When Miss Sophie Thornbury slips into the moonlit gardens of a Mayfair masquerade to steal a few quiet moments away from the glittering, scheming ton, she does not expect to find a brooding stranger leaning against the fountain—nor does she expect to kiss him. It is, she will later insist, entirely his fault for being so infuriatingly handsome in the dark.
By the following morning, all of London knows: Miss Thornbury was found in a compromising embrace with Benedict St. Clair, the Duke of Ashbourne—the most powerful, most sought-after, and most notoriously cold-hearted peer of the realm. His proposal arrives before breakfast, delivered in a tone that suggests she has committed an act of war rather than stolen a single, breathless kiss.
Sophie has no wish to be a duchess. Benedict has no wish to be a husband. But the ton is watching, her family’s precarious reputation hangs in the balance, and the devil of it is—she cannot stop thinking about how perfectly the duke kissed her back.
A story of masks worn and set aside, of duty that chafes and desire that refuses to be politely ignored—and of two proud, guarded hearts learning that the bravest thing either of them will ever do is choose each other, in full daylight, without a mask in sight.
