The House on the Moor, v. 2/3

The House on the Moor, v. 3/3 by Mrs. Oliphant

Margaret Oliphant was one of the most prolific and popular writers of her day. Her domestic novels are steeped in the broad social, political, and religious worlds of the Victorian era, and her Chronicles of Carlingford series stands as an insightful portrait of English life. 'Phoebe ,Junior', the last of this series, examines Victorian class dynamics by following the social mobility of one family and the effects of this mobility on the daughter, Phoebe.

Merkland; or, Self Sacrifice by Mrs. Oliphant

OUT of the darkest depths of life, where vice and crime and misery abound, comes the Byron of the twentieth century, the poet of the vagabond and the proletariat, Maxim Gorky. Not like the beggar, humbly imploring for a crust in the name of the Lord, nor like the jeweller displaying his precious stones to dazzle and tempt the eye, he comes to the world,— nay, in accents of Tyrtaeus this commoner of Nizhni Novgorod spurs on his troops of freedom-loving heroes to conquer, as it were, the placid, self- satisfied literatures of to-day, and bring new life to pale, bloodless frames.

These words were spoken in the garden of Dinglefield Rectory on a very fine summer day a few years ago. The speaker was Mr. Damerel, the rector, a middle-aged man with very fine, somewhat worn features, a soft benignant smile, and, as everybody said who knew him, the most charming manners in the world. He was a man of very elegant mind as well as manners. He did not preach often, but when he did preach all the educated persons in his congregation felt that they had very choice fare indeed set before them. I am afraid the poor folk liked the curate best, but then the curate liked them best, and it mattered very little to any man or woman of refinement what sentiment existed between the cottagers and the curate. Mr. Damerel was perfectly kind and courteous to everybody, gentle and simple, who came in his way, but he was not fond of poor people in the abstract.

I THOUGHT I heard a slight rustle, as if Sarah had taken off her spectacles, but I was really so interested in the matter which I was then discussing with Mr. Cresswell, our solicitor, that I did not look round, as I certainly should have done in any other circumstances; but imagine my utter amazement and the start which Mr. Cresswell gave, nearly upsetting the ink on the drab table-cover, which never could have got the better of it, when my sister Sarah, who never speaks except to me, and then only in a whisper, pronounced distinctly, loud out, the following words: “His Christian name was Richard Arkwright; he was called after the cotton-spinner; that was the chief thing against him in my father’s days.”

After a one-night stand with a stranger, Roselyn woke up to find only a bank card without a PIN number. Still in a daze, she was detained on charges of theft. Just as the handcuffs were about to close, the mysterious man reappeared, holding her pregnancy report. "You're pregnant with my child," he said coldly. Shocked, Roselyn was whisked away in a helicopter to the presidential palace, where she learned the truth: the man from that night was none other than the country's most powerful and influential leader!

The night I discovered my husband's whore was carrying his heir, I smiled for the cameras-and plotted his ruin. Scarlett was born a queen-heir to a powerful legacy, Luna of the Dark Moon Pack by blood and by sacrifice. She gave everything to Alexander: her love, her loyalty, her life. In return, he paraded his mistress before their pack... and dared to call it duty. But Scarlett won't be another broken woman weeping in the shadows. She'll wear her crown of thorns with pride, tear down every lie built around her, and when she strikes, it will be glorious. The Alpha forgot that the woman he betrayed is far more dangerous than the girl who once loved him.

Noelle was the long-lost daughter everyone had been searched for, yet the family brushed her off and fawned over her stand-in. Tired of scorn, she walked away and married a man whose influence could shake the country. Dance phenom, street-race champ, virtuoso composer, master restorer-each secret triumph hit the headlines, and her family's smug smiles cracked. Father charged back from abroad, mother wept for a hug, and five brothers knelt in the rain begging. Beneath the jeweled night sky, her husband pulled her close, his voice a velvet promise. "They're not worth it. Come on, let's just go home."

I just got my billionaire husband to sign our divorce papers. He thinks it's another business document. Our marriage was a business transaction. I was his secretary by day, his invisible wife by night. He got a CEO title and a rebellion against his mother; I got the money to save mine. The only rule? Don't fall in love. I broke it. He didn't. So I'm cashing out. Thirty days from now, I'm gone. But now he's noticing me. Touching me. Claiming me. The same man who flaunts his mistresses is suddenly burning down a nightclub because another man insulted me. He says he'll never let me go. But he has no idea I'm already halfway out the door. How far will a billionaire go to keep a wife he never wanted until she tried to leave?

At their wedding night, Kayla caught her brand-new husband cheating. Reeling and half-drunk, she staggered into the wrong suite and collapsed into a stranger's arms. Sunrise brought a pounding head-and the discovery she was pregnant. The father? A supremely powerful tycoon who happened to be her husband's ruthless uncle. Panicked, she tried to run, but he barred the door with a faint, dangerous smile. When the cheating ex begged, Kayla lifted her chin and declared, "Want a second chance at us? Ask your uncle." The tycoon pulled her close. "She's my wife now." The ex gasped, "What!?"

After five years of playing the perfect daughter, Rylie was exposed as a stand-in. Her fiancé bolted, friends scattered, and her adoptive brothers shoved her out, telling her to grovel back to her real family. Done with humiliation, she swore to claw back what was hers. Shock followed: her birth family ruled the town's wealth. Overnight, she became their precious girl. The boardroom brother canceled meetings, the genius brother ditched his lab, the musician brother postponed a tour. As those who spurned her begged forgiveness, Admiral Brad Morgan calmly declared, "She's already taken."