He's a grouch. She's the reason. Having said her farewells to her son when he departed for his Grand Tour of Europe, Patience Grayson, the newly widowed Marchioness of Billingsley, heads for the country. She intends to spend at least a year living by herself in the Grayson family estate in Shropshire. If only her traveling coach could make it that far. When a wheel breaks, it does so in a most inconvenient location. Saddled with an earldom left nearly bankrupt by his late father’s gambling and drinking, Max Higgins, Earl of Greenley, hasn’t had a good day for over twenty years—not since the woman he was supposed to marry threw him over for another. Ever since, his bitterness has him known throughout the peerage as the Earl of Grump. Although he found another to be his countess, the poor woman died giving birth to his heir, some say to escape his surly moods. Max’s solitude in his Staffordshire country manor house is about to be shattered when the cause of his grumpiness invades his home—and his bedchamber—on a late winter night. Will life ever be the same?

Captured by pirates. Sold to a sultan. This is not how Charlotte expected to spend her holiday. A dowager duchess recently out of mourning, Charlotte is on her way to a holiday in Greece when pirates overtake her ship and enslave her. When they attempt to sell her to a Turkish sultan, she's sure she can convince the ruler to let her go. She's a matron and mother to two grown sons—and he has a harem and nineteen children. Whatever could he want with her? Three nights, apparently. For two decades, Sultan Ziyaeddin I has ruled his dwindling empire from several palaces in Constantinople, but the one on the edge of the Aegean Sea holds his most precious memories—and a precocious daughter who is overeducated for most men. Determined to introduce reforms, Ziyaeddin is far more enlightened than the sultans who came before him. Enlightened and alone. Convincing others of his vision for the empire has been a challenge. Bored with his harem, he's intrigued by the English woman who is unceremoniously dumped at his feet by pirates. With her skills as a duchess and desire for a daughter, will she be the companion his daughter needs—and the answer to his loneliness?