Kate swept into her great-aunt’s sitting room on a cloud of giddy romance.

Aunt Havens clucked her tongue at the sight of the dahlia at Kate’s ear and the grass stains upon her hem. “Never say you left him behind to run off amongst the flowers.”

Grinning, Kate shook her head and swirled about the room. “The opposite, Aunt. He whisked me off the walking path and into his hidden paradise.”

Aunt Havens raised her brows in surprise. “That is unexpected.”

Kate clasped her hands together. Ravenwood was much more than she had dreamed.

The moment she’d realized how deeply his garden mattered to him—that he’d fully expected its unconventional wildness to fall short in her eyes, yet he’d bared it to her anyway—she had irrevocably fallen for him.

What was not to love? His private garden was both his secret and his heart, and he literally opened it up to let her inside.

He had the soul of a poet. She was the one who had been blind to his beauty.

Guilt assailed her as she recalled how carelessly she had dismissed him, before they had even met. She had developed a casual contempt toward him based on nothing more than his title and impeccable reputation.

She had assumed there was nothing more to him than what he presented to society, and judged him without a second thought. She had been wrong.

He lived in the same world she did. He simply confronted it a different way. Outwardly, he became the most proper duke to grace England’s soil.

Behind closed walls, he was drawn in a different direction. He did not allow society to dictate how he spent his private moments. When the world got too frustrating, he escaped into a secret jungle in his own backyard.

And he’d invited her in.

She pulled the dahlia from her ear and pressed it to her chest. “I could love him someday, Aunt.”

“Could you?” Aunt Havens’ smile brightened.

Kate gazed down at the dahlia and thought about her future.

Ravenwood was wonderful. He was smart. Romantic. She didn’t know how he felt, what he might think or say. He didn’t give his approbation lightly, which increased its value all the more.

She cared about his opinion. Everyone else liked her, but she wasn’t certain they necessarily respected her—or her ideas. His respect would mean more than anyone else’s. His love would mean the world.

“He gave me this dahlia.” She held it out for her aunt to see. “He says it reminds him of me.”

“Because you’re beautiful,” Aunt Havens guessed.

“Because I’m different.” Kate gazed at the exotic flower as she remembered the warmth in his eyes.

Debutantes were expected to adhere to the same rules, to follow the same fashions, to mimic each other in comportment and desires.

She had been complimented on her French dresses and perfect ringlets her entire life, but no one had ever told her what they most appreciated about her was that she was different from the others. Until today.

If she’d had any skill at all with watercolor, she would paint this beautiful flower to remember the moment forever.

The day she’d discovered herself falling wholly and irreversibly in love.

She might be like a dahlia, but he was like his secret garden. Tall and imposing, with great stone walls and a locked iron gate to keep others out. Wild, untamed beauty within.

A smile that felt like sunshine upon her soul.

They could not get an annulment. She would stay married to him no matter what it took. Even if that meant someday having his child. Or trying to.

She brought the dahlia to her chest and closed her eyes. Terror gripped her.

Ravenwood was not an unreasonable man. He’d invited her into his garden. Surely he would understand her need to be intimate with him for the first few times without the specter of childbirth casting its shadow over the marriage bed.

He was a duke. He had resources beyond her imagination. He would not let anything happen to her—or their baby. She opened her eyes and nodded firmly.

Next year would be soon enough to think about children.

She crossed the room to the bell pull in order to ring for a vase. Her mind was already planning where to place the dahlia so that she would see it every morning when she woke and every night before falling asleep.

Even when Ravenwood was too busy to spend time with her, she would be able to look at the dahlia and remember how it had felt to kiss him in his garden.

When she turned back around, Aunt Havens was on her knees, peering beneath the chairs and side tables.

Kate strode forward, frowning. “Did you lose something, Aunt?”

“I’m afraid so.” Aunt Havens let out a deep sigh of frustration. “I can’t find that dog anywhere!”

Kate’s smile wobbled. The blasted dog again. This was the second time in as many weeks.

There had to be something Kate could do. Playing along wasn’t working. Nor did explaining the dog had long since died. What Aunt Havens might need was a new dog. A real one.

And perhaps what Kate needed…was Ravenwood.