Holiday House Parties: Two Tales

Unlikely lovers find passion under the Christmas mistletoe in this duet of Regency tales from an award-winning romance author. In “The Girl with Airs,” Lord Dunvegan—Laird Geordie to his friends—attempts to persuade bluestocking Caroline Woolcott to give his besotted, tongue-tied friend Sir Archibald Halford a chance to win her hand in marriage. A Scotsman banished to England to cultivate a more genteel manner, Geordie has yet to meet a female who tempts him to settle down. It certainly isn’t the headstrong lass who wants nothing to do with Archie—or Geordie. But then Geordie’s father decides the standoffish Caroline would make an ideal bride for his wayward son, and a sizzling kiss in the doorway of a grand Lancashire estate turns two warring hearts to love . . . In “A Sneeze on Tuesday,” Elinor Selby succumbs to the worst cold she’s ever known five days before Christmas, and her entire future takes a catastrophic turn. After an absence of five years, Elinor’s betrothed, Julian Henshaw, Lord Lovebourne, is due home any day. Were it not for her quick-thinking, curmudgeonly neighbor, Miles Endicott, on whom she’s relied since childhood, she might not be able to cope with the momentous reunion. But then an unexpected series of events forces Elinor and Miles to take part in a scandalous deception that will ignite a firestorm of longing and love. Elizabeth Mansfield’s pair of irresistible holiday romances features men and women who discover love they didn’t know they were missing.