Chapter 1 She had known about the affair since the first week of their marriage. Not suspected. Known. There is a difference. And Saraphina Ashwell, Duchess of Cresma for eleven months, three weeks, and four days — but who was counting — was a woman who dealt exclusively in differences. The difference between what people…
Chapter 1 One signature. One document he didn’t read. And suddenly George Raventon, Duke of Hailwick, was already bound to a woman he had no intention of marrying. He didn’t believe in arranged marriages. He didn’t believe in mistakes. And he certainly didn’t believe in keeping them. So he made a decision: if he couldn’t…
Chapter 1 Sebastian Sterling, the ninth Duke of Kensington, had not bothered to learn the colour of his bride’s eyes. To Sebastian, the arranged marriage was a transaction: the Vain shipping fortune in exchange for the Kensington title. The girl would arrive at the altar, sign where required, and retire quietly to the country while…
Chapter 1 The morning of Lady Isabella Hartley’s wedding dawned bright and beautiful, golden sunlight streaming through the windows of Hartley Manor. She stood before the mirror in her bridal gown, watching as her maid adjusted the delicate lace veil that had been worn by generations of Hartley brides. The dress was perfect — ivory…
Chapter 1 London, 1812. The Davenport house ran on a single unspoken rule. Let the diamond shine. Make sure the shadow does not exist. For seven years, Genevieve Davenport had obeyed that rule so perfectly that London society had nearly forgotten she was born at all. She wore gray — the colour of dust, of…
Chapter 1 London, 1814. “Marriage, my dear Arabella, is nothing but a practical arrangement — a business transaction, if you will.” Lady Armstrong sighed as she smoothed her primrose silk gown. “One must approach it with the same cold calculation as one would a purchase of property.” The Dowager Countess of Pembrook nodded approvingly from…
Chapter 1 The year was 1888, and the Ashborne estate stood in the heart of Berkshire like a fortress of limestone and ivy — a monument to the staggering wealth of the Montgomery lineage. Inside its walls, society’s elite danced under chandeliers that dripped with Bohemian crystal, oblivious to the army of invisible hands that…
Chapter 1 London, 1810. The chandeliers of Carlton House cast their merciless brilliance on the highest echelons of English society — jeweled tiaras, military dress coats, couples in choreographed perfection. And at the shadowed periphery, Jane Everly stood motionless. A forgotten statue in her mended cotton gown. At two-and-twenty, she had long since accepted her…
Chapter 1 The laughter was the worst part. Not the words. I had survived my family’s words for twenty-three years. Not the hand on my elbow steering me forward like livestock. Not even the sea of faces in Lady Peton’s drawing room. It was the laughter, because laughter meant they were all in on it,…
Chapter 1 The first time the Duke of Ashford heard the bride was ugly, he laughed. Not because it was funny. Because it was useful. It meant he could survive this marriage without wanting anything from it. It meant he could do what he had promised himself he would do years ago, when he buried…
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