Trusting Her Duke

Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had followed his mother into death, leaving him to protect his sister, and manage the estates. He retreated into a rigid and rather harsh approach to the world, and despised what he saw as ‘charitable weakness’ in his neighbours, whom he generally avoided.

Lady Penelope Whitmore, supported by her father, the Earl of Stanyon, organized other local landholders to provide charity and support to the tenant farmers in the whole district. The only large landowner not involved was the Duke of Ravensworth, who regarded her efforts as simply bad estate management.

They avoided each other, polite enemies, until the day when a storm stranded Penelope at Alexander’s home. The presence of Alexander’s cousin was barely enough to dampen the sparks which flew between them… It might have ended there, if a conniving minor landholder had not chosen that moment to attempt to defraud both of their estates…

Can they overcome their entrenched attitudes to work together, and save their estates?

Can trust, once broken, ever be repaired?

Will two such different and volatile people find their way to love?

Or will their lands, and their future, be torn from them?