Valentine's Day short story from Lila Fairchild

Josephine Browning knows the kind of trouble a man can bring. So when her estranged husband comes groveling for his past sins, she has no plans to take him back.

But the man who once cast her aside is persistent. And soon, forgiveness does not look so easy to dismiss.

James Bancroft - stoic, chaste, and looking for nothing but peace - is not trying to make friends in Impling. Still, he had not intended to make enemies, either. After badmouthing a beloved pillar of the community at a dance, he knows he must make amends, and quickly.

But the more he tries to make things right with the morbid Miss Lockwood, the more she pulls away. As his passion toward her grows, he finds himself unable to cope with his newfound feelings.

After all, he knows quite well what it looks like when a man does not control himself.

When she was twelve, Winifred fell in love with a boy. When she was eighteen, he broke her heart. Now, widowed at three and thirty, she has decided that her days of love are gone. She wants only peace with her children, with nothing to disturb it.

Fifteen years ago, Percy made the biggest mistake of his life. But when a cousin's untimely demise takes him to the tiny town of Impling, he finds himself living with the woman he left behind. A second chance is close at hand, he knows...if only Winifred will grant it to him.

Phoebe Mason has a good ride at the prestigious Druening-Krane, with plans for law school. The last thing she needs is something to distract her from her academics.

But when she gets assigned to help Elias Harding - the university's hockey captain and the worst guy she's ever met - it's an opportunity to get so much more than an education. So she says yes.

William Bancroft has known that he would marry Ginny Greene from the moment he set eyes on her. Now, finally ready for the chase, he finds himself in the unique position of courting a woman for the first time in his life. But Ginny does not merely want courting. No, she wants love. Affection. Easy intimacy. All things that Bancroft knows he cannot offer her.

But, bastard that he is, it does not keep him from trying.

Theodore Bancroft is intelligent, despite what some may think, but he has never had the respectability that an investor needs. He needs a wife to bolster his rakish image. A perfect wife.

Adelaide Kingsley is perfect. Her one imperfection - getting caught in the Haversham gardens with Theodore Bancroft - is entirely by design. Not only does it get her out of her impending engagement to the odious Lord Greeling, but it also wins her the only thing she has never known: freedom.

Sebastian Brightwater needs a dowry, and he knows exactly what young woman in the Ton can give it to him.

The problem? She wants nothing to do with him.

The solution? Feign love to pay off his debts.

But when actual love creeps in, the truth of his con threatens the fate of his marriage.

Gregory Bancroft is a very good person, except for the one time that he isn't. But that one time is all it takes to ruin the life of the woman he loves. For two years he's tried to go on without her, eeking out an existence that is merely tolerable, but never happy.

But Georgie is back in London now, and he will not let her slip away so easily this time.

The last time Archibald Grayson saw Edmund Foster, he said something he did not mean. Now, having run away from his old life in London society, he can only hope that his lover will accept his apologies.

NOTE: This short story will be lengthened into a novella and included for free in the Amazon version of Allow Me.