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When the arrogant stranger Bess is forced to marry unexpectedly becomes a duke, she'll find herself at odds with her growing feelings as he hunts for a killer.
*****
Sharp-tongued Elizabeth 'Bess' Jones is perfectly content living on her lonesome in a tiny village south of Derbyshire. She works as a nurse, owns a small home, and finds the label of 'spinster' an agreeable trade for her independence. But when her entire life is uprooted in an instant, she only has one person to blame: her new husband, Emmett Wilde, who was caught in a compromising situation with her. And now, despite his promise to fake a death certificate after their wedding--to free her of any duty to him or their marriage bed--he sends for her in the dead of night with startling news: his father has been murdered, and he is now the Duke of Ascot with a wife he can no longer deny...
[[Word Count: 60,000-70,000 words]]
[[Cover designed by Ren Tachibana]]
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𝐒𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲. 𝐈𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐛𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐥. When faced with a choice, Lord Henry Clarke decided to become a famous and accomplished archaeologist rather than a happily married man to the woman of his heart. Now, at the age of one-and-forty, he lives a comfortable life as a bachelor, working as a professor at the University of London and paying regular visits to his two devoted lovers. His life takes an abrupt turn, when his childless older brother commits suicide, making him the next Duke of Grantchester. Yet that's a minor obstacle compared to the fact that he'll also have to marry to keep the money in the family... Miss Sabrina Hartley has New York at her feet... and perhaps all of America! But only one person knows who's behind the pseudonym that pens the most daring and bestselling erotic novels. When, at the age of one-and-thirty, she sees her younger cousin get married, she decides to turn the fiction of her stories into reality. However, her plans are soon thwarted by a series of telegrams from England - in order to keep half of her vast fortune, Sabrina must marry the current Duke of Grantchester as a direct result of an old agreement between their late fathers, Mr Hartley and Lord Clarke. Despite her best friend's warnings, Sabrina somewhat naively sets off to see if she can be happy in England... ...only to discover to her dismay that Henry is a cold and starchy man, his family reject her out of hand, and even the weather is dreadful almost every day! Will she find a way to her husband's heart or will she fulfill her darkest and most forbidden fantasies in the secret embrace of someone else?
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