To Steal an Earl

She swore if she ever saw him again, she would shoot him. But that was before the queen commanded her to marry the rogue rather than kill him.

Lady Sophie Redwell’s formative years were spent training in espionage rather than the arts of the gentler sex. After all, her illustrious parents, Lord and Lady Rydleshire, were two of the best agents ever to serve the Crown. When Sophie was born a month after her father’s assassination, her brilliant mother devised a scheme to secure a future for herself and her daughter. She fabricated Sophie’s fake twin brother, the 4th Earl of Rydleshire, to safeguard the family’s wealth and status. But the dangerous scheme has developed a flaw: a blackmailer more interested in blood than money.

Sir Nash Bromley, a knight with a penchant for military service and a dislike for being tethered, is unfortunately a favorite of the queen’s. Unfortunately a favorite because Her Majesty has an agenda for him. In the face of a blackmailing assassin threatening not only her closest friends but herself as well, the queen orchestrates a marriage between him and Sophie as one step in the plan to dismantle the Rydleshire scheme and capture the blackguard bent on destroying them all.
As Nash grapples with the unexpected turn of events, he discovers Sophie would rather kiss a toad with the pox than be in the same room with him. When he sees the awkward duckling he knew ten years ago has become an incomparable swan, he regrets how he used to tease her when he wasn’t ignoring her completely. Perhaps marriage is not so unfortunate after all.
On the surface, the queen’s plan seems flawless. Declare the fake earl dead, bestow the title upon Nash, and eliminate the false peer scheme to disarm the blackmailer and set a trap to capture him—or her. But there’s a hitch: Sophie’s unforgiving heart that Nash broke all those years ago. Determined to protect the empire she’s fought for all her life, she refuses to forget his callous treatment, even if it me.