For Donna Hayes, Loriana Sacilotto,

      Margaret O’Neill Marbury, Valerie Gray and Linda McFall.

      A writer couldn’t ask for a better support team.

      Contents

      Prologue

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Chapter 19

      Chapter 20

      Chapter 21

      Chapter 22

      Chapter 23

      Chapter 24

      Chapter 25

      Chapter 26

      Chapter 27

      Chapter 28

      Chapter 29

      Chapter 30

      Chapter 31

      Chapter 32

      Chapter 33

      Epilogue

      Letter to Reader

      Acknowledgments

      Prologue

      How hard could it be to find spouses for her five grown children before she died? Bella supposed it depended on how long it took for her failing heart to give out. No one had ever accused the five Benedict children of being easy to handle. All of them over twenty-five, and not one of them ever engaged, let alone married.

      That might have something to do with the lives they led as members of British royalty. Bella was actually Isabella Wharton Benedict, Duchess of Blackthorne. She certainly had her work cut out for her finding mates for four British-American lords and a lady. Bella corrected herself. Make that four gentlemen rogues and a spoiled rotten lady.

      Could she do it? Did she dare try?

      Bella stared out the window from her hospital bed at the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville, wondering where to start. She ran a brush through her shoulder-length black hair, which was threaded with more silver every day. She might be in the autumn of her life, but here in Virginia it was spring, when love blossomed.

      Cardinals flirted in the flowering dogwood trees. Blue-and-black-and-yellow butterflies cavorted in the daffodils. Squirrels chattered at each other and played tag, tails flying. With any luck, her titled offspring would find themselves equally vulnerable to romance during this fertile season.

      She threw the engraved silver brush onto the bedside table and turned her attention back to the doctor standing at the foot of her hospital bed. “What’s the verdict?”

      “You’re still at about thirty percent heart function.”

      That was actually good news. At least she hadn’t lost function since her last checkup. She could live—for a while, maybe years—with that little heart function. But the point was, her heart was dying, and she was dying along with it.

      That’s what she got for insisting she could ski down an icy slope in the Alps. She’d survived the blunt force trauma to her heart when she’d lost control and gone over a cliff. But the injury had caused scarring that had resulted in reduced heart function and continuing heart failure.

      “How long do I have?” she asked.

      “The new meds I gave you should keep you up and running for a while.”

      “Running?” Bella said with a quirk of her lips.

      “Figuratively,” the doctor qualified. “You should certainly be exercising regularly to keep what’s left of your heart muscle healthy. And take your meds!”

      Bella eyed the numerous bottles of pills she needed to keep her heart functioning. She hated depending on all those pills, but they allowed her an almost-normal life. ACE inhibitors. Beta blockers. Aldosterone antagonist drugs. She couldn’t begin to name the individual prescriptions. The problem was, at some point—in the not too distant future—her heart was still going to fail.

      “How long do I have?” Bella asked again.

      “Can’t say,” the doctor replied.

      “Guess.”

      The doctor shrugged. “A year for sure. Maybe two. Three if you take care of yourself—and you’re lucky. Or you could have a heart attack tomorrow. We just can’t predict these things.”

      Bella shivered. That wasn’t much of a future.

      “I do have