Her Time Traveling Duke - Softcover

Donovan, Bryn

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593816617 ISBN 13: 9780593816615

Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2025

Inhaltsangabe

Magic meets science and sunshine meets grumpy when a love spell whisks a Regency-era duke to modern times.

Rose Novak, a free-spirited museum employee who dabbles in magic, has had her share of disappointments. So when she tries a little spell for a romance with an “old-fashioned gentleman,” she doesn’t really expect it to work…especially literally. And yet, the duke from a painting she admired at the museum is now standing in her apartment, demanding to know who abducted him.

A man of science and truth, Henry Leighton-Lyons, the Duke of Beresford, has searched tirelessly for a way to turn back time and be with his late wife again. Instead, just as he’s about to pose for his portrait, he’s ripped centuries forward by a feckless, scantily dressed—and utterly bewitching—woman who believes in nonsense like magical crystals and astrology.

Unable to immediately reverse her spell, Rose vows to help Henry return to his own century, even though disguises and high jinks are required to get their hands on an enchanted astrolabe and master the art of time travel. But it’s hard not to fall for the irritable yet honorable duke.

Little does she know that he’s starting to wonder: did a reckless love spell get it right, after all?

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Bryn Donovan

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

One

Oxfordshire, England

Friday, May 1, 1818

Henry Horatio Leighton-Lyons, the fifth Duke of Beresford, jerked his head to one side to avoid the man's oncoming fist-only to bring it in the direct path of the other one.

"Damnation," Henry swore, stepping back and rubbing his nose. The blow had not broken it, of course. His private boxing instructor, Quentin Dunton, pulled his punches.

Dunton grinned. He stood nearly as tall as Henry's own six-foot height and wore his black hair closely cropped, with sideburns. "Better fighters than you have put their nose in front of my left fist."

The former prizefighter never addressed Henry properly as Your Grace. Henry supposed one could not expect that from an American, and particularly one from Boston, the city famous for dumping hundreds of crates of perfectly good English tea into the ocean. At any rate, there was no one else to hear. The two men were sparring in the south barn of Henry's estate. He had converted it into a gymnasium, complete with Indian clubs, climbing ropes, and dumbbells.

Exercise, and especially boxing lessons, provided a distraction. Mornings were the worst: waking up to a world that no longer had his wife in it. Charlotte had been twenty-six when she died. Henry was thirty-six now, and as of today, he'd been a widower longer than he'd been a husband.

"Another round?" Dunton suggested.

"First, let me check the time." Henry had an important meeting soon. He strode to the hook where he'd hung his shirt and greatcoat, drew his gold watch out of his pocket, and clicked open the case. Then he shook his head.

"It is nearly nine. We'll have to end here."

"You are particular about time."

"It is our greatest treasure," Henry said.

A man who lost a fortune might make another one. No man, no matter how diligent or enterprising, had ever made more time to spend with his beloved . . .

But Henry was working on it. He spent long days and nights studying theories and equations, and reading rare texts he'd had translated from ancient languages, trying to work out the secret to turning back the clock.

After both men donned their shirts and greatcoats, they exited the barn and walked the short distance to the great house. With its square stone towers on either side, Everly Park had the air of a castle. Budding rosebushes lined the walkway, rising above the little white starflowers that grew everywhere on the estate.

"I think that's the first rose I've seen this spring," Dunton said, inclining his head toward the mauve bloom with tightly packed petals.

"They call those Early Cinnamons," Henry said, "due to the spicy scent." To Henry's nose, it was incense, rather than cinnamon, that mingled with the fragrance of the rose. Henry knew the name because of Charlotte. She'd had the gardener plant more of them in the center of the knot garden. From spring to fall, when the wanderer came close to the center, the lush fragrance guided him home.

Henry didn't attempt to fill the silence. He'd never acquired the easy manners that anyone might've expected of a duke. Once he'd gotten married, his wife had been the one to keep conversations with others flowing. Henry supposed he had not been the first man to discover that the easiest way to be thought of as a fine fellow was to marry a gregarious wife.

They reached the paved Great Court, where the columns of the Corinthian portico entrance loomed over the visitor.

"I'll miss my rooms here," Dunton said. "Fit for a prince." In Henry's father's time, a prince had stayed in that suite, with its murals and gilded ceilings. Faced with the conundrum of whether Dunton was a temporary staff member or an honored guest, Henry had decided on the latter, given the man's minor celebrity. Dunton had not been born to privilege-his father had been a common laborer, and his mother had escaped slavery-but his triumph over an Eng

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2025
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593816617
• ISBN 13: 9780593816615
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 353
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Penguin Random House LLC; penguinrandomhouse@penguinrandomhouse.com; ; 1745 Broadway; New York; 10019; USA
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