The Wallflower's Ledger

She manufactured a fortune to save her sister. She didn't calculate falling for the icy duke who holds the ledger. Lady Harriet Finch is an analytical wallflower who knows that in the glittering ballrooms of Mayfair, a woman without a dowry is nothing but an accounting deficit. When a ruthless blackmailer threatens to ruin her sister, Harriet relies on her sharpest weapon: her brilliant wit. In a desperate gamble at Almack's, she invents a massive Yorkshire inheritance and a mythical Great-Aunt Agatha to buy her family time. But her high-stakes bluff draws the sudden, calculating eye of London's most formidable bachelor. Anthony Sterling, the notoriously unapproachable Duke of Wyckham, is a man of cold stone, iron mines, and balanced ledgers. Facing an unexpected industrial crisis in his northern coal shafts, he needs capital immediately. What he doesn't need is a romantic distraction. Recognizing Harriet's "inheritance" as the perfect temporary injection of liquidity, he demands a transactional treaty: a fake betrothal to stabilize his credit and secure her sister's safety. What begins as a crisp, bloodless business contract quickly sparks into a dangerous game of screwball verbal sparring. Behind the glitz of country house parties and high-society promenades, Harriet must frantically spin new lies to keep her empty tin box from being exposed. But as the icy duke begins to show an unyielding, protective devotion that threatens her defensive armor, Harriet realizes the terrifying truth: