What makes a man a gentleman? by Grace Burrowes
For a romance writer, this question has to be answered in
every book, because implicit in the term “hero” is something of the gentleman.
Heroes need not be charming, handsome or wealthy, and they might not even be
obviously heroic, at least at the start of the book, but they have to be worthy
of our loyalty for the duration of an entire book.
In the True Gentlemen series, I took three men who’d
wandered across my pages in previous stories—Tremaine St. Michael, Daniel Banks,
and Willow Dorning—and found them each a happily ever after. Tremaine is a
flinty business man, Daniel is poor and pious, Willow finds polite society an
enormous trial and would far rather be with his dogs. These fellows were not
obvious choices as romance heroes, but they each had something that
tempted me to write stories for them.
When we met Tremaine in an earlier book (Gabriel: Lord of
Regrets), Tremaine was convinced that he’d found a good candidate for the
position of wife. He offered marriage, listing all the practical advantages to
both parties, and he congratulated himself on how much sense his proposed union
would make.
The lady turned him down flat, and as a gentleman is bound
to do, he graciously ceded the field. He didn’t like it, he didn’t entirely
understand how or what he’d lost, but he wished the happy couple well.
Daniel’s role in David: Lord of Honor was to
charge to London with sermons at the ready in an attempt to restore his
sister’s honor. The very man Daniel accused of wronging that sister had already
set her back on the path to respectability.
Oops. But again, being a gentleman, Daniel wishes the couple
every happiness, even if doing so costs him the future he’d envisioned for
himself and his loved ones. Like Tremaine, he’s a gracious and even dignified
loser.
Willow’s appearance in Worth: Lord of Reckoning is
brief, but he too is determined to see a sister rescued from a possibly
compromising position, and again, rescue is simply not on the heroine’s agenda.
In all three cases, the true gentleman acts in the best
interests of those he loves and is responsible for, regardless of the
inconvenience or cost to himself. Because Tremaine, Daniel, and Willow were
honorable, I liked them. I trusted them, I wanted them to have the happiness
they clearly already deserved.
In the Nicholas Haddonfield’s sisters—Nita, Kirsten, and
Susannah—I found ladies willing to oblige my ambitions for these men. In each
case, our hero has lessons yet to learn, and in each case, his inherent honor
wins the day. He might not be handsome, wealthy, or charming in the eyes of the
world, but because he’s a true gentleman in the eyes of his lady, he wins her
true love.
Title: Tremaine’s True Love (True Gentlemen #1)
Author: Grace Burrowes
Genre: Historical Romance, Regency
Length: 384 pages
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Release Date: August 4, 2015
Tremaine St. Michael is firmly in trade and seeks only to negotiate the sale of some fancy sheep with the Earl of Haddonfield. The earl’s sister,Lady Nita, is pragmatic, hard-working, and selfless, though Tremaine senses she’s also tired of her charitable obligations and envious of her siblings’ marital bliss. Tremaine, having been raised among shepherds, can spot another lonely soul, no matter how easily she fools her own family. Neither Tremaine nor Nita is looking for love, but love comes looking for them.
Excerpt from Tremaine's True Love:
Wealthy businessman Tremaine St. Michael has concluded that
marriage to Lady Nita Haddonfield would be a prudent merger of complimentary
interests for the mutual benefit and enjoyment of both parties… or some such
blather.
Tremaine rapped on Lady Nita’s door, quietly, despite a
light shining from beneath it. Somebody murmured something which he took for
permission to enter.
“Mr. St. Michael?”
Tremaine stepped into her ladyship’s room, closed the door
behind him and locked it, which brought the total of his impossibly forward
behaviors to several thousand.
“Your ladyship expected a sister, or a maid with a pail of
coal?”
“I wasn’t expecting you.” Lady Nita sat near the hearth
in a blue velvet dressing gown. The wool stockings on her feet were thick
enough to make a drover covetous. “Are you unwell, Mr. St. Michael?”
“You are not pleased to see me.” Did she think illness the
only reason somebody would seek her out?
She set aside some pamphlet, a medical treatise, no doubt.
No vapid novels for Lady Nita.
“I was not expecting you, sir.”
“You were not expecting me to discuss marriage with you
earlier. I wasn’t expecting the topic to come up in a casual fashion either.
May I sit?”
She waved an elegant hand at the other chair flanking the
hearth. Tremaine settled in, trying to gather his thoughts while the firelight
turned Lady Nita’s braid into a rope of burnished gold.
“You are pretty.” Brilliant place to start. The words had
come out, heavily burred, something of an ongoing revelation.
“I am tall and blond,” she retorted, twitching the folds her
of her robe. “I have the usual assortment of parts. What did you come here to
discuss?”
Lady Nita was right, in a sense. Her beauty was not of the
ballroom variety, but rather, an illumination of her features by
characteristics unseen. She fretted over new babies, cut up potatoes like any
crofter’s wife, and worried for her sisters. These attributes interested
Tremaine. Her madonna-with-a-secret smile, keen intellect, and longing for
laughter attracted him.
Even her medical pre-occupation, in its place, had some
utility as well.
“Will you marry me, my lady?”
More brilliance. Where had his wits gone? George Haddonfield
had graciously pointed out that Nita needed repose and laughter, and Tremaine
was offering her the hand of the most restless and un-silly man in the realm.
The lady somehow contained her incredulity, staring at her
hands. “You want to discuss marriage?”
“I believe I did just open that topic. Allow me to elaborate
on my thesis: Lady Bernita Haddonfield, will you do me the honor of becoming my
wife? I think we would suit, and I can promise you would know no want in my
care.”
A proper swain would have been on his damn bended knee, the
lady’s hand in his. Lady Nita would probably laugh herself to tears if Tremaine
attempted that nonsense. Lady Nita picked up her pamphlet, which Tremaine could
now see was written in German.
“Why, Mr. St. Michael?”
“I beg your pardon?” Tremaine was about to pitch the damned
pamphlet in the fire, until he recalled that Nita Haddonfield excelled at
obscuring her stronger emotions.
“Why should you marry me, Tremaine St. Michael? Why should I
marry you? I’ve had other offers, you’ve made other offers. You haven’t known
me long enough to form an opinion of my character beyond the superficial.”
This ability to take a situation apart, into causes,
effects, symptoms, and prognosis was part of the reason she was successful as a
healer. Tremaine applied the same tendencies to commercial situations, so he
didn’t dismiss her questions as coyness or manipulation.
About Grace Burrowes:
New York Times and USA Today bestselling
author Grace Burrowes' bestsellers include The Heir, The Soldier, Lady
Maggie's Secret Scandal, Lady Sophie's Christmas Wish and Lady Eve's
Indiscretion. Her Regency romances have received extensive praise, including
starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist. Grace is
branching out into short stories and Scotland-set Victorian romance with
Sourcebooks. She is a practicing family law attorney and lives in rural
Maryland.
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