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Martha Waters
Martha Waters writes historical romance novels set in the Regency era. She is the author of To Have and to Hoax, To Love and to Loathe, To Swoon and to Spar, To Woo and to Wed, and And Then There Was The One.
To Have and to Hoax
Synopsis
Lady Violet Grey and Lord James Audley married in Regency England after a single terrace encounter forced their hand, falling for each other within days. Four years and one devastating quarrel later, they share a house and almost nothing else, trading polite silences for the passion that once defined their marriage.
A riding accident at their country house should bring them back together, but when Violet arrives to nurse him, James makes clear he wants her gone. She retreats to London furious, then strikes back with a feigned illness of her own, gambling that guilt will succeed where four years of silence failed.
James works out the ruse almost immediately, but instead of calling her bluff, he decides to play along. The two settle into an escalating contest of invented doctors, threatened sanitariums and rumors of a mistress, each trying to outlast the other. Their friends watch the whole charade with a mix of amusement and alarm, unsure which spouse will break first.
Underneath the games, old flirtation starts to resurface, and slowly James and Violet begin saying what went unsaid after the fight that broke them. By the end they have to decide whether two people who fell in love in ten minutes can find their way back to each other. It is the first book in the Regency Vows series.