I got this book because I have read other Merline Lovelace books and have enjoyed them all. Her story is the first in this book of three short stories. Her story is titled "The Major's Wife" and is about a Major who comes home after the Crimea War in 1856 in England. He has been gone for three years and comes home to a wife who has grown and changed while he was gone. He must woo and win her back. The second story if "The Companion" by Deborah Simmons. I have not read anything by her before, but this story was very good. It tells the story of an Englishman who comes home after fighting in the Napoleonic Wars. He is still recovering from being wounded and finds his brothers has died and now he is Earl of Hawthorne. He never wanted to be the earl, misses his brother and his girlfriend has decided to marry someone else. His grandmother hears of a young woman who is left without any family to support her and hires her to be a companion to the earl. The last story is "An Honest Bargain" by Julia Justiss. I have not read anything by her either, but this story is also very good. It is the story of an officer's wife who is left penniless and lone by husband who gambled and cheated on her their whole short marriage. A childhood friend, also an officer, finds out the husband has died and goes to the widow to see if she needs help, he has loved her since they were teenagers, she did not know. He talks her into a short term marriage to help her out and then he tries to woo her into staying married. All three stories are very good historical love stories.
