Tempting the Broken Duke

Kingdom of Württemberg, 1871All Duke Dietrich of Württemberg has done since his humiliating injury in battle is drown himself in alcohol and evade his mother’s relentless demands for marriage and heirs. But if there is one thing he fears more than bullets, it is women. Ruthless and calculating, they are far worse than his nightmares of gunfire. He would rather return to the trenches than endure another ball, where whispers of his accident—and his failures in precisely that area—spread like wildfire.Emma Thiessen, the middle daughter of the kingdom’s most powerful steel magnate, has been raised like a fragile flower, sheltered from the world. Yet behind her delicate health lies a sharp mind and an iron will. The moment her strict governess turns her back, Emma scatters her maps across the sitting room, plotting ways to join the kingdom’s most esteemed naturalist on his expedition to Africa. She refuses to be an invalid, to wither in a golden cage.But fate has a cruel sense of humor. When she crosses paths with the most insufferable, indecent, and scandal-ridden man in Württemberg, the infamous Duke Dietrich, she wants nothing more than to send him on his way. Forced to dance with him, she convinces herself that she only needs to endure him for a single waltz—nothing more.But could a single dance be enough to change everything? The answer would be no… if not for one shocking detail: the duke’s inexplicable and utterly scandalous reaction to her defiance.