Countess Confidential

Description for COUNTESS CONFIDENTIAL by Barbara Dawson Smith: Dear Reader,This is the story of how I, a penniless upstart, became a countess.I never set out to be the heroine in a romantic tale of derring-do. As a spinster of five-and-twenty, I was much too practical to imagine myself tracking a dangerous criminal or falling prey to ardent nonsense. Nor did I ever envision myself entering the gilded ballrooms of society where indolent aristocrats nibbled cake and traded gossip. But that was before my father was wrongfully imprisoned as a jewel thief.Determined to uncover the true criminal, I posed as an impoverished widow and secured a post in the grand household of a noble family -- the very family that had cruelly cast out my mother many years ago. Of course, they knew not who I was. To them, I was merely a servant, an invisible hireling. And little did I know, my daring plan would throw me into the path of Simon Croft, the almighty Earl of Rockford.Arrogant, charming, and too hands