The Stanton Legacy

Life has not been kind to Charlotte Harding. Orphaned, impoverished and plain-looking, she depends on the charity of relatives who take her in when she has nowhere else to go. In their London home, she meets the rich and handsome Viscount Stanton who is promised to the beautiful heiress, Miss Powell. Charlotte is smitten with him on first sight, but the Viscount barely notices her except to note her unprepossessing looks and shabby dress.

Grace Stanton is beautiful, vivacious, and no innocent when it comes to men. Her carefree, happy life is disrupted when her family is summoned to the bedside of her grandfather, the dying Earl of Stanton, in England. There, circumstances force her into a marriage with the last person she ever thought to marry—Benedict Sedgwick, the newly appointed parish curate who wears threadbare clothes and blushes in the presence of women.

From an early age, Sarah Cranshaw has exhibited an unladylike interest in scientific pursuits. Whether it's memorising train timetables or stargazing on her telescope, such pursuits have earned her the nickname of bluestocking in her Oxfordshire village. But behind the eccentric demeanour she presents to the world, there lies a secret. For years, Sarah has been obsessed with the handsome but roguish Mr Templeton. She knows, of course, that she has little hope of earning his affection in return, but still she yearns for him.