Emma V. Leech

She ruined him first. Love came later.

At six and twenty, Cilly has long since accepted that love is not meant for her. When her father arranges her marriage to a coarse, elderly earl, she sees no escape—until one desperate, reckless idea presents itself in the form of Damian, Viscount Ridley.

Damian is everything Cilly ought to avoid: scandalous, disreputable, dangerously charming, and quite possibly beyond redemption. Yet he is also unmarried, inconveniently handsome, and in urgent need of respectability. So Cilly does more than make him an outrageous offer. She engineers a scandal so neatly, so publicly, that Damian is left with no choice at all: marry her, save her from a miserable fate, and accept her promise to polish his tarnished reputation, make him acceptable to society, and be his friend.

A marriage of convenience. Nothing more.

Damian ought to refuse. He has spent years ensuring no respectable woman would come within ten feet of him, and Lady Cecilia is far too gentle, far too good, and far too tempting for a man like him. But Cilly is not as meek as she appears, and the more she insists upon rescuing him, the harder it becomes to remember he is supposed to be the wicked one.

Their bargain was meant to save them both from scandal.

It might just ruin them completely.