Responsible, practical Miss Hermione Rogers, has been crafting stories as the notorious Mr. Michael Michaelmas and selling them for a meager wage to support her siblings. The only real way to ensure her family’s ruinous debts are paid, however, is to marry. Tall, thin, and plain, she has no expectation of success. In London for her first Season she seizes the chance to write the tale of a brooding duke. In her research, she finds Sebastian Fitzhugh, the 5th Duke of Mallen, who unfortunately is perfectly affable, charming, and so nicely… configured… he takes her breath away. He lacks all the character traits she needs for her story, but alas, any duke will have to do.

 

Sebastian Fitzhugh, the 5th Duke of Mallen has been deceived so many times during the high-stakes game of courtship, he’s lost faith in society women. Yet, after a chance encounter with Hermione, he finds himself intrigued. Not a woman he’d normally consider beautiful, the young lady’s practical bent, her forthright nature and her tendency to turn up in the oddest places has his interests… roused. He’d like to trust her, he’d like to do a whole lot more with her too, but should he?

 

 

 

 

 

EXCERPT

She dropped a hasty curtsy. “Miss Hermione Rogers.”

Hermione Rogers. He rolled the name around in his mind, searching for familiarity of a slip of a woman with the name but came up empty. However, it suited her. A hint mischievous and a touch interesting—she seemed very a much a Miss Hermione Rogers.

“And I suppose I should have the courtesy of knowing your name, sir?”

He sketched a bow. “Sebastian Fitzhugh.” He braced for the moment when her insolence became the subservient simpering of other young ladies her age. “The Fifth Duke of Mallen.”

Her mouth fell open. The paper and pencil in her hand fluttered to the floor in a noisy rustling of white sheets, landing in a disorganized heap at her feet. “You’re a duke,” she blurted.

Cynicism pulled at his lips. He’d grown accustomed to ladies fawning over his title.

Her probing gaze took in every inch of him, from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. “You are a duke.”

Sebastian bristled at being evaluated as though she were some great artist and he were the specimen she’d selected for the subject of her work; wishing for once a young woman could see him as more than a title and herself as potential future duchess and—

“You are a duke.” She sighed, and gave her head a forlorn shake.

And it occurred to him with that disappointed little breath of air escaping her lips and the crestfallen expression falling over her heart-shaped face, Miss Hermione Rogers had evaluated him and found him lacking. Indignation replaced all his earlier annoyance with the lady’s scrutiny. “Is there a problem with that, Miss Rogers?”

 

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ABOUT CHRISTI

USA TODAY Bestselling author CHRISTI CALDWELL blames Judith McNaught’s “Whitney, My Love!” for luring her into the world of historical romance. While sitting in her graduate school apartment at the University of Connecticut, Christi decided to set aside her notes and pick up her laptop to try her hand at romance. She believes the most perfect heroes and heroines have imperfections, and she rather enjoys torturing them before crafting them a well deserved happily ever after! 

Christi makes her home in southern Connecticut where she spends her time writing her own enchanting historical romances, chasing around her feisty six-year-old son and caring for her twin princesses in training!