Lord Vandeimen returns home from Waterloo to ruined estates, his family all dead. His attempts to recreate something of his heritage leave him deep in debt, and he is ready to commit suicide when a woman bursts into his room with an extraordinary proposal. Mrs. Maria Celestin, widow of a wealthy foreign merchant, will pay him a small fortune to pretend to be her betrothed husband for six weeks.

Van cannot refuse, but he is wary of this outrageous good fortune. He is also intent on getting into the widow's bed. He doesn't expect to be dragged back into life, and into love, or into a battle to win the woman who bought him.

THE TROUBLE WITH HEROES
This story is now available as an e-book in most forms here and also from Amazon for Kindle.
Winner of the Sapphire Award for Best Science Fiction Romance, short form, 2004.

The people of Gaia think themselves blessed to be living on the most perfect colony world ever discovered, even if there is a strange energy force that occasionally destroys people. Only very occasionally. Rarely, really. Until now. Now, the entire population is threatened and all the obvious heroes are dead. Which leaves an unlikely hero and the woman he loves.

“The Trouble With Heroes” is a brilliant novella" The Romance Reader.

"...an imaginative and moving allegory about war: those we've fought in the past and those we may fight in the future and on far-off worlds." Bookloons.com

"I adored it... Beverley did a brilliant job of capturing real human emotions in an otherworldly situation." All About Romance

"...a moving exploration of the consequences of war and power on those who fight as well as those left behind." Romantic Times
Read an excerpt or buy now here.

A holiday collection for the millennium, offering joy, hope, and romance. Four stories wrapped around the turning of the centuries, and a legend about a jewel touched by the Christ Child in Bethlehem.

Day Of Wrath. 999 AD. When her childhood friend and love marries another, Wulfhera of Froxton enters a nunnery, but Viking raids and the coming of the millennium cause her to flee home. There she finds Raef a widower, but intent only on despair and suicidal vengeance. Then, on the shortest day of the year, she finds a precious jewel in the belly of a fish. Is it the fabled Star of the Magi? Can it really help her to bring peace, and save the life of the man she loves?
Read an Excerpt

It was a daring attempt to rescue Lady Nicolette de Montelan before her father finds out that she's pregnant with an enemy family's child, but it goes awry because Nicolette's cousin Joan has played the Blessed Virgin in the Christmas reenactment. After all, for Nicolette to do it would have been sacrilege!

Now, however, Lady Joan finds herself trapped in a cave on Christmas Eve with the great Edmund de Grave, the Golden Lion, and neither of them are pleased about it. He's annoyed that his plan has been spoiled and worried about his brother, now in enemy hands. She's disappointed that a distant hero has turned out to be the sort to get a lady with child outside of marriage. A mighty battle ensues, but one that ends up breaking ancient hatreds and bringing the true spirit of Christmas and love to everyone around.
Read an Excerpt

THE LORD OF ELPHINDALE
in FAERY MAGIC Four stories set where Georgian England and the Kingdom of Faery collide. Kensington, January 1998 Reissue, September, 2006

Also featuring stories by Mary Jo Putney, Barbara Samuel, and Karen Harbaugh. This unique collection was put together on-line and features linked stories set in Georgian England in the boundaries between the human world and that of Faerie.

Gwen Forsythe is startled, to put it mildly, to be told that she's part Faery, and that it is her duty to marry into the human family of Elphinson to strengthen the Faery bond there. It's not that she doesn't want to marry Sir Andrew Elphinson, her childhood friend. But Drew doesn't care for her, and is about to offer for another lady. Can she really seduce him at Faery's command?

Kitty Mayhew is alone in the world, and at Christmas, but then her new cat and her maid involve her with the rake who lives nearby. A rake who doesn't believe in the Christmas spirit.

THE DETERMINED BRIDE
in MARRIED AT MIDNIGHT(Georgian) Avon, September 1996
Georgian period

Tricked by a clever seducer, Kate Dunstable finds herself a pregnant army campfollower. She will not let her child be born a nameless bastard, however, and pursues the father into a battlefield, determined on marriage. There, however, she finds that her lover is dead. In despair, in labor, she accepts the offer of one of his fellow officers, a man who expects to die.

But Charles Tennant does not die, and soon they discover that their midnight marriage has created as many problems as it solved.

FORBIDDEN AFFECTIONS
in a number of collections. An Invitation To Sin, February 2011
Regency period
Anna Featherstone is just sixteen and should never even encounter a person like the wicked Earl of Carne, but when she discovers a secret door, she can't resist exploring, especially when the door and all about it comes straight out of her favourite gothic novel.

Thus she does meet the wicked earl, and when he tries to seduce her, he doesn't know what's hit him. Literally!

Anna's been struck, too, however. By his fatal charm....



A MUMMER'S PLAY
in A REGENCY CHRISTMAS, Signet, Oct. 1995 0-451-18014-35
Regency period
Justina Travers is sure that her beloved fiancee was killed because of the treason of his commanding officer, Lucky Jack Beaufort. Now that Lucky Jack is home and Duke of Cramoore, she intends to end his luck forever. But after sneaking into his home as part of a Christmas mummers' play, she begins to uncover secrets that change everything.

LORD SAMHAIN'S NIGHT
in ALL HALLOWS' EVE, October 1992 0-8027-1252-5
Regency period

A childish superstition turns serious for Phoebe Batsford and the two brothers who are suitors for her hand. The trouble is that she ends up engaged to marry the wrong one, and only a ghost can sort it all out.

This only came out in a short run of hardcovers. You'll be really lucky to find a copy, but it's now available as an e-book in your preferred format

Every year at Christmas, the Conyngham family host a grand medieval twelve day feast, and this year Lady Alice Conyngham is organizing it for the first time. It presents only the usual problems until a man from her past turns up -- Tyr Norman, who had seduced her and abandoned her on Twelfth Night. But Tyr, now Lord Ivanridge, seems to think that he is the injured party, and he has the same power as before to melt Alice's common sense and willpower.

A very short story.
THE FRUIT PICKER
in WRITERS OF THE FUTURE Vol IV 1988 Bridge, 0-88404-314-2

In a world where meat eating is beyond the pale, even the plants have feelings.
This is a very short story. If you want it, be sure to buy the right issue of this annual collection. It is now also available in BEST OF WRITERS OF THE FUTURE in trade paperback format.
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