Description
Cordelia Marchmont has thirteen shillings, a young brother to raise, and a single faded promise to her name.
When her father dies leaving no fortune and no will, all Cordelia finds is a packet of letters and a contract sealed in a rose garden the summer she was ten, and a small pearl ring she has worn on a chain at her throat ever since. By its terms, she was promised to a boy of twelve who is now the Duke of Ravensmere: a man who, in all the years since, has never written, never called, and has very likely forgotten she exists.
With her cold-hearted uncle determined to marry her off to a gentleman thrice widowed and more than fifty, Cordelia does the only thing left to her. She sells her mother’s brooch, boards the northbound coach, and travels to Yorkshire to remind a duke of a promise he would much rather forget.
But a shabby bonnet is turned away at the great house’s door. So when a position opens for a governess to His Grace’s grieving young ward, Cordelia takes it under a borrowed name, telling herself it is only until she can place the contract in his hands.
She does not expect the quiet, careful man behind the duke’s cold reputation. She does not expect the lonely child who slowly begins to bloom under her care. And she most certainly does not expect the duke to begin looking at his ward’s governess as though he is trying very hard to remember where he has seen her before.
A promise made by their fathers. A secret she cannot keep forever. And a love that neither of them ever planned to find.
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