The Disgraceful Duke — Barbara Cartland

Shimona was face to face with the notorious Duke of Ravenstone. She had imagined an older man with slanting eyes, arched eyebrows, a long thin nose and pointed ears. But as she looked across the room she saw not the devil she had anticipated, but a surprisingly young, extremely good-looking man.

He looked at her with an expression that made her body tremble and her heart pound wildly. Appalled by her own ecstasy, she blushed and turned from the Duke's penetrating gaze.

Shimona hires herself to pose as the bride of the nephew of the Duke of Ravenstone in order to help him gain his inheritance. It gives her a chance to gain some money to provide for her ailing actor father.