Nell

Nell Cavendish buried her husband, sold his practice, and has spent three years being useful in other people's houses. The Marquess of Halewick has spent his whole life outrunning a family curse: every Halewick is offered a fated mate by the bond, and every Halewick refuses. Then Nell sits down across a card table from him at a rainy country house and the curse decides it has waited long enough. His solution is money — three hundred pounds for her to leave England. Her solution is to stay, spend it on his tenants, and find out why the estate is bleeding families off its land. They spend the season unraveling a forged will, a poisoned heiress, and a steward who has been selling Halewick land to a name that does not exist. By the last waltz of the season he will have to do something no Halewick has ever done: claim his mate in front of the entire ton and mean it. Nell has no dowry. She has a bond, a scalpel, and a marquess who has finally stopped running.