The Duchess She Blackmailed

Lady Sabine Wray is one season from ruin, one brother dead, and in possession of his blackmail ledger. It names half the peerage — and the Duchess of Fallowmere, a winter-court exile married into mortal society, who has been quietly buying up the debts of every nobleman in the kingdom. Sabine calls on her with the ledger and a threat. Fallowmere answers with a proposal: marry her, and the debts disappear. Refuse, and Sabine's mother loses her pension by Friday. It is not a courtship. It is a siege fought in drawing rooms, ballrooms and one very cold carriage. Then the winter court sends someone to bring the duchess home, and Sabine discovers the ledger is the only thing standing between her grandmother's kingdom and a winter that never ends. She did not marry for love. She may not survive having married for leverage.