A Very Daring Christmas

Book excerpt: Christmas is the most daring time of the year. Ladies are meant for ballrooms. But Lady Phillipa Hampton would rather have the open skies of Scotland where she can paint to her heart's content. She'd still be there now if she hadn't kissed her grandmother's silver-eyed steward last summer. And been caught. She was exiled back to London, but Grandmama’s Christmas trip to Town offers Pippa an opportunity—prove she cares nothing for Bram Shaw and win her way back to the land she loves. Stewards aren't meant for ladies, and Bram Shaw knows it. But he doesn't like it. Not when his heart belongs to the artistic and daring Lady Phillipa, whose grandmother is a dowager duchess. And Bram’s employer. When Christmas brings him close to the woman whose kiss he can’t forget, he must hide his affection or lose his position in the dowager’s household. But adding another lost job to his long list will lose him the inheritance he’s been working years to secure. The dowager holds two hearts in her hands, and the crafty old woman pits the former lovers against one another. Whoever finds her the most interesting Christmas gift wins a return to Scotland. She’ll take a companion or a steward, but not both. Crowded London streets, eccentric shop keeps, violent-minded maids, and chaotic coffeehouses. Pippa and Bram will brave it all to find the elusive perfect gift to win their hearts desires. But a single kiss can change everything, and sometimes the perfect gift isn’t bought with coin but love. This is a Christmas novella to USA Today bestselling author Charlie Lane's new THE DEBUTANTE DARES series. The novella was previously published in the Holiday Anthology: Naughty or Nice. The novella can be read as a standalone book.