The Aristocrat and the Single Mum

Harlequin Romance
March/ April 2009

From hard-working mum – to lady of the manor!

Handsome English aristocrat Lord Simon Morton-Blake is reluctant to get involved with anyone on his visit to Australia – especially a single mother like Kate Petherbridge! But Simon can’t deny his unexpected attraction to vivacious Kate, nor refuse her offer of a place to stay.

Thrown into the middle of Kate’s lively family, Simon finds his buttoned-up manner slowly undone. A happy family isn’t something Simon’s ever known before, but he’s starting to realise there’s one ready-made just for him...

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Romantic Times 4.5 stars

"A simple story told very well, this one has great characters with nice chemistry. It's also by turns truly funny and moving."

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The Loner's Guarded Heart

Harlequin Romance
April 2008

Josie was touched that her brothers had arranged a holiday for her – she certainly needed one. Only, the location isn’t the lively resort she expected, but a rustic cabin in a beautiful but isolated Australian idyll...

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CataRomance 4.5 stars

"‘Packed with a smoldering tension and underlying passion The Loner’s Guarded Heart by Michelle Douglas will leave readers wanting more... [It] is a keeper that I will treasure. If you are a reader that loves tender heartfelt stories then this book is a must buy because it has all these elements and so much more.."

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Home for Christmas...

Once Sol Adams and Cassie Campbell had been inseparable, drawn to each other when times were tough. Cassie has spent the last ten years trying to move on from her life back then, but now Sol is home for Christmas, more gorgeous than ever, and she can’t avoid him – or her memories...

His bride for New Year?

Sol can see Cassie’s changed – she’s now a widow, a woman who tirelessly cares for others. But he knows her too well – he can see the hurt and yearning behind her cheerful smile. Can he get to the bottom o f her troubled heart and make this Christmas angel his much-loved wife?

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Romantic Times 4.5 stars

"Michelle Douglas makes an outstanding debut with HIS CHRISTMAS ANGEL, a complex, richly emotional story. The characters are handled especially well, as are the many conflicts and relationships. This one's a keeper."

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Excerpt from THE ARISTOCRAT AND THE SINGLE MUM

Kate reached the last item in the file, closed her eyes, closed the file and counted to ten. Then she opened her eyes, opened the file and started again. The bell above the door jangled, telling her someone had entered the office, but she didn’t move from her crouch in front of the filing cabinet. In fact, it was hard to move at all with all the boxes piled around her.

‘Hello?’

At any other time a voice like that would’ve had her swinging around in curiosity... and anticipation. The voice was deep and masculine, with an intriguing British burr. A lot of tourists with a lot of different accents passed through this part of the world and Kate loved accents. She’d once meant to travel to some of those faraway places and immerse herself in different cultures, different languages. But that was before she’d fallen pregnant with Jesse. This particular accent, though, was her all-time favourite and could turn her insides to mush in the space of a heartbeat.

‘I won’t be a moment,’ she called.

Half-hidden by the desk, her customer probably couldn’t see her. And although she usually made it a point to deal with prospective customers first, she took a deep breath and carefully examined the file again, lifting out and checking each document before moving to the next one.

Darn it. It wasn’t there. Where had she put it? The accountant had wanted it last week. She’d promised to get it to him today. She slapped the side of the filing cabinet as if it were its fault. She glanced around at all the boxes and groaned.

‘Is something wrong?’

She couldn’t resist that accent any longer. ‘I’m sorry.’ She turned. ‘I...’

She blinked. Air squeezed out of her lungs. Oh dear Lord, who cared about finding receipts for boat repairs when a man like this stood in her office?

She tried to catch her breath, but it flitted in and out of her lungs with more speed than grace, evading her every attempt to harness it. She thought she ought to stand, but the longer she stared at him the more the world tilted to one side and, as she had no desire to fall flat on her face at his feet, she decided she’d better stay right where she was. Very carefully, she lowered her knees to the ground so she knelt rather than crouched. More stability – that’s what she needed. And breakfast. She absolutely, positively shouldn’t have skipped breakfast. Low blood sugar and all that.

She tried to hold back a sigh, but her mystery man had such a beautiful face to go with the beautiful British accent – not to mention a superb body – and it had been a long time since she’d beheld such a perfect example of masculine beauty that she had no hope of containing it. It came out on one long low breath. His too-short hair, as far as she could tell, was his single flaw. But it gleamed rich and dark in the half-light of her office and she could imagine its crispness against her palms with more clarity than sense.

She shook herself. ‘Hello.’ Her voice came out normal. She had no idea how. She even managed a smile.

‘Hello,’ he said again in that to-die-for accent, but he said it slowly, as if making a discovery. Then he smiled. Firm, sensual lips. Cheek creases.

The world abruptly stopped tilting and something slammed into her stomach with the impact of a missile. It felt wrong and right – both at the same time. It didn’t make sense.

The man’s eyes widened, his lips pursed for a brief moment, and she wondered if he’d felt the impact too.

Another sigh welled up inside her. And yearning. She expelled the sigh on one hard breath, but could do nothing with the yearning. She forced herself to her feet. ‘I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.’

She glanced at the clock on the wall behind him – eleven a.m. The day was yet young. She had plenty of time to find receipts for boat repairs and visit her accountant. She had all the time in the world.

‘Is everything all right?’

Just in time she stopped herself from saying, It is now, because that was crazy talk. Fanciful.

She was a single mother with a child. She didn’t do fanciful.

Not any more.

Her tourist had dark eyes that crinkled at the corners. They were nice eyes and they looked at her with concern. ‘I’m sorry. Yes, I’m fine. Just a bit distracted.’ By him. But she didn’t want him to know that.

She blew a strand of hair out of her face and ordered herself to stop ogling the poor man, decided she’d buried herself in her work for far too long and that she better start getting out a bit more. ‘I’m just having one of those mornings, you know?’

‘Yep.’ He gave one hard nod. ‘Know exactly what you mean. Today, I can absolutely relate to that.’

Their gazes met and a surge of fellow feeling passed between them. In the dim light of her office she couldn’t work out if his eyes were brown or grey. She’d need to be closer to tell for sure, but they were clear and direct and she found herself liking them.

Her day suddenly started to look up. ‘How can I help you?’ She pulled the reservation book towards her.

He smiled again and her knees gave a funny little wobble. She’d bet she looked a wreck. She resisted the urge to pat down her hair and to straighten her shirt.

He didn’t look a wreck. He looked impeccable in a charcoal-grey suit. Italian, she’d bet. Actually, she wouldn’t know an Italian suit if it leapt up and bit her on the nose. It could be Bond Street for all she knew.

She knew shoes though, and those shoes were definitely Italian leather.

‘I’m actually wanting to speak to your employer, Kate Petherbridge.’

Kate blinked.

‘I was here at nine o’clock this morning.’ He pointed to the glass door, which had the office hours printed across it. The previous owner’s office hours. Kate hadn’t got around to having them changed yet. ‘Nobody showed up, which at the time I thought pretty unprofessional.’

She’d moved into this office two days ago. She’d figured they’d need the extra room at home now. But there was still so much to do. Her shoulders started to sag. He smiled again. Her knees gave another funny wobble. Outside, a magpie started to warble.

‘But if you’re having one of those kinds of days then–‘ he shrugged, ‘–it can’t be helped.’

He glanced down at the items spread across her desk – the contents of her purse drying out after their dunking in the bay. Without warning, the strap had given way when she’d raced the passenger list down to Archie. It was her best shoulder bag too. Only quick reflexes had saved the bag, contents and all, from sinking to the bottom to lie cradled against the oyster-encrusted rocks metres below. They seemed a paltry treasure – two bank cards, her driver’s licence and medical card, a diary-cum-address book, the little paper money she’d had on her, a tab of aspirin that for some reason she hadn’t thrown away, and a couple of soggy photographs. The one of Danny and Felice before they’d set off on their honeymoon was completely ruined.

‘My bag fell in the bay.’

It was a completely ludicrous statement – self-evident – but the man opposite didn’t laugh. He nodded as if he understood.

‘That was right after I’d buried Moby – the goldfish.’ That had not been a good start to the day. It was why she’d taken her favourite shoulder bag – to try and cheer herself up.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Thank you.’

He lifted one hand. ‘For what it’s worth, I hit a kangaroo in my hire car this morning.’

Even as she winced at the picture his words created, Kate decided then and there that their joint dispiriting tales of woe made this man a good omen. ‘How fast were you travelling?’

‘Eighty kilometres an hour.’

She winced again. Kangaroos didn’t survive eighty-kilometre-per-hour collisions.

He suddenly shook himself. He leaned forward and offered his hand. ‘I’m Simon Morton-Blake.’

Kate placed her hand inside his immediately. His long fingers curled around hers and he squeezed briefly. She squeezed back. They both smiled. His hair gleamed richer, darker. Reluctantly, or so it seemed to Kate, their hands parted company again. ‘Pleased to meet you. I’m–‘

The smile slid off her face. ‘What did you say your name was?’

‘Morton-Blake. Simon.’

What!

His eyes narrowed. ‘Why? Do you recognise it?’

Of course she recognised it, but Felice hadn’t mentioned anything about family.

‘The full title is Simon Morton-Blake, the seventh Lord of Holm–’ his lips twisted in self-derision ‘–but I don’t expect you’ve heard of that.’

Her jaw dropped. ‘You’re a lord? Like... a real lord?’

‘I am. Are you impressed?’

He raised an eyebrow and she wasn’t sure who he was sending up – her or himself.

‘It doesn’t seem to hold much cachet in Australia,’ he commented.

‘No, I don’t suppose it does, but...’ She peered up at him ‘...do you, like, have your own castle?’ She could imagine him living in a castle. She could imagine him in a kilt.

Don’t be ridiculous! He’s English, not Scottish.

Still... she’d give a lot to see him in a kilt.

‘The estate does have a fifteenth-century manor house and quite a few sheep, but no castle I’m afraid. Not even the ruins of a castle.’ He gave a mock grimace. ‘Have I fallen in your estimation?’

Kate laughed. Even though his name was Morton-Blake and he had to be some kind of relative of Felice’s. Even though Felice hadn’t mentioned anything about family, let alone family as distinguished as the seventh Lord of Holm.

He must be a distant cousin or something. Perhaps Felice had sent him a postcard extolling the beauties of Port Stephens – and it had many – and how much fun she was having working for Kate’s dolphin tour business.

But why hadn’t she mentioned him? Why had Felice let Danny and Kate think she had no family at all?

‘And you are?’

Kate snapped back to attention. ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ She drew in a breath, tried to smile. ‘I’m Kate Petherbridge.’

His face darkened and his eyebrows drew down low over his eyes as he placed his hands on her desk and leaned across it towards her. His eyes weren’t brown but a dark smoky-grey.

‘Then perhaps you can tell me where the hell my sister is?’

Very slowly, Kate sat. ‘Sister?’ Her mouth went dry. ‘Felice is your sister?’

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From the book "The Aristocrat and the Single Mum" by Michelle Douglas

Mills and Boon Romance March 2009

ISBN: 978-0373175765  Copyright: © 2009 Michelle Douglas

® and (TM) are trademarks of the publisher. The edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A. For more romance information go to: http://www.eHarlequin.com

Excerpt from THE LONER'S GUARDED HEART

‘HELLO?’
Josie Peterson bent down and called her greeting into the half open window before knocking on the door again.
     No movement. No sound. Nothing.
     Chewing her lip, she stepped back and surveyed the front of the cottage – weatherboard, neatly painted white. A serviceable grey-checked gingham hung at the windows.
Grey? A sigh rose up through her. She was tired of grey. She wanted frills. And colour. She wanted fun and fanciful.
She could feel the grey try to settle over her shoulders.
She shook herself and swung away, took in the view about her. The paths were swept, the lawn was clipped, but there wasn’t a single garden bed to soften the uniformity. Not even a pot plant. At the moment, Josie would kill for the sight of a single cheerful gerbera, let alone a whole row of them.
Six wooden cabins marched down the slope away from the cottage. Nothing moved. No signs of habitation greeted her. No cars, no towels drying on verandas, no pushbikes or cricket bats leant against the walls.
No people.
Fun and fanciful weren’t the first descriptions that came to mind. The grass around the cabins, though, was green and clipped short. Someone took the trouble to maintain it all.
If only she could find that person.
Or people. She prayed for people.
     The view spread before her was a glorious patchwork of golden grasses, khaki gum trees and a flash of silver river, all haloed and made soft focus by the late afternoon sunshine. Josie had to fight back the absurd desire to cry.
     What on earth had Marty and Frank been thinking?
     You were the one who said you wanted some peace and quiet, she reminded herself, collapsing on the top step and propping her chin in her hands.
     Yes, but there was peace and quiet and then there was this.
From the front veranda of the cottage, there wasn’t another habitation in sight. She hid her face in her hands. Marty and Frank knew her well enough to know she hadn’t meant this, didn’t they?
Her insides clenched and she pulled her hands away. She didn’t want the kind of peace and quiet that landed a person so far from civilization they couldn’t get a signal on their cell phone.
     She wanted people. She wanted to lie back, close her eyes and hear people laughing and living. She wanted to watch people laughing and living. She wanted–
     Enough already! This was the one nice thing Marty and Frank had done for her in...
She tried to remember, but her mind went blank. Okay, so maybe they weren’t the most demonstrative of brothers, but sending her on a holiday was a nice thing. Did she intend spoiling it with reservations and rank ingratitude?
     Some people would kill to be in her position. Lots of people would love to spend a month in the gorgeous Upper Hunter Valley of rural NSW with nothing to do.
She gazed about her wistfully. She wished all those people were lining the hills of this valley right now.
     She dusted off her hands and pushed to her feet. She’d make the best of it. According to her map there was a town a few kilometres further on. She could drive in there whenever she wanted. She’d make friends. She was tired. That’s all. It had taken too long to get here, which was probably why her landlord had given up on her.
     She wondered what kind of people would live out here all on their own. Hopefully, the kind of people who took a solitary soul under their wing, introduced them around and enthusiastically outlined all the local activities available. Hopefully they’d love a chat over a cup of tea and a biscuit.
Josie would provide the biscuits.
     Impatience shifted through her. She rolled her shoulders, stamped her feet and gulped in a breath of late afternoon air. She didn’t recognise the dry, dusty scents she pulled into her lungs, so different from the humid, salt-laden air of Buchanan’s Point on the coast, her home. Her stomach clenched up again at the unfamiliarity.
     She didn’t belong here.
     ‘Nonsense.’ She tried to laugh away the fanciful notion, but a great yearning for home welled inside her. The greyness settled more securely around her. She hastened down the three steps and back to the gravel path, hoping movement would give her thoughts new direction. She swung one way then another. She could check around the back, she supposed. Her landlord could be working in a... shed or vegetable plot or something.
     In her hunger to clap eyes on a friendly face, Josie rushed around the side of the house to open the gate. Her fingers fumbled with the latch. Need ballooned inside her, a need for companionship, a need to connect with someone. The gate finally swung back to reveal a neat yard. Again, no garden beds or flower pots broke the austerity, but the lawn was clipped and short, the edges so precise they looked as if they’d been trimmed using a set square.
The fence was painted white to match the house and the obligatory rotary clothesline sat smack-bang in the middle of it all. An old fashioned steel one like the one Josie had at home. Its prosaic familiarity reassured her. She stared at the faded jeans, blue chambray shirt and navy boxer shorts hanging from it and figured her landlord must be male.
     Why hadn’t she found out his name from Marty or Frank? Though, everything had moved so fast. They’d popped this surprise on her last night and had insisted on seeing her off at the crack of dawn this morning. Mrs Pengilly’s bad turn, though, had put paid to any early start. Josie bit her lip. Maybe she should’ve stayed and–
     A low vicious growl halted her in her tracks. Icy fingers shot down her back and across her scalp. No.
     Please God, no.
     There hadn’t been a Beware of Dog sign on the gate. She’d have seen it. She paid attention to those things. Close attention.
     The growl came again followed by the owner of the growl and Josie’s heart slugged so hard against her ribs she thought it might dash itself to pieces before the dog got anywhere near her. Her knees started to shake.
‘Nice doggy,’ she tried, but her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth slurring her voice and making it unintelligible.
     The dog growled in answer. Nuh-uh, it wasn’t a nice doggy and, although it wasn’t as large as a rottweiller or a doberman, it was heavy-set and its teeth, when bared, looked just as vicious. She could imagine how easily those teeth would tear flesh.
     She took a step back. The dog took a step forward.
She stopped. It stopped.
Her heart pounded so hard it hurt. She wanted to buckle over but she refused to drop her eyes from the dog’s glare. It lowered its head and showed its teeth. All the hackles on its back lifted.
     Ooh. Not a good sign. Everything inside Josie strained towards the gate and freedom, but she knew she wouldn’t make it. The dog would be on her before she was halfway there. And those teeth...
     Swallowing, she took another step back. The dog stayed put.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Another step. The dog didn’t move. Its hackles didn’t lower.
With a half-sob, Josie flung herself sideways and shinnied straight up the clothesline.
     ‘Help!’ she hollered at the top of her voice.
     Something tickled her face. She lifted a hand to brush it away. Spider web! She tried to claw it off but it stuck with clammy tentacles to her face and neck. It was the last straw. Josie burst into tears.
The dog took up position directly beneath her. Lifting its head, it howled. It made Josie cry harder.
‘What in the devil–’
A person. ‘Thank you, God.’ Finally, a friendly face. She swung towards the voice, almost falling out of the clothesline in relief.
She stared.
Her heart all but stopped.
Then it dropped clean out of her chest and laid gasping and flailing on the ground like a dying fish. This was her friendly face?
No!
Fresh sobs shook her. The dog started up its mournful howl again.
‘For the love of–’
The man glared at her, shifted his feet, hands on hips. Nice lean hips she couldn’t help noticing.
‘Why in the dickens are you crying?’
She’d give up the sight of those lean hips and taut male thighs for a single smile.
He didn’t smile. She stared at the hard, rocky crags of his face and doubted this man could do friendly. He didn’t have a single friendly feature in his face. Not one. Not even a tiny little one. The flint of his eyes didn’t hold a speck of softness or warmth. She bet dickens wasn’t the term he wanted to use either.
Heaven help her. This wasn’t the kind of man who’d take her under his wing. A hysterical bubble rose in her throat. ‘You’re my landlord?’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Are you Josephine Peterson?’
She nodded.
‘Yes.’ He scowled. ‘I’m Kent Black.’
He didn’t offer his hand, which she had to admit might be difficult considering she was stuck up his clothesline.
‘I asked why you were crying?’
Coming from another person the question would’ve been sympathetic, but not from Kent Black. Anyway, she’d have thought a more pressing question was, ‘What the dickens are you doing in my clothesline?’
‘Well?’ He shifted again on those long lean legs.
An hysterical bubble burst right out of her mouth. ‘Why am I crying?’ She bet he thought she was a madwoman.
‘Yes.’ His lips cracked open to issue the one curt word then closed over again.
‘Why am I crying?’ Her voice rose an octave. ‘I’ll tell you why I’m crying. I’m crying because look at this place?’ She lifted her hands. ‘It’s the ends of the earth?’ She fixed him with a glare. It was the only thing that stopped her from crying again. ‘How could Marty and Frank think I’d want to come here, huh?’
‘Look, Ms Peterson, I think you ought to calm–’
‘Oh, no, you don’t. You asked the question and demanded an answer so you could darn well listen to it.’ She pointed her finger at him as if he was personally responsible for everything that had gone wrong today.
‘Not only am I’m stuck here at the ends of the earth but... but I’m stuck in a clothesline at the end of the earth. And to rub salt into the wound, I got lost trying to find this rotten place and ended up at Timbuktu where I got a flat tyre. Then your dog chased me up this rotten clothesline and there’s spider web everywhere!’
Her voice rose with each word in a way that appalled her, but she couldn’t rein it back like she normally did. ‘And Mrs Pengilly took a bad turn this morning and I had to call an ambulance and... and I buried my father a fortnight ago and–’
Her anger ran out. Just like that. She closed her eyes and leant her head against the centre pole. ‘And I miss him,’ she finished on a whisper so soft she hardly heard it herself.
Darn it. She chinked open one eye and found him staring at her as if she was a madwoman. She opened the other eye and straightened. Then smoothed down her hair. She wasn’t a madwoman. And despite her outburst she didn’t feel much like apologising either. He didn’t have the kind of face that invited apologies. She pulled in a breath and met his gaze.
‘You’re afraid of my dog?’

She raised an eyebrow. Did he think she sat in clotheslines for the fun of it? ‘Even at the ends of the earth you should put signs up on your gates warning people about vicious dogs.’

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From the book "The Loner's Guarded Heart" by Michelle Douglas

Mills and Boon Romance April 2008

ISBN: 978 0 373 17510 9  Copyright: © 2008 Michelle Douglas

® and (TM) are trademarks of the publisher. The edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A. For more romance information go to: http://www.eHarlequin.com

Excerpt from HIS CHRISTMAS ANGEL:

SOL slammed through the house and out the back door to the veranda. Gripping the railing, he hauled in a breath. Then another. Half an hour. He'd been back half an hour and already he was dying to get the hell out of here. Nothing had changed.

For Pete's sake, you'd think after ten years...

He rolled his shoulders trying to ease the tension that had them wedged up tighter than double lapped dovetail joints. His eyes swept across the backyard. What a mess. The fence needed mending the lawn needing mowing and the-

Cassie's tree.

His angry thoughts slammed to a halt. He squinted into the afternoon sun, but two giant oleanders on the other side of the fence prevented him from making out much of the house in the yard beyond. Did Cassie Campbell still live there?

Cassie Parker, he amended. Married ten years ago.

And widowed for eighteen months. Some things had changed.

He dragged a hand down his face. Cassie wouldn't live there now she'd live in the centre of town with the rest of the Parkers. She didn't need to live on the outskirts any more. And since her mother had died...

An ache hollowed out his chest. He hadn't come back for the funeral. He hadn't come back for Brian's funeral either.

He stared hard at what he could see of the house and yard, trying to imagine someone else living there, but he couldn't. His gaze came back to the tree squatting in the corner, his lips curved upwards and the tension seeped out of him. Back then the only thing that had kept life bearable around here was Cassie Campbell.

Cassie Parker, he reminded himself and his smile faded.

He clenched the veranda railing again. What the hell did he think he was doing? Trying to catch a glimpse of Cassie Campbell? He had an insane urge to butt his head against a veranda post. He'd left all thoughts of Cassie behind ten years ago.

Yeah right, which is why you're craning your neck over her back fence with your tongue hanging out.

He made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. For Pete's sake, it wouldn't even be her damn fence any more. He went to turn away when a leg dangled out of the tree, a long, lean, female leg. He blinked and shaded his eyes.

Cassie Campbell?

His breath hitched. Parker, he amended, steeling himself. And don't be such a goddamn idiot. But curiosity propelled him down the back steps and across the yard all the same. That was a damn fine leg and he was real curious to see who lived in Cassie's old place now.

A mumbled half-smothered expletive drifted out of the tree as he drew near and for some reason it made him grin. He quickened his step and without waiting for his eyes to adjust to the shade, glanced up. The breath punched out of him. A strange choked noise emerged from the back of his throat. He couldn't have uttered a single coherent sound if his life depended on it.

Dancing violet eyes swung around to stare down at him. They raked across his face then generous lips formed a perfect O. 'Good lord, if it isn't Sol Adams home for Christmas at last.'

Cassie Campbell!

His heart started to pump hard and fast. He swallowed. The sound rolled in the spaces beneath the tree, loud in the summer afternoon. 'Hey, Cassie,' he finally managed to get out.

'Hey, Cassie?' She rolled her eyes. 'After ten years that's all you can think to say?'

Then she smiled. Really smiled. Cassie had always put her whole heart into a smile. It outshone the hot summer sun. He blinked, but he couldn't look away. His groin ached. The entire surface of his skin tightened as if he'd grown too big for it.

Her smile wavered. 'You didn't even say goodbye.'

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From the book "His Christmas Angel" by Michelle Douglas

Mills and Boon Romance December 2007

ISBN:  978 0 733 58279 0  Copyright: © 2007 Michelle Douglas

® and (TM) are trademarks of the publisher. The edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A. For more romance information go to: http://www.eHarlequin.com