothic Love Stories (Books 1-4)
Magic & Mayhem (Books 1-3)
In order, the 12 Dukes of Christmas:
Once Upon a Duke (FREE!)
Kiss of a Duke
Wish Upon a Duke
Never Say Duke
Dukes, Actually
The Duke’s Bride
The Duke’s Embrace
The Duke’s Desire
Dawn With a Duke
One Night With a Duke
Ten Days With a Duke
Forever Your Duke
The Wild Wynchesters series:
The Governess Gambit
The Duke Heist
In order, the Rogues to Riches books are:
Lord of Chance (FREE!)
Lord of Pleasure
Lord of Night
Lord of Temptation
Lord of Secrets
Lord of Vice
In order, the Dukes of War books are:
The Viscount’s Tempting Minx (FREE!)
The Earl’s Defiant Wallflower
The Captain’s Bluestocking Mistress
The Major’s Faux Fiancée
The Brigadier’s Runaway Bride
The Pirate's Tempting Stowaway
The Duke's Accidental Wife
In order, the Gothic Love Stories are:
Too Wicked to Kiss (FREE!)
Too Sinful to Deny
Too Tempting to Resist
Too Wanton to Wed
Too Brazen to Bite
In order, the Magic & Mayhem books are:
Kissed by Magic
Must Love Magic
Smitten by Magic
Ten Days with a Duke
A second chances, enemies-while-lovers reunion romance where nothing is as it first appears, and everyone’s motives are suspect…
Olive Harper's family has been feuding with the Westons for decades. The Westons’ stud farm is the biggest, but the Harpers’ is the most famous... and she's the sole heiress. Or was, until her father brokers a truce by offering the Weston heir the Harper farm. The only way to get it back is to marry the knave who kissed her and humiliated her, twice—or prove to her father that some rifts can never be healed.
Scholar and botanist Elijah Weston is dreadful at feuding. For one, he prefers horticulture to horses. For two, he's been desperately in love with his mortal enemy ever since he kissed her—and, yes, publicly destroyed her—all those years ago. When he's given ten days to win Olive's heart, he arrives with marriage license in hand. But where lies and double-crosses abound, how can lifelong rivals learn to trust their hearts?
Get Yours: Grab Ten Days With a Duke here!
Sneak Peek Ten Days with a Duke
Christmas Day, 1814
Miss Olive Harper clapped a hand over her mouth to hide her laughter, but the shaking of her shoulders gave her away.
“It’s true,” protested the Duke of Nottingvale. “She flew out of that tree without a single care for gravity.”
As was time-honored tradition, all of the other guests at the duke’s annual Yuletide party launched into equally fantastic tales of gossip they’d read about Olive and the famous Harper horses, or antics they’d witnessed with their own eyes.
She turned to her father, who stood between the pianoforte and a table full of treats. “His Grace claims he saw me drop from a tree branch onto a passing horse.”
Papa’s eyes twinkled. “Sidesaddle or low pummel?”
“Low pummel, of course.” Papa was the one who taught her how.
She and her father had been inseparable for as long as she could remember. Not only were they the best of friends, they’d worked side-by-side on their stud farm from the moment she was out of leading strings. Olive had learnt to ride before she’d learnt to read.
Local blacksmith Sébastien le Duc groaned. “And then there was the time she wagered Lucien her horse could leap further than his.”
Olive tamped down a smile. The Harpers and the le Ducs lived across the street from one
