The Valentine Skates: A Novella — Andrea K. Stein

Will Lady Lilianne Howick
Be able to enjoy freedom
Along the banks of the River Wey
Despite society's prison of duty?

And...
Will a tattered bear and
A moonlight Valentine's skate
Be enough to turn friends into lovers?

It's 1820, and Lady Lilianne Howick hides away from the judgment of the ton on her family's country estate in Surrey. She escaped the Dey's harem four years earlier and was rescued after Lord Admiral Exmouth's bombardment of Algiers. Although the gossip sheets speculated about her supposed lurid experiences, no one outside her family knows the truth.

The man she once loved, her neighbor, Squire Frederick Meredith, doesn't care. He's endured heartache of his own and has tried for years to break through her self-imposed exile. Will one small girl and a tattered stuffed bear be enough to create the magic necessary to bring these two back together?