title: Protecting Her Royal Baby (The Mansfield Brothers)
author:  Beth Cornelison 
description: Award-winning author Beth Cornelison has been writing stories since she was a child. A University of Georgia graduate, Cornelison worked in Public Relationsbefore becoming a full-time writer. She has won many honors for her writing, including the coveted Golden Heart, awarded by the Romance Writers of America. Shelives in Louisiana with her husband and son. For more information, visit her website at www.bethcornelison.com.
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  ![](images/00003.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  Duke Most Wanted
  
  By
  
  Celeste Bradley
  
  
  Heiress Bride 03
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Prologue
  
  Once upon a time, on a lovely spring day in the English countryside, three
  tiny girls played side by side by side— cousins and future competitors.
  
  The eldest, Sophie, watched an insect crawling across the path, squatting
  awkwardly so that her hem dragged in the dirt. The middle, Phoebe, sweet and
  unrestrained, chased a butterfly. The youngest, Deirdre, even then a
  stunningly beautiful infant, grabbed Sophie's bug and ate it, ignoring
  Sophie's howl of protest.
  
  Their mothers, Sophie's a frustrated and resentful widow, Phoebe's a kindly
  but overworked vicar's wife and Deirdre's, an ethereal and unwell beauty, sat
  watching them from the shady blanket left over from their picnic.
  
  Sophie's mother, who was cousin to the other two, not sisters as they were,
  slapped irritably at something with too many legs that encroached upon her
  skirts. "Disgusting idea," she muttered