The Seduction — Julia Ross

It was the worst day of his life. Alden Granville, Viscount Gracechurch, bet everything he owned in a card game--and lost. Miserably. His investments...gone. His beautiful ancestral estate...gone. His jewels, his weapons...all gone. His only hope is to accept his opponents' final, fateful wager: he must bed the mysterious Mistress Juliet Seton--otherwise he is well and truly ruined.

Past experience has taught Juliet that romance inevitably leads to disaster. But when Viscount Gracechurch turns up in her garden--and is promptly felled by a bee sting--she can't bring herself to send him away...

The sky rumbles. Darkness descends. He challenges her to a game of chess--and thus a weeklong seduction begins...