Don't Let Your Dukes Grow Up to Be Scoundrels: Dukes in Disguise, Book 1

He is, without question, the most infuriating man she has ever met—which would matter far less if she weren't forced to work beside him every single day.

Clara Ashworth has built her modest life on principle: no frivolity, no scandal, and absolutely no tolerance for charming men who grin like they've already won. The roguish stranger calling himself Mr. Hartley seems designed specifically to test every one of those principles. He's irreverent, impossibly quick-witted, and entirely too handsome for anyone's good—most especially hers.

What Clara doesn't know is that *Mr. Hartley* is actually Edward Blackmore, Duke of Ashvale, hiding his title for reasons he cannot yet confess. What Edward doesn't expect is a woman who refuses to be dazzled, who matches his every verbal parry with steel of her own, who makes him forget entirely why the deception seemed necessary.

The bickering comes easily. The longing comes faster.

But when the truth surfaces—and it will—Clara must decide whether the man she fell for ever truly existed, and Edward must reckon with the rarest thing his privileged life has never afforded him: someone worth being honest for.

Some scandals are inevitable. Some love stories are inconvenient. And some dukes, no matter how carefully disguised, cannot hide a heart that has already surrendered.

*The question isn't who he is. It's whether she can forgive him for it