I spilled ratafia down a duke's waistcoat.By the end of the night, my father had announced our engagement to a room full of strangers.The Duke had never asked.I am Caroline Ashworth, and I write pamphlets I dare not sign — arguing that a woman's consent at the altar ought to be more than a formality.Better to be a spinster with a library than a wife with a cage.I believed that with my whole heart.Then I collided with Alexander, the Duke of Ashford, at the Serpentine Ball.A war hero with a shattered knee and grey eyes that held no warmth.A man drowning in debt, hunting a fortune to save his estate.He should have been everything I despised.Instead, when my father paraded my dowry like a horse at auction, the Duke said the one thing no man had ever said:"She's a woman who's standing here, listening to you discuss her as though she were a horse at Tattersall's."And then my father lied.He stood before all of London and announced that His Grace had offered for me.He hadn't.I watched the Duke's shoulders go rigid across the ballroom, and I knew — he had been trapped as surely as I had.Now we are bound by a betrothal neither of us chose.A bargain I did not strike.Forced into the same drawing rooms, the same carriages, the same unbearable nearness, both of us pretending in front of a society that feeds on scandal.He needs my fortune.I need my freedom.And there is a serpent in our midst — a rival with a forged page and a grudge, waiting for one of us to break.But the more nights I spend across the table from a man who treats my opinions like something worth examining, the harder it becomes to remember that this marriage is a transaction.Regret is a splinter I cannot remove.And a heart, once it starts to hope, does not ask permission first.If we are going to survive the lie, one of us will have to risk the truth.The Duke's Reluctant Bride is a tender, simmering Regency romance about a forced engagement, public humiliation, forbidden longing, family betrayal, a marriage of convenience, and a love that refuses to stay convenient.Perfect for readers who love marriage-of-convenience romance, brooding wounded dukes, spirited bluestocking heroines, slow-burn forced proximity, and historical romance with a hard-won happy ending. A standalone Regency romance.