Book excerpt: Lady Pearyn Treedale has been affianced to Cameron Spencer, the Duke of Partridgdon since she was eight years old. An archaic practice, but a situation she’s come to enjoy. At her formal introduction to society she wasn’t like the other debutantes. While they all searched for husbands, she made friends, had titillating conversations, and did whatever pleased her. Her fiancé had the good grace to be absent most of her life. Then, the duke went on his world tour, and decided never to return to England, allowing Lady Pear a freedom most ladies never experience. Now at five and twenty, Lady Pear wonders if perhaps she had it all wrong. She has friends, but no love, and no family. With Christmas around the corner, she receives gifts from a secret admirer, and she starts to believe that perhaps she should give this new gentleman her attention, because her duke certainly doesn’t want her.