BY ELIZABETH ELLEN CARTER
Dicing With The Duke
WILL THE DESIRABLE DUKE OF WITHERIN FALL FOR HER?
Dicing With The Duke was first published as one of the stories in The Wedding Wager, an anthology of interlinked tales of unlikely love and marriage from no less than fifteen international best-selling authors, including Elizabeth Ellen Carter. It’s now a standalone novella.
It seems that everything the tall and graceless Lady Rosaleigh Ayres touches turns to disaster. She knocks over cups of tea, she bumps into people on the dancefloor, she steps on her partners’ toes. But is it really all her fault?
One of London’s premier matchmakers sees something beyond the teasing of the mean girls of the Ton and decides that the ugly duckling will turn into a beautiful swan worthy of a Duke if only she believed in herself.
Meanwhile, a cruel twist of fate has made Simon Quinn the new Duke of Witherin and his suddenly elevated status makes him a target of many marriage-minded young women. But can he find someone who will love him for the man he is, not for the title he holds?
Could it be as easy as a roll of the dice?
Excerpt from Dicing With The Duke
A tea cup smashed to the floor on the other side of the room and cries of dismay rang out as a gangly young woman rose to her feet. She began apologizing profusely to the girl before her, across whose gown she had spilled her tea.
“There. I have your next challenge,” said Octavia, “Lady Rosaleigh Neville. She’s as clumsy as my husband’s new pups, as graceless as a newborn foal, and has no discernible talents that I can see to commend her.”
Pansy looked over at the young woman in question, silently evaluating her without comment.
“If you can find a suitable match for a creature like her, I might very readily concede our wager,” Octavia continued.
Pansy turned to her cousin with a speculative gleam in her eye. “Will you now?”
Octavia raised her chin. “But she comes from a good family, so he must come from stock of equal status, otherwise her family won’t consent to the match.”
She scanned around the room. She knew all the families here – after all that was what her reputation was built on. Her eyes lit upon the new Duke of Witherin, a dashing young man who was considered the catch of the season. She smiled.
“To add to the degree of difficulty, my dear Pansy, my wager to you is that you will not be able to make a match between him and that unfortunate individual,” she said, nodding over to Rosaleigh.
Pansy looked from one to the other, unperturbed.
“I accept your wager, cousin.”