It’s official. We’ve entered the Espionage Regency HR Era, and I am not sorry. Sometimes, inspiration strikes like a thunderclap. Other times, it arrives as a spam email from your fictional HR department. This week, I opened my author email and discovered a very serious-looking message titled:

RUTHACASIE Employees Performance Appraisals | Staff ID: ruth

Inside was a link (I didn’t click, don’t worry) and the warning:
Note all names highlighted in red indicate employees to be terminated.

I laughed. Loudly. Because really, if you’re going to threaten me with fictional termination, at least spell “headquarters” correctly.

But instead of deleting it, I thought…

What if this was real?
What if The Order really did have a secret HR branch?
What if Mary-Ann Seaton was under observation?

Fifteen minutes and one Canva session later, I had created a Termination Memo from “The Order – Internal Performance Review.”
The subject?  M.A. Seaton
The infraction?  Interference with Seaton Shipping’s Quarter Report
The action?  Vow Not Yet Enforced

And suddenly, a spam email had become story fuel.

Termination notices, HR appraisals, secret Orders… inspiration really does come from anywhere, even spam. That silly email made me laugh — and it reminded me of a question I ask myself every time I start a new story: how did it all begin?

For Mary-Ann Seaton, it doesn’t begin with spies or codes or even vows. It begins on an ordinary morning — the kind when sunlight warms the parlor and a seamstress fussing over the length of a hem. Ordinary, until it isn’t.

Excerpt

Copyright© 2025
A Vow for the Viscount

Chapter One

Mary-Ann Seaton had always liked the upstairs parlor in the late morning. It caught the sun just right, filling the space with a soft warmth that dulled the sharp edges of her thoughts. This morning, the sun streamed through the tall windows and cast a golden light across the room, which had been transformed into a private fitting room. The scents of lavender beeswax polish, and the floral scent of Darjeeling tea hung lightly in the air.

Mary-Ann stood before the full-length cheval mirror, the hem of her nearly finished wedding gown pooled in soft folds around her feet. Her auburn hair had been swept back loosely for the fitting, a few tendrils falling over her shoulder. Her expression, reflected in the glass, was calm. Peaceful. Even quietly pleased.

She turned slightly as Mrs. Pembroke, the dressmaker, circled her, pinning fabric and murmuring to herself with quiet efficiency.

“He’ll be stunned when he sees you.” Mrs. Pembroke gave her a warm smile.

Mary-Ann tilted her head and gazed into the mirror. “That is my plan.”

The gown was lovely, a rose gold satin with delicate ivory trim at the neckline, and sleeves that fluttered just off her shoulders. It was everything she had imagined. It was refined, graceful, and entirely hers.

Across the room, seated in a high-backed chair near the hearth, Mrs. Bainbridge watched with an appraising eye and a small, fond smile. She had arrived an hour ago under the pretense of keeping Mary-Ann company during the fitting, though her glances toward the window had grown more frequent.

“Are you comfortable, Mrs. Bainbridge?” Mary-Ann asked, glancing at her guest in the mirror. “You’ve been unsettled since you arrived.”

Mrs. Pembroke motioned her to turn.

Mrs. Bainbridge started, then gave a soft chuckle. “Forgive me. I’m distracted, I suppose. It’s not every day a woman accepts a marriage proposal and then tries to pretend she hasn’t.”

Mrs. Pembroke, her mouth open in a perfect ‘O,’ swiveled to face Mrs. Bainbridge. The renowned dressmaker couldn’t take her eyes away.

Mary-Ann stopped mid-spin, her gown falling delicately around her feet. “You accepted Lord Barrington!” Mary-Ann was still aghast.

“I did,” Mrs. Bainbridge replied, pouring herself a cup of tea. “Last Saturday. This time, he had that look about him, as though he’d draft a treaty if I refused to give him a clear answer.”

Mary-Ann laughed. “That sounds exactly like him. He probably prepared a written petition.” Mary-Ann tried to look solemn, but failed miserably. “Citing at least three reasons why he was the best candidate.”

“Yes, well,” Mrs. Bainbridge said, her eyes crinkling as she passed up the sugar bowl, “He did offer footnotes. I’ve never been one to be bullied into anything. Not even marriage.”

“And yet you said yes.”

“The man is rather persuasive. And, between us, it’s rather nice to be admired so… stubbornly.”

“Congratulations, Mrs. Bainbridge,” Mrs. Pembroke offered. “It is wonderful news.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Pembroke.” Mrs. Bainbridge let out a deep breath. “I thought you may have guessed my secret when I was in your shop earlier this week.”

“I did have my suspicions, but I knew you would let us know when you were ready. His lordship is a wonderful man.” The seamstress went back to work.

“Now I understand why you haven’t stopped smiling,” Mary-Ann teased. She had once been a student at the Sommer-by-the-Sea Female Seminary, which Mrs. Bainbridge founded. She always admired her former teacher and headmistress’s blend of grace and grit. It was Mrs. Bainbridge who had encouraged her talent for finance and mathematics. They were odd talents for a young lady, perhaps, but ones that Mary-Ann had cultivated into sharp instincts and a rare understanding of her father’s shipping business.

“Have you told anyone else?” Mary-Ann asked.

Mrs. Bainbridge shook her head. “Not yet. Though I daresay, half the village will know by sundown. I believe his lordship sent a notice to the London Gazette as well as the Sommer Sentinel. We all know how London and Sommer-by-the-Sea thrive on gossip.” She took a sip of tea.

“Will the wedding be here or in London?”

“That,” Mrs. Bainbridge said with a sigh, “is already a matter of debate. I thought here, for simplicity’s sake. Barrington is discussing the event with me as if it were a military operation. He mentioned his family’s tradition of large weddings. Personally, at this point, Gretna Green sounds good to me.”

Mary-Ann chuckled. “You know you don’t mean that. I believe your Lord Barrington enjoys showing you off just as much as you enjoy being seen on his arm. I’ve seen your face light up when he enters a room.”

“I suppose I must be more careful to control my feelings, especially around you.”

“I don’t think you can.” Mary-Ann shook her head and tried not to smile.

“Excuse me, Miss Mary-Ann. One final turn, please,” Mrs. Pembroke asked.

Mary-Ann executed a grand sweeping turn and let the skirt fall around her.

“Yes,” Mrs. Pembroke nodded, “the length and weight is perfect.”

“Mrs. Bainbridge, have you chosen your gown?” Mary-Ann nodded to the dressmaker, pleased as she was.

“Not yet. I’m torn between two gowns. One makes me feel like a duchess. The other makes me feel like myself. Naturally, I’ve chosen neither.”

Mary-Ann grinned. “Then you’re waiting for a third to appear to help you make a decision?”

“Or for a modiste to invent one that satisfies both sides of my nature.” She gave Mrs. Pembroke a wink.

“If you crave a diplomatic gown,” Mrs. Pembroke said while she gathered her pins, “I will gladly create one for you.”

“I wouldn’t have anyone else create a gown for me.” Mrs. Bainbridge took another sip of tea. “I’m in no hurry. We haven’t decided on a date for the wedding yet. That appears to be another negotiation.”

They shared another laugh. The moment stretched comfortably while the dressmaker packed up her things.

“Rodney,” Mary-Ann murmured softly after a heartbeat, “is a good man.” He was patient, unfailingly polite, and always careful not to push. He listened, at least in theory, and never demanded more than she was willing to offer. Their life together would be steady and predictable. Sensible.

And perhaps, after all that’s happened, sensible was enough.

The sound of muffled voices in the foyer reached their ears. It was an urgent male voice. From where they were, it sounded like a low commotion until there was a loud crash, followed by the butler’s voice.

Mary-Ann frowned. “Did someone—?”

The dressmaker straightened. “Shall I see what’s amiss?”

But Mary-Ann was already moving. She slipped from the small, raised platform, her slippers silent against the carpet, the gown rustling around her legs. She entered the hall just as another voice rose, a voice she hadn’t heard in years.

Her heart stopped. For a moment, it was as if the world had narrowed to a single, impossible sound. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t. And yet her feet moved of their own accord as if her body had recognized what her mind still refused to believe. The echo of his voice was so familiar that it struck her like a memory made real. She could smell dust and cold air drifting in from the open door, but her senses were drowning in something deeper, something older. She moved without realizing it, her hand finding the polished banister to guide her.

She reached the top of the stairs and looked down.

He stood below in the center of the foyer, a little thinner, his shoulders slightly stooped, his travel-worn coat dusted from the road. His dark brown hair was longer than she remembered, threaded with silver at the temples. And his face, so familiar it hurt, was pale, drawn, but unmistakably his. Quinton Hollingsworth. Viscount Rockingham.

Alive. Her knees weakened, and for a moment, she forgot how to breathe.

He looked up, and their eyes met.

Everything else fell away. Her hand pressed against the banister, the only thing holding her upright. Her heart stumbled, her breath caught, and for a moment, the years collapsed inward.

Her voice, when it came, was barely more than a whisper. “I thought I’d never see you again.”

She didn’t know what happened to him. No one had. The letters had stopped, replaced by silence. Even the War Department had no answers. Only rumors. Only waiting. Only the ache of not knowing for three long years.

And now there he stood. Whole. Real.

Chapter Two

Mary-Ann did not remember walking down the stairs. Her feet seemed to move without her permission, the gown whispering behind her like a phantom. The marble, the banister, the filtered late morning light, everything had the texture of a half-remembered dream. Her limbs moved out of habit, but her mind remained suspended somewhere between disbelief and numb recognition. She could see him, yes, but her heart wasn’t able to decide what it meant. Her breath had shortened. Her pulse fluttered in her throat. This wasn’t possible. And yet it was.

The world felt thin and muffled. Her heartbeat was louder than the voices around her. When she reached the bottom step, Quinton stood just in front of her, still and composed, like a man anchoring himself to a moment he hadn’t dared to hope for.

“Mary-Ann,” was all he said. His voice was roughened by disuse or distance, but the tone was unmistakably his.

She swallowed hard. Her hand still grasping the banister. “You’re really here.”

For a heartbeat, neither of them moved.

Mr. Hollis, the flustered Seaton butler, stepped between them. “Shall I show Lord Rockingham to the drawing room, Miss Mary-Ann?”

She blinked. “Yes. Yes, of course. The drawing room.”

Quinton followed silently, the staff scattering like startled birds. Mary-Ann turned to Mrs. Bainbridge, who had appeared behind her. The woman’s mouth parted in astonishment. No words passed between them. There was nothing to say.

She watched him follow Hollis to the drawing room. He slowed at the threshold. One hand brushed the doorframe, not for balance, but as if reacquainting himself with the space. The gesture was small, almost imperceptible, but it struck something deep within her chest: tenderness, disbelief, or perhaps something she hadn’t yet named.

The drawing room was modest and tastefully decorated, its windows open to the spring breeze. The hush inside the space was the kind that followed a storm no one saw coming. A tea tray had been left untouched on the low table, and the curtains swayed lightly in the breeze from a half-open window. She didn’t sit. Neither did he. It felt as though movement might shatter something fragile between them. Quinton stood in the center of the room, no longer with the same lightness he once carried but with a stillness that pulled all the air toward him. Mary-Ann entered last and closed the door gently behind her.

He looked older. Not just from the silver at his temples or the thinness of his face, but in the set of his shoulders, the silence in his eyes. The man she remembered had been bright with laughter, capable of both sharp wit and quiet comfort. This man had been carved down to something quieter, sharper. A survivor. And her heart ached.

“You’re thinner,” she said because her heart was pounding too fast to say what she meant.

His lips pulled back in a familiar smirk. “So are you. But you’re still the only one I’d trust to say it out loud.”

She flushed, not at the words, but at the memory of him, of them. They had once spoken easily and instinctively, finishing each other’s thoughts, teasing and tender. Now there was only distance.

She felt a pang, not guilt, but something deeper. The man who once met her fire with laughter now seemed… contained. Guarded in a way he never had been before. Her fingers itched to reach for him again. To smooth the dust from his coat, to pull him back into the world. She wanted to ask him more, how he’d survived, what he’d seen, but the words stuck behind the lump in her throat.

“How?” she asked. “No one, not the War Office, not the newspapers, no one knew.”

He nodded slowly. “I was told that they tried. I was held… somewhere unofficial. Not by the French army. Something else. Something worse.”

Her breath caught. “You were a prisoner?”

“Of sorts.”

A shiver passed through her. There was a hollowness in his voice that frightened her more than his words. She had never heard him speak like that, not even in the worst days of war. He had always sounded alive, defiant. Now, his voice held the scars of things endured and things never spoken. And that distance hurt more than she expected.

She sat, her hands in her lap, twisting the fabric of her gown. “And no one told us.”

He looked away. “Perhaps, that was best. You wouldn’t want to… I’ll leave it at that.”

There was a long silence.

She studied him. “Where have you been, Quinton? What happened to you?”

He turned back to her and really looked at her, and for a moment, the years fell away. “I’ve been in places I wouldn’t wish on anyone. I don’t even know what to call them. As soon as Barrington brought me back to England, I came here. I had to see you with my own eyes.”

She stood and crossed the room slowly, as though drawn by gravity rather than intention. “Of all the places you could have gone…” she asked quietly.

Quinton nodded. “I hadn’t meant to arrive like this. I didn’t plan it. But once I was back… I couldn’t stay away. Barrington told me you were engaged. I needed to see it for myself.”

Her breath hitched. “I don’t know what to say other than I’m glad you’re safe now.”

He took a tentative step towards her. “I don’t mean to cause trouble. If you’re happy—”

“I thought you were dead,” she whispered. “For so long, I thought… and then I had to stop. I had to go on.”

He nodded again, silent.

She lifted her hand before she could think better of it, her fingers trembling as they hovered near his face. Slowly, reverently, she brushed her fingertips across his cheek. The bristle of his unshaven jaw, the warmth of his skin. It was real. He closed his eyes at her touch, and when he opened them again, he caught her hand in his. His grip was gentle but firm, anchoring. Her throat tightened, her breath stilled. The feel of his hand around hers, broad and callused and achingly familiar, undid her.

“You came back,” she said, barely more than breath.

“I told you I would,” he replied. Not a boast, not a tease. Just the truth.

They stood there, suspended between the past and the present, heartbreak and possibility.

A knock interrupted them. One of the maids stepped in, eyes wide with curiosity. “Pardon me, miss. Mrs. Bainbridge is in the hall. Shall I show her in?”

“Please do,” Mary-Ann said quickly.

Moments later, Mrs. Bainbridge entered with a composed expression, though her eyes flicked between them with unmistakable curiosity.

“Lord Rockingham,” she said warmly. “What a surprise and a relief. Welcome home.”

Quinton bowed slightly. “Thank you, Mrs. Bainbridge. It’s good to be here, more than I can say.”

“Sommer-by-the-Sea has missed your presence dearly.” Mrs. Bainbridge offered.

“The town is unchanged,” Quinton said, with the ghost of a smile. “But it’s good to see a familiar face.”

Mrs. Bainbridge stepped closer. “I imagine you’ll find it’s changed more than you think. But I suspect some things,” her glance toward Mary-Ann was deliberate, “have a way of remaining constant.”

Mary-Ann moved to stand beside Quinton, not touching him, but closer than required. She met Mrs. Bainbridge’s gaze evenly. “It’s been… a morning of unexpected turns.”

“That’s one way to describe it,” the headmistress said. “Do you plan to stay long, my lord?”

Quinton’s response was quiet. “As long as I’m needed.”

The answer hung between them, too vague to be questioned, too honest to ignore.

Mary-Ann turned away to pour tea. “Would you like a cup, Mrs. Bainbridge?”

“I wouldn’t dream of intruding,” she said, though she took the offered seat with practiced grace. “But I will say, I’m very glad you came when you did.”

Quinton’s brows lifted faintly. “Why is that?”

“Because whatever else the day brings,” she said, “you reminded someone that not all promises are lost to time.”

Before more could be said, another knock sounded.

The door opened, and Rodney Wilkinson entered, composed as ever, his expression schooled into a pleasant surprise.

“Mrs. Bainbridge.” He turned toward Quinton. “Lord Rockingham,” he said warmly. “Welcome home.”

Quinton inclined his head. “Mr. Wilkinson.”

“How fortunate that you’ve arrived now,” Wilkinson continued, moving to stand beside Mary-Ann. “There’s so much to celebrate.” He turned toward her. “I was on my way to see your father. He asked me to see him this morning. Something about a discrepancy in the quarter report he asked me to review.” He gave her a hint of a smile. “I told him I’d sort it out for him.”

Wilkinson’s voice grated on her. It was too smooth, too practiced. And what is this about working out the discrepancies? That was her responsibility.

Quinton didn’t flinch, but Mary-Ann saw it, the slightest stiffening. Mary-Ann quickly smoothed her gown. She felt caught between worlds.

Quinton looked at Mary-Ann again, then toward the door, his expression unreadable but steady.

“I’ll take my leave.” Quinton turned to Mrs. Bainbridge. “It was good seeing you, Mrs. Bainbridge.”

“I’m so glad you’ve returned.” Her eyes softened, and for a rare moment, the warmth in her voice matched the sincerity in her gaze. She meant every word.

Mary-Ann took a step towards him. “Will you stay in Sommer-by-the-Sea long?”

He turned to her. “That depends,” he said, his voice low. “But I won’t be far.”

“Quinton—” she began, but he was already turning.

He paused at the threshold and glanced back, his voice low and certain. “You look well, Mary-Ann, and strong.” The door clicked shut behind him.

She stood in place, her heart thudding against her ribs. The ache that bloomed in her chest wasn’t confusion. It was recognition. The man who had once held her heart still lived beneath the silence and shadows. And seeing him again had torn open something she’d only pretended had healed.

Slowly, she moved to the nearest chair and sat, her fingers curling into the folds of her skirt. Her breath was unsteady from the dizzying rush of memory and feeling. He hadn’t asked anything of her. Hadn’t made a scene. And somehow, that unsettled her more than anything else.

She didn’t know what it meant. Not yet. But whatever it was, she was glad he had returned.

Wilkinson lingered, his expression unreadable. He moved to pour himself a glass of sherry from the sideboard without asking.

“He doesn’t look well,” he said, swirling the sherry in his glass.

Mary-Ann glanced at Mrs. Bainbridge but didn’t respond to him.

“No doubt he’s had a… complicated journey,” he added, his tone too smooth to be entirely sincere.

She looked up slowly. “You make it sound like you know what happened.”

“I know he was missing. And now he’s not,” Wilkinson said, lifting his glass slightly. “We should all be grateful for that.”

She narrowed her eyes. “That doesn’t sound like gratitude.”

“Doesn’t it?” He offered a tight smile. “My apologies, Mary-Ann. I meant no offense.”

She rose suddenly aware she was still wearing her gown. “Please excuse me. I need to change.” She turned to Mrs. Bainbridge. “Will you help me, please?”

“Of course.” Mrs. Bainbridge stood.

Wilkinson hesitated, then bowed slightly. “Of course. I’ll see myself out.”

When Mary-Ann and Mrs. Bainbridge left the room, his smile faded entirely. He drained the last of his sherry, set the glass down with care, and cast a final glance at the closed door. He smoothed his waistcoat and exited the drawing room in silence, his steps precise, with no trace of emotion left behind.

What begins as an ordinary morning soon becomes anything but. Will Mary-Ann’s vow survives the shadows that follow? Grab the book now. It’s on sale for $0.99 until October 18, when the full story (and final judgment) is revealed.

$0.99 – Limited Time Pre-Order Sale
Ends: October 18, 2025
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Meet the Author

I write historical romances that are like a wild dance at a Regency ball—full of edge-of-your-seat suspense, mind-boggling drama, and heart-melting emotions. My heroines? Well, they’re the ones who’d rather duel with wit than curtsy, and the men who cross their paths? Let’s just say they’re in for a delightful challenge! You can find me on LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/ruthacasie