An Affair So Destined

Book excerpt: Rumored to be more than just a murderer… Lord Ambrose Ravenner, Marquess Blackraven, has been shunned by the whole of society following the death of his wife and the shocking events that transpired at her funeral which resulted in his mother-in-law’s demise. But shunned or not, he needs an heir and that means getting himself a wife. Braving society, he enters Almack’s, the very heart of the marriage mart. And there he meets the one woman who braves the censure of everyone who matters by speaking to him openly and claiming a purely fabricated acquaintance with him… A spinster courting scandal… Miss Mathilda Featherington is all the things society despises in a woman. She is plain, she is plump, she is poor and she is unmarried. In short, they would pity her if they were not so utterly confounded by the fact that she doesn’t have any desire to change anything about herself. Except her circumstances have altered, and rather than just being poor, now her entire family faces the possibility of debtor’s prison if she does not find a husband who possesses both a fortune and a generous nature. But neither of those things enters her mind when she sees the darkly handsome Marquess. Instead, she acts purely on impulse and makes a muddle of everything. Banished to a country house party to avert scandal after her impetuousness at Almack’s, Mathilda has been instructed by her aunt, in no uncertain terms, that she is to flirt shamelessly and make a match with Sir Wilbur Martens, a grotesque man more than a decade older than her father. But Mathilda’s mother has other plans… and they include the Marquess. But Mrs. Featherington isn’t the only one who is meddling. Amrbose’s aunts, Athena and Minerva, have conducted a love spell on his behalf… and muddled it horribly. Mathilda is supposed to make a match with Sir Wilbur. Miss Abbingford is determined to make a match with the Marquess. The aunts have no notion which of the young ladies is the soulmate they conjured for their nephew. But by fate, destiny, magic or a matchmaking mama, Ambrose and Mathilda only have eyes for one another…