Ransomed at the Grand Ball

Marianne Ashby was dismissed for defending a servant child from a baronet's son. Now a veiled stranger offers her a season in London, a wardrobe, and one condition: wear this brooch to the Alton ball. She says yes to a warm coat and decent meals. She does not expect the tall, silver-eyed gentleman who cuts in on her first dance, or the knife that comes for her three hours later. Serath has been on Earth for eleven months, looking for a stone his people left behind when they abandoned this planet. It is sewn into Marianne Ashby's dress. His enemies want it destroyed and her with it, and taking her out of that ballroom is the only way he can think of to keep her alive. She calls it kidnapping. He calls it a rescue. They are both right, and the treaty inside that stone can stop a war England does not yet know it is about to fight.