A Bargain with the Earl

When a solicitor's letter arrives bearing a cracked black seal, Clementine Ashcombe's quiet life as a overlooked spinster shatters. With her future hanging by a thread and her scheming mother, Lady Ashcombe, circling like a hawk, Clementine makes a scandalous decision: she will secure a proposal from the reclusive Earl of Ravenscar before her family's debts, and her mother's machinations, catch up with her. But Sebastian Ashford, still haunted by a failed first marriage and content in his solitude, has no interest in taking a wife, least of all a determined bluestocking who speaks her mind too freely and refuses to simper. As negotiations become a battle of wit and will, an unexpected attraction ignites between them, complicated by interfering society matrons, a meddling aunt, scheming rivals, and secrets from Sebastian's past that threaten to ruin them both. With the help of unlikely allies and her own cleverness, Clementine must navigate drawing rooms, barrooms, and dangerous bargains to win a future she never dared to dream of, provided the earl's heart can be coaxed out of hiding before time runs out.