The Wager He Never Wanted
(2026)(The second book in the Unwanted Duchesses series)
A novel by Emma Dusk
"He won her brother's ruin at the hazard table. He had not wagered on wanting the woman who came to pay it."
The Duke of Rivenhall does not lose. Cold, exacting, and scarred in a way he has learned to use rather than hide, he arranges every room so that a caller meets his ruined profile first, because a man who is underestimated is a man who has already won. He does not gamble on anything he cannot control. He simply waits, patiently, until the thing he wants walks through his door on terms of his own making.
Philippa Arden knows exactly what he has done. Her feckless brother has wagered away a mechanical nightingale that was never his to lose, the last thing her late father built, and the only key to a fortune locked inside it. The Duke has spent four months quietly engineering her ruin for the single purpose of making her desperate enough to deal. And now she is standing in his study, with oil under her nails and her father's genius in her hands, prepared to do exactly that.
So she names her terms. Six weeks to open the mechanism. Her own name, her own workshop, her own hands. And not one inch of herself she does not choose to give.
He signs every one of them.
It is the first thing about the Duke of Rivenhall that Philippa cannot explain, and it will not be the last. Because a man who wins everything by never wanting anything did not plan for a tradesman's daughter who argues with him as an equal, works beside him in candlelight, and looks at his scars as though they are simply another lock to be understood. And a woman who has guarded her independence like a fortune did not expect a husband who keeps every promise he signs, and wants the one thing she never put in the contract.
He wagered to win the nightingale. He never once wagered on losing his head.
A deliciously steamy, slow-burn marriage-of-convenience Regency romance of cold dukes, clever women, and terms neither of them meant to break with a guaranteed happily-ever-after.
No cheating. No cliffhangers. Just a heartwarming happily ever after.
Also available with Kindle Unlimited!
Genre: Historical Romance
The Duke of Rivenhall does not lose. Cold, exacting, and scarred in a way he has learned to use rather than hide, he arranges every room so that a caller meets his ruined profile first, because a man who is underestimated is a man who has already won. He does not gamble on anything he cannot control. He simply waits, patiently, until the thing he wants walks through his door on terms of his own making.
Philippa Arden knows exactly what he has done. Her feckless brother has wagered away a mechanical nightingale that was never his to lose, the last thing her late father built, and the only key to a fortune locked inside it. The Duke has spent four months quietly engineering her ruin for the single purpose of making her desperate enough to deal. And now she is standing in his study, with oil under her nails and her father's genius in her hands, prepared to do exactly that.
So she names her terms. Six weeks to open the mechanism. Her own name, her own workshop, her own hands. And not one inch of herself she does not choose to give.
He signs every one of them.
It is the first thing about the Duke of Rivenhall that Philippa cannot explain, and it will not be the last. Because a man who wins everything by never wanting anything did not plan for a tradesman's daughter who argues with him as an equal, works beside him in candlelight, and looks at his scars as though they are simply another lock to be understood. And a woman who has guarded her independence like a fortune did not expect a husband who keeps every promise he signs, and wants the one thing she never put in the contract.
He wagered to win the nightingale. He never once wagered on losing his head.
A deliciously steamy, slow-burn marriage-of-convenience Regency romance of cold dukes, clever women, and terms neither of them meant to break with a guaranteed happily-ever-after.
No cheating. No cliffhangers. Just a heartwarming happily ever after.
Also available with Kindle Unlimited!
Genre: Historical Romance
Used availability for Emma Dusk's The Wager He Never Wanted