A Marquis For Marianne

She kept her promise. He kept his. But fate kept neither of them safe.

Marianne was the most celebrated beauty of the Season — and the most carefully guarded secret of a young lieutenant's heart. When Alexander sailed for the war in Spain, they parted with vows as solemn as any spoken before a vicar: I will come back to you. I will always wait for you. But while Alexander bled on the battlefields of the Peninsula, Marianne's world collapsed — a ruinous father, a predatory stranger, and a forced marriage that stole everything she had promised to give freely.

Eight years later, Marianne is finally, breathlessly free. Her husband is dead, her mourning is ending, and the woman who once dazzled all of London has been reduced to an unpaid governess in a cold estate — controlled, cornered, and nearly forgotten. It takes the quiet courage of two young girls and a purse of hard-saved coins to remind her that she is still capable of choosing her own fate. She sets out across England with a single bag and a friend's invitation, daring to believe that freedom might, at last, be within reach.

But the scarred, battle-hardened Marquis of Glenkellie is also heading to that same country house — a man who believes himself betrayed by the one woman he ever loved, carrying wounds far deeper than the livid scar across his cheek.

Can Marianne and Alexander survive the truth of what tore them apart — or will old wounds and bitter silence destroy their second chance before it can even begin?