Between Her and the Wolves

Every door is closing on Lady Hemsworth. A drunken baronet, a scheming relation, and one whispered scandal have seen to that, and a widow with a small daughter cannot fight them all alone.

Victoria has already endured the marriage the world arranged for her and buried the husband it chose. The name she still carries was never truly hers. She wants her child safe and her independence left intact, with no wish to be handed to another man across the wreckage of that name.

Elias, Earl of Harwood, is the last person she expects to intervene. Reserved and formidable, he keeps his own griefs unspoken. His offer is plain: his name and his protection, in a marriage that will ask nothing of her heart, enough to quiet the gossip and put her beyond her enemies.

She knows what arrangements are worth. She does not know what to make of a husband who stands in the rain beneath her daughter's window because the child asked whether he would come.

He married to do a decent thing. He never meant to want the one part of their bargain he had sworn he would not claim.