He’s controlled. Meticulous.
Immaculate. No one would expect the proper Duke of Westmead to be a member of
London’s most illicit secret club. Least of all: his future wife. A marriage to
a duke has never been such fun in THE DUKE I TEMPTED by Scarlett Peckham
About THE
DUKE I TEMPTED
Having overcome
financial ruin and redeemed his family name to become the most legendary
investor in London, the Duke of Westmead needs to secure his holdings by
producing an heir. Which means he must find a wife who won’t discover his
secret craving to spend his nights on his knees—or make demands on his long
scarred-over heart.
Poppy Cavendish
is not that type of woman. An ambitious self-taught botanist designing the
garden ballroom in which Westmead plans to woo a bride, Poppy has struggled
against convention all her life to secure her hard-won independence. She wants
the capital to expand her exotic nursery business—not a husband.
But there is
something so compelling about Westmead, with his starchy bearing and impossibly
kind eyes—that when an accidental scandal makes marriage to the duke the only
means to save her nursery, Poppy worries she wants more than the title he is
offering. The arrangement is meant to be just business. A greenhouse for an
heir. But Poppy yearns to unravel her husband’s secrets—and to tempt the duke
to risk his heart.
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Read and exclusive excerpt from THE DUKE I TEMPTED:
Poppy sat at a round table in the corner, surrounded by piles of
drawings. She still wore her gardening clothes, and her eyes were heavy lidded.
She looked intense and flushed and disheveled.
Beautiful.
No. He must stop doing that. Must
chasten his reactions to her.
Hardworking. She looked tired from her
labors.
He
cleared his throat. “Poppy. You’re still awake.”
She
looked up at him with a guilty expression. “Your Grace. Yes. And it seems I
have invaded your study — I’m so sorry. The others were playing whist in the
library and I thought to finish my work in the quiet. I’m just finishing — I’ll
leave you.”
“Never
mind. Stay. Please. Show me what it is you’re sketching.”
She
hesitated. He felt her eyes linger on his face, like she was trying to discern
something about him. No doubt, her downcast expression had something to do with
his invasion of her bedchamber the previous evening. He needed to address that.
No woman who’d been raised in Grove Vale would be ignorant of the stories about
his father. He could not have her think that he expected similar liberties of
her. He had taken far too many as it was.
“Poppy,
last night — I hope I didn’t alarm you. I apologize for intruding. I would not
normally disturb a lady’s privacy, and I hope I gave no offense. I was
concerned. You seemed quite distressed.”
Her
face flickered. “It was only a nightmare,” she said finally. “I shan’t disturb
you again.”
“I
was not disturbed,” he said quickly.
She
smiled. “When I awoke this morning I wondered if I had dreamt you.”
“No,”
he said, drinking in her languid eyes.
She
reached up and touched his face above his cheekbone. “No,” she agreed. “Here
you are. Real indeed.”
Damn
him, but he caught her hand and dragged it down to his lips and placed a kiss
inside her palm.
Her
mouth parted. Perhaps in shock. Perhaps in something closer to the feeling
surging behind his sternum, overriding his judgment, his propriety, his will to
be the kind of person he had spent a decade refashioning himself into.
“Forgive
me. I am not myself tonight,” he forced himself to say, releasing her. He
looked into her green eyes and told her the truth of it: “You should leave me.”
He
meant it.
And
yet.
And
yet.
He
hoped she wouldn’t listen.
Author Bio:
Scarlett Peckham fell
in love with romance novels as a child, sneaking paperbacks from the stash in
her grandmother's closet. By the time she came of age she had exhausted
her library's supply and begun to dream of writing one of her own.
Scarlett studied English at Columbia University
and built a career in communications, but in her free hours always returned to
her earliest obsession: those delicious, big-hearted books you devour in the
dark and can never bear to put down. Her steamy historical romances about alpha
heroines have been finalists for the Golden Heart® Award four times. Her debut
book, THE DUKE I TEMPTED, will be out July 31, 2018.
Scarlett splits her time between London and Los
Angeles. When not reading or writing romance she enjoys pretending to know
about wine, discussing The Real
Housewives, and cooking enormous pots of soup.
Scarlett is represented by Sarah Younger at the
Nancy Yost Literary Agency, and spends far too much time on Instagram and Twitter.
My Review
4 Stars:
THE DUKE I TEMPTED by Scarlett Peckham is the First book in the Secrets of Charlotte Street series. This is the story of Poppy Cavendish and Archer, the Duke of Westmead.
Poppy is happy to be unmarried and working on her botanist designs and pursuits. When she goes to help set up a design for a ball she meets Archer. Archer feels the guilt of a painful lost that he hasn't forgiving himself for and likes to be a submissive in the BDSM scene. It helps him to cope with his inside pain. But it has now come to pass that he will need a wife and an heir. When Poppy's life choice is threaten and compromised they end up in a marriage of convenience.
Both start to fall in love but can Poppy deal with Archer's needs?
This does have a late scene in the book of Archer with another women but it wasn't really sex but them doing a 'scene'. I mention it because some people have a harsh definition of cheating.
Overall I enjoyed this book and the steamy scenes!
Poppy is happy to be unmarried and working on her botanist designs and pursuits. When she goes to help set up a design for a ball she meets Archer. Archer feels the guilt of a painful lost that he hasn't forgiving himself for and likes to be a submissive in the BDSM scene. It helps him to cope with his inside pain. But it has now come to pass that he will need a wife and an heir. When Poppy's life choice is threaten and compromised they end up in a marriage of convenience.
Both start to fall in love but can Poppy deal with Archer's needs?
This does have a late scene in the book of Archer with another women but it wasn't really sex but them doing a 'scene'. I mention it because some people have a harsh definition of cheating.
Overall I enjoyed this book and the steamy scenes!
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