Title

The Kidnapped Christmas Bride

First Published: 5 October 2023 in The Regency Kidnappers’ Club anthology

Republished: 6 April 2024 by Isabella Hargreaves

Cover design: Chenchino

Cover images used under license from: Shutterstock and Period Images

Editing by Sali Benbow-Powers, Creating Ink

ISBN: 978-0-6481968-8-4

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Except for use in any review, no part of this book may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in whole or in part, in any form, or by any means without the prior written permission of the author.

No AI Training: Without in any way limiting the author’s exclusive rights under copyright, any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.

His love will marry another at Christmas! Time for desperate measures...

After six years nursing her late father, Margaret Johns looks forward to her long-awaited London Season. Instead, her elder brother claims he is too poor and she is too old to warrant the expense. To escape her unbearable home situation and her new sister-in-law’s spitefulness, Prudence accepts Squire Jenkins’ proposal of a marriage of convenience. When the charming and feckless Lord Alistair Dunridge visits her brother’s estate for Christmas, she’s reminded of her youthful dreams—of marriage to this dashing nobleman and a family of her own.

Alistair, the unloved and unneeded third son of a marquess, is now the heir to his grandmother’s estate and finally in a position to propose to Margaret, the woman he loves. When Margaret refuses to withdraw from her engagement to the Squire, desperate measures are needed to save her from an unsuitable future, even if that means kidnapping her before her Christmas wedding!

Can Alistair convince Margaret, before it’s too late, that he’s a changed man who can make all her dreams come true if she marries him?

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Acknowledgements

With huge thanks to my brain-storming buddy, alpha reader, and line editor, Brian Sinclair, and to my amazing editor, Sali Benbow-Powers, of Creating Ink, without whom this story would be so much less than it is.

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~This story uses US English spelling conventions.~