He let all of Bath believe the worst about him, to spare a boy who wasn't his to protect. She refused to marry a man she believed capable of nothing but charm - until his silence started making a very different kind of sense.
Percy Vale has spent a year trying to become the kind of man his own reputation never expected him to be. Then he watches a frightened stranger nearly ruin himself at a Bath card table, and does the only decent thing: he takes the blame himself, quietly settles the boy's debt, and asks for nothing in return.
He doesn't yet know the boy has an elder sister three streets away - sharp-tongued, clear-eyed, and entirely unconvinced that a known rake's generosity ever comes without a cost.
When Bath's gossips turn a private rescue into a public scandal, Percy is left with an impossible choice: expose Simon Winslow's disgrace to clear his own name, or let the rumor stand and marry the one woman in Bath who already believes the worst of him. He chooses the harder mercy.
Cordelia agrees to the betrothal for her family's sake, certain she's marrying a performance rather than a man. What she doesn't expect is a husband who keeps showing up - patient, steady, and maddeningly honest about everything except the one thing that would explain all of it.
A deeply emotional story about the cost of protecting someone else's secret, the particular ache of being loved by a man you're not sure you can trust, and the courage it takes to tell the truth before you're forced to.
Perfect for readers who love enemies-to-lovers with a reformed-rake hero, a heroine who refuses to be charmed into anything, and a betrothal built on sacrifice instead of choice - until it isn't.
A standalone romance with a guaranteed HEA, and Book Three of The Ashworth Ruin Series.
