She Sat Alone at Her Sister's Wedding—Then a Stranger Asked Her to Dance. He Was the Duke

It is a July wedding breakfast at a Hampshire estate, and Cassandra Ashwell has chosen her corner with purpose. Her younger sister is married before noon and the whole county is delighted — but Cassandra, four-and-twenty and three seasons unclaimed, is content to watch the ballroom's machinery turn without being caught in its gears. When a stranger crosses the length of the overheated room to ask her to dance, she has no reason to believe him worth the trouble of standing up. What she does not know is that the man who laughed — surprised, unguarded — at her first honest sentence has arrived in Hampshire carrying more than one quiet purpose.