The Duke Who Banned Christmas
(2026)(The seventh book in the Mistletoe and Manners series)
A novel by Sally Forbes
‘He shut the drawing room, stripped the hall, and forbade Christmas in his house. Then his little niece began lighting a candle in the north window.’
Wilhelmina "Mina" Frayne has kept the late Duke of Ellersden’s daughter fed for two years, in rooms above a chandler’s shop in Bath, paying the rent with fine sewing and going without her own dinner when the money runs short. When she finally wrote to the family’s solicitors for help, they sent her a printed form telling her not to write again.
Then a carriage arrives from the north, and Mina travels with the child she loves to a vast, cold house where she has no position, no wage, and no promise of staying past the New Year.
Hugh Ranscombe became Duke of Ellersden on the Christmas Eve his brother was carried home through a lit hall. Four years later, the drawing room is shut, the hooks in the hall hang bare, and nobody in his house dares to speak of the season. He has ordered every comfort money can buy for his seven-year-old niece, and left word that she is not to be brought to him.
Mina has no intention of being grateful in silence. She refuses his five hundred pounds, cuts holly from his hedge, and asks the one question no one at Ellersden has asked in four years. And the grave, guarded duke who meant to pay her off finds himself on his knees in a farmhouse kitchen, binding her cut hand with his own torn cravat, holding ivy straight while she ties a knot, and counting the feet between them across a crowded barn.
But the county has begun to whisper about the companion the Duke seated at his own table. Hugh is still carrying the letter she wrote in March, and the guilt of the night his brother died, which he has never explained to a living soul. When he finally offers her everything he owns, it may be the one thing she cannot accept.
He has kept no Christmas for four years.
She has never once kept one for herself.
A tender, completely clean Regency Christmas romance of grief and healing, a little girl who will not stop asking, and a woman who finally gets to hear the last verse. A standalone with a guaranteed happily-ever-after.
Perfect for readers who love marriages of convenience, guarded heroes and cozy Christmas charm, with a guaranteed happily ever after.
No cheating, no cliffhangers, just pure holiday joy.
Genre: Historical Romance
Wilhelmina "Mina" Frayne has kept the late Duke of Ellersden’s daughter fed for two years, in rooms above a chandler’s shop in Bath, paying the rent with fine sewing and going without her own dinner when the money runs short. When she finally wrote to the family’s solicitors for help, they sent her a printed form telling her not to write again.
Then a carriage arrives from the north, and Mina travels with the child she loves to a vast, cold house where she has no position, no wage, and no promise of staying past the New Year.
Hugh Ranscombe became Duke of Ellersden on the Christmas Eve his brother was carried home through a lit hall. Four years later, the drawing room is shut, the hooks in the hall hang bare, and nobody in his house dares to speak of the season. He has ordered every comfort money can buy for his seven-year-old niece, and left word that she is not to be brought to him.
Mina has no intention of being grateful in silence. She refuses his five hundred pounds, cuts holly from his hedge, and asks the one question no one at Ellersden has asked in four years. And the grave, guarded duke who meant to pay her off finds himself on his knees in a farmhouse kitchen, binding her cut hand with his own torn cravat, holding ivy straight while she ties a knot, and counting the feet between them across a crowded barn.
But the county has begun to whisper about the companion the Duke seated at his own table. Hugh is still carrying the letter she wrote in March, and the guilt of the night his brother died, which he has never explained to a living soul. When he finally offers her everything he owns, it may be the one thing she cannot accept.
He has kept no Christmas for four years.
She has never once kept one for herself.
A tender, completely clean Regency Christmas romance of grief and healing, a little girl who will not stop asking, and a woman who finally gets to hear the last verse. A standalone with a guaranteed happily-ever-after.
Perfect for readers who love marriages of convenience, guarded heroes and cozy Christmas charm, with a guaranteed happily ever after.
No cheating, no cliffhangers, just pure holiday joy.
Genre: Historical Romance
Used availability for Sally Forbes's The Duke Who Banned Christmas