One masquerade. One proposal. One vow that changes everything.

Every story begins with a question, one that lives quietly in a writer’s mind until characters begin to answer it for themselves.

With A Vow for the Viscount, the question that haunted me was this:

What happens when a man bound by duty begins to want something… more?

Not more responsibility. Not more tradition. But more life. More heart. More her.

Quinton Hollingsworth believes himself a man of duty. He’s lived by the rules of honor, loyalty, sacrifice. But when he returns home after being presumed dead, he finds that the world has moved on, and so has the woman he once vowed to marry.

What unfolds isn’t a story of betrayal, but of quiet, persistent love, a love that asks:
Can you still keep your vow, even if everything around you has changed?

It’s that subtle, painful, delicious shift from certainty to longing that drew me to this story. No grand declarations. No obvious villains. Just two people caught between memory and possibility.

This excerpt captures Mary-Ann’s side of that turning point. It’s a moment of reflection, yearning, and the ache of something not quite lost, but no longer safe.

Excerpt (from Chapter Three):
She hadn’t meant to betray anything. Only to remember. But remembering felt like a betrayal all the same.

Mary-Ann’s fingers touched her lips. She could still feel the pressure of his kiss, the promise that it held. He had mounted his horse, turned back once to tip his fingers in salute, and then he was gone down the lane, his red coat disappearing like a flag swallowed by the mist.

But yesterday’s man was different. The fire that once blazed so brightly had tempered into something quieter and more deliberate. He had been tested, shaped by things he had not yet spoken aloud. The boyish laughter was gone, but in its place stood a man forged by experience. And somehow, that made him no less hers.

Quinton hadn’t begged. He hadn’t tried to reclaim her. And that unsettled her more than if he had. It left room for questions she wasn’t ready to answer and feelings she had buried too deeply to ignore.

She thought of the way he looked at her, the way his hand had closed around hers like an anchor. If Mrs. Bainbridge hadn’t appeared… would he have kissed her? And what unsettled her more was the quiet flutter in her chest at the thought.

…

Mary-Ann didn’t speak for a long while. “I don’t know how to feel. I should be furious. I waited so long… and then I stopped. I had to. There were days I told myself I was foolish for waiting and that I had wasted too much time already. When I stopped looking… I felt guilty. But also… I felt lighter. And now I regret that I didn’t do more… Instead, I gave up. I let myself move on. And now…”

“And now your heart is remembering what your mind tried to forget.”

This is the kind of romance I love to write, one that lingers in the quiet moments, and unfolds between glances, memories, and unspoken promises.

A Vow for the Viscount releases October 16.

He never intended to ask her.
She never intended to say yes.
But under the glitter of a thousand candles and the weight of a hundred eyes, one vow bound them together.
And in the morning, when the truth comes out, neither of them will ever be the same.

Preorder links will be coming soon. It would be great if you add it to your fall TBR when it’s available.