The Rake's Dark Secret
(2026)(The third book in the Reformed Rakes of Mayfair series)
A novel by Daphne Bloom
A rake who sees everything. A musician's daughter who sees him right back. And a blackmailer who is counting on neither of them to notice until it's too late.
When Lord Nicholas Fane accepts Lady Pemberton's invitation, he comes with a purpose — there is a man at this house party who has been quietly destroying his hostess, and he intends to find him. What he has not prepared for is Sophia Aldridge, companion and music teacher, who has been watching the same man for a week from the wrong end of the dinner table.
Sophia has survived four years in difficult households by remaining invisible. Nicholas has survived thirty-one by ensuring that no one looks too closely. Clement Harwell has survived considerably longer by making sure no one looks at him at all — and he is, at this particular house party, very busy.
A formal alliance. An annotated notebook. Honest conversations in a cold library that go further than either of them intend.
A villain with a legal case made from true things, aimed at everyone's worst secrets. A masked ball. A frost-covered garden at six in the morning.
One of them will have to stop using intelligence as a wall. The other will have to become visible, in the most inconvenient way possible.
The Rake's Dark Secret is a slow-burn Regency romance full of wit, precision, and the particular pleasure of watching two people realise they have, at last, met their equal.
🌶️🌶️ Heat level: Slow burn, fade-to-black. All the tension. None of the explicit.
Genre: Historical Romance
When Lord Nicholas Fane accepts Lady Pemberton's invitation, he comes with a purpose — there is a man at this house party who has been quietly destroying his hostess, and he intends to find him. What he has not prepared for is Sophia Aldridge, companion and music teacher, who has been watching the same man for a week from the wrong end of the dinner table.
Sophia has survived four years in difficult households by remaining invisible. Nicholas has survived thirty-one by ensuring that no one looks too closely. Clement Harwell has survived considerably longer by making sure no one looks at him at all — and he is, at this particular house party, very busy.
A formal alliance. An annotated notebook. Honest conversations in a cold library that go further than either of them intend.
A villain with a legal case made from true things, aimed at everyone's worst secrets. A masked ball. A frost-covered garden at six in the morning.
One of them will have to stop using intelligence as a wall. The other will have to become visible, in the most inconvenient way possible.
The Rake's Dark Secret is a slow-burn Regency romance full of wit, precision, and the particular pleasure of watching two people realise they have, at last, met their equal.
🌶️🌶️ Heat level: Slow burn, fade-to-black. All the tension. None of the explicit.
Genre: Historical Romance