She Confronted the Duke in Her Nightgown—Hair Wild and Disheveled, He Suddenly Fell Madly in Love

Lady Philip Marlo had precisely 3 hours, 14 minutes, and approximately 47 seconds left before she would make the most mortifying mistake of her entire existence. Not that she knew this, of course, as she sat at the gleaming mahogany dining table in Brackenir House, pushing roasted pheasant around her plate with increasing desperation. The annual New Year's Eve dinner was

proceeding exactly as it always did. Her father, the Marquest of Brackenmir, holding court at the head of the table with anecdotes about parliamentary sessions. Her brother Giles, making the ladies giggle with his witty observations, the Daaja Duchess of Thornley offering scandalous commentary about everyone who wasn't present, and dozens of London's finest families

laughing, drinking, and securing their positions in society's intricate hierarchy. And there, seven seats to her left, sat his Grace Rupert Falomir, Duke of Thornley. He wasn't looking at her again. Philipper had become something of an expert on the Duke of Thornley's profile over the past 2 years. She could sketch the exact angle of his jawline

from memory. She knew that he had a small scar just above his left eyebrow, barely visible, unless you'd spent countless hours studying him during tedious musicals. She'd memorized the precise shade of his dark hair, the way it curled slightly at his collar when it grew too long, the manner in which his mouth quirked when he found something

genuinely amusing versus merely polite. What she didn't know was what his eyes looked like when they gazed directly at her with anything resembling interest. Because in two years of relentless, mortifying, increasingly desperate attempts to gain his attention, Rbert Phomir had never once looked at her as though she were anything more than furniture. "Lady Philipper, you seem