by Maren Baum
Series: The Improprieties of Bath #1
Community rating: 4/5 from 1 rating.
Twelve days. Twelve gentlemen. One Christmas wager that may change everything.
Bath, Christmas 1812.
Clara Bellamy is quite certain she can tell within minutes whether a gentleman is worth knowing. Her family is equally certain she dismisses them far too quickly.
So Clara agrees to a wager: between Christmas Day and Twelfth Night, she will give twelve eligible gentlemen a genuinely fair chance. If none of them suits, her family must stop interfering in her romantic life for the rest of the season.
There is only one complication: Thomas Pembroke.
Her brother’s oldest friend has been part of the Bellamy household for nearly ten years—familiar, infuriating, and entirely outside the wager. Unfortunately, Tom has also been appointed to decide whether Clara is actually playing fair.
As balls, morning calls, Christmas games and an increasingly memorable procession of gentlemen fill the twelve days, Clara discovers that knowing what she does not want may be rather easier than recognising what she does.
Especially when the person who knows her best has been standing beside her all along.
Genres: Historical Romance
Tropes: Matchmaking, Close Proximity, Holiday Romance, Brother's Best Friend
141 pages
Published: 2026-11-15