PAPA, WHY IS THAT LADY CRYING?"—THE DUKE'S SON ASKED. HIS COLD FATHER LOOKED UP AND FROZE

The grey April afternoon finds Eleanor Ashworth weeping on a bench in Hyde Park, hidden by shrubbery, mourning on the anniversary of her father's death. Three years of whispers and pitying glances have followed her since Clarence Pemberton publicly declared her unmarriageable without a fortune, and now she has nothing left but her mother's gold locket and the quiet dignity that poverty has not yet stripped away. She does not hear the approaching footsteps until a child's voice pierces her grief: "Papa, why is that lady crying? She looks like Mama did in her portrait, but sadder." Eleanor's mortified gaze meets eyes of such deep blue they appear almost black, set in a face of severe, aristocratic beauty. The Duke of Ashworth—the cold widower whose tragic story is whispered in every drawing room—stands frozen on the path with his young son's hand in his, and something flickers in his expression that might be recognition of a kindred wound. Humiliated, Eleanor flees before he can speak. But fate, it seems, has other plans for two wounded souls who have both learned that hope is the cruelest wound of all. A tender Regency romance of grief, healing, and love found in the most unexpected places. Like and comment if you believe in second chances. This story is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and scenarios presented are purely imaginative and created for entertainment purposes only. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.