Noble opened one eye and looked at the flushed figure of his delicious, delectable, wonderfully warm wife. “My godfather? You mean Lord Palmerston?”

She frowned and snuggled closer to him. “I knew he was a lord. He wouldn’t tell me that, though.”

“Tell you? Gillian, what are you talking about? My godfather’s been dead for several years now.”

Gillian sat up and stared at him with a horrified face. What had gotten into her now, talking about Palmerston? And how had she found out about him?

“Dead? He’s…dead? But he can’t be dead. I’ve spoken with him!”

Sometimes she got the strangest notions. Noble smiled to himself. Fancies. He’d heard about them from other men with children. Wives who were expecting often had strange fancies. Ah, well, he had learned to live with her heedless method of attacking life, he had learned to enjoy the chaos that dogged her every footstep, and he had reveled in the blinding passion that characterized her concern for others. He’d learn to live with this particularly charming quirk of her imagination, too. He sighed happily and pulled her back into his arms, close to his heart where she belonged.

“You’re not an ordeal by fire after all,” he murmured sleepily. “You’re my saving grace.”

Gillian smiled into his chest despite her confusion, then gave a little shrug and snuggled down for sleep. So they had a family ghost. Didn’t all the best families boast a ghost or two? She made a mental note to mention it to Palmerston the next time she saw him, and let herself drift off into sleep as she felt her heartbeat slow and match that of Noble’s.

Downstairs in Noble’s library, the small, wizened figure of a very old man sat back in Noble’s favorite chair and rubbed his gnarled hands together as he chuckled wheezily to himself. Saving grace, yes; the boy had it right this time. Gillian was Noble’s saving grace. He wondered if he should visit Noble and warn him that his children would bring even more chaos and joyous confusion into his life, then decided against it. Noble was going to earn every single gray hair those young’uns would be giving him—why have him worry about it in advance?

Palmerston chuckled again. He was looking forward to the next forty or so years. They promised to be very entertaining.

Read on for a sneak preview of the much-anticipated, brand-new Regency romance from New York Times bestselling author Katie MacAlister.

The Truth about Leo

Coming soon from Sourcebooks Casablanca

Can Dagmar flee Denmark

Dagmar Marie Sophie is a poverty-stricken Danish princess whose annoying royal cousin is about to have her stuffed away in a convent. When she finds a wounded man unconscious in her garden, she sees a way out of her desperate situation.

By Lying to Leo?

Leopold Ernst George Mortimer, seventh Earl of March, and spy in the service of the king, finds himself on the wrong end of a saber and left for dead. He wakes up not remembering what happened…in the care of a beautiful woman who says she is his wife.