Everyone Called Her the Last Choice — Until the Duke Chose Only Her

Everyone Called Her the Last Choice — Until the Duke Chose Only Her... For five years, the town of Weathersby had treated Winifred Rushton as a settled disappointment—the woman who would always be someone’s last choice. Then a notice appeared in the county paper announcing her engagement to Crispin, Duke of Kingsmere. There was only one problem. Neither Winifred nor the Duke had arranged it. The deception belonged to the Duke’s eighty-one-year-old grandmother, who had grown tired of watching two lonely people remain trapped by other people’s assumptions. What begins as an outrageous lie eventually becomes an agreement: Winifred will spend one winter as the Duke’s supposed bride, then end the engagement herself and walk away as the woman who refused a Duke. For Winifred, it offers a way to escape years of pity. For Crispin, it offers temporary freedom from society’s relentless attempts to marry him. But Blackmore begins changing around them. So do they. Winifred’s knowledge of bread, households, illness, and ordinary people brings warmth into the Duke’s cold estate, while Crispin discovers the rare experience of sitting across from a woman who wants neither his title nor his £8,000 a year. Then Sidony discovers evidence that could expose the entire arrangement publicly. What happens when a false engagement begins producing real feelings? And when the truth is finally revealed, will Winifred once again become Weathersby’s object of pity—or will the Duke make a choice nobody can dismiss as charity? What begins with a fraudulent engagement notice unfolds through a fake betrothal, an overlooked heroine, a solitary Duke, village gossip, bread making, social humiliation, an interfering Dowager, and two people discovering something real inside an arrangement built on a lie. If you enjoy historical romance stories, fake engagement romance, Duke love stories, overlooked heroines, slow burn romance, and society scandal, this story offers warmth, humor, emotional healing, public tension, and the transformation of an old insult into something entirely different. 💬 Would you agree to a fake engagement if it gave you the chance to silence years of cruel gossip? ❤️ Subscribe for more Duke romance stories, historical love stories, fake engagements, overlooked heroines, and heartwarming Regency romance. #historicalromance #romancestories #dukeromance #fakeengagement #overlookedheroine