The Sextet Presents... In Days of Olde Books in Order

In Cheryl Brooks's In Days of Olde branch of the Sextet Presents line, the featured novella is The Lady Takes a Pair, a historical erotic romance that uses a Regency-style world of rank, marriage, and scandal as the frame for a very unruly love story. The setup is classic on the surface. A lady with a damaged reputation needs a way out, and a titled man needs a suitable marriage. Brooks then complicates that tidy arrangement by adding the man he already loves.

Lady Juliet Nordsworth has already learned how little her social position protects her once gossip turns against her. Nicholas Pennington, the Viscount Rotherford, needs an heir, but he also refuses to pretend that William Davenport, his footman and valet, does not matter. That triangle gives the novella its emotional pull. Juliet is not simply choosing between two men. She is deciding whether she can trust a form of love that breaks the rules she has been taught to obey.

Reputation matters here.

Brooks makes good use of the period pressures. Fathers bargain, votes carry consequences, class lines are rigid, and private desire can easily become public disaster. Juliet's father wants political advantage. Rotherford wants autonomy. William has far less formal power than either of them, yet his place in the relationship is not treated as disposable. That balance is one of the novella's more interesting moves.

Even with all of that, the story stays brisk and intimate. Country estates, secret meetings, and the threat of social ruin keep the stakes high without weighing the book down. Readers who want a long, heavily researched historical saga will find this too streamlined. Readers who want a fast, sensual period piece about power, escape, and making a life outside the expected pattern will probably have a better time.