A Christmas Promise

A Christmas Promise is a historical romance by Mary Balogh, published in 1992. Its heroine, Eleanor Transome, has a father who has decided that she will marry into the nobility.

Her father's wealth is what buys her a husband, and that is how the arrangement is understood by both sides. Lord Randolph Falloden is on the brink of ruin and cannot resist the money, in spite of his passionate alliances with several other women.

Eleanor's heart belongs elsewhere, to a man named Wilfred Ellis, but she will not deny her father's wishes. The result is a marriage of convenience made between an arrogant earl and a woman who has been traded for her fortune. Neither of them has been consulted about the other, and the wedding is arranged by the people who hold the money.

The novel is a Christmas story about a match that begins with no love in it, and it is concerned with what two people do when they are married for reasons that have nothing to do with each other.