Colleen Ladd

The Duke's Despair Colleen Ladd

The Duke of Ransley despairs of getting his ward safely launched. She'll be lucky to make it through her first Season without permanently blotting her copybook. He's somehow managed to raise a perfect hoyden, and fixing that will take some doing. But he doesn't need the help of some marriage-mad woman using his ward to get close to him. Althea Ravenshaw has neither the need nor the desire to marry. Her heart goes out to Ransley's ward, saddled with a fire-breathing dragon of a guardian, and she can't help trying to keep the girl out of trouble. Someone has to, for Ransley clearly isn't equal to the task. Neither of them realize that someone is deliberately trying to ruin the girl, someone who will stop at nothing to send Ransley and his ward packing. And he has no objection to including Althea in his plot if she continues to interfere. If Ransley and Althea do not use all their wits, and find the will to actually work together, they will have something far more important than a reputation to despair of.