She had a list in the drawer of everything she had decided she was allowed to want. He had three promises, made at twenty-two in his father's dark study: never trust a woman with his heart, never be governed by sentiment, never marry. London, 1819. Miss Genevieve Ashworth is at her third Season, keeping everything at careful distance — not shyness, but a very precise kind of self-protection. She is also, in secret, writing a serious treatise on agricultural policy and rural poverty. She has no particular interest in dukes. Sebastian Ashford, Duke of Ashford, has spent ten years alone and doing it well and finding it, lately, not quite enough. He made his three promises for good reasons. He has not revised them. They meet when she walks into him at Lady Worthington's ball and deposits cold lemonade on his cream silk waistcoat. He is genuinely surprised, which almost never happens. She addresses the situation with the efficiency of a field surgeon and attempts to leave. He does not let the conversation end. Then he identifies an error in a botanical survey that no one else in the room has read, and everything becomes considerably more complicated. The Wicked Duke of Ashford is a slow-burn Regency romance about two people who have found the right interlocutor — whether they are ready for it or not. The romance builds through words, arguments, and the specific quality of each other's thinking. The grand gesture is nowhere to be found. What is here instead is better. Perfect for readers of Julia Quinn, Evie Dunmore, and Eloisa James. Book One of The Ashford Chronicles. Each book follows a different Ashford sibling and can be read as a standalone.