One Duke Down--A Rogues to Lovers Novel


 Contents
 
 Title Page
 Copyright Notice
 Dedication
 Chapter 1
 Chapter 2
 Chapter 3
 Chapter 4
 Chapter 5
 Chapter 6
 Chapter 7
 Chapter 8
 Chapter 9
 Chapter 10
 Chapter 11
 Chapter 12
 Chapter 13
 Chapter 14
 Chapter 15
 Chapter 16
 Chapter 17
 Chapter 18
 Chapter 19
 Chapter 20
 Chapter 21
 Chapter 22
 Chapter 23
 Chapter 24
 Chapter 25
 Chapter 26
 Chapter 27
 Chapter 28
 Chapter 29
 Chapter 30
 Chapter 31
 Chapter 32
 Chapter 33
 Chapter 34
 Excerpt: It Takes a Rake
 Also by Anna Bennett
 Praise for Anna Bennett’s Debutante Diaries series
 About the Author
 Newsletter Sign-up
 Copyright
 
 
 
 Guide
 
 Cover
 Title Page
 Dedication
 Contents
 Chapter 1
 Copyright
 
 
 
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 Begin Reading
 Table of Contents
 About the Author
 Copyright Page
 
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 To the SIL party of 34 and the good times on Gower Street.
 
 
 
 Chapter 1
 
 Miss Poppy Summers was accustomed to finding odd, unwanted objects tangled in her fishing nets: clumps of seaweed, discarded rum bottles, even the occasional clay pipe. But until that sun-soaked June morning, she had never, in the course of all her twenty-three years, had the misfortune of catching a man.
 A strapping, half-dressed, unconscious man, at that.
 Perched on the seat of her small rowboat several yards offshore, she raised a hand to her forehead and shielded her eyes from the glare in order to have a proper look at him.
 He was sprawled facedown on the beach, his head turned to one side, long legs akimbo in the frothy, lapping waves. Raven hair covered his eyes, and sand salted the dark stubble along his jaw. Beneath the remains of his shirt—little more than a few scraps of lawn—he had the broad shoulders of a swimmer and the trim waist of a boxer. His trousers were plastered to thick thighs, and his bare feet were nearly the size of oar blades.
 Zounds.
 He must have stumbled out of the surf and collapsed on the beach. Her beach. To make matters worse, one corner of the net that she’d strategically placed in the deepest part of the cove was now wrapped around his left ankle, all but dashing her hopes for a good day’s catch.
 Disappointment sank onto her chest like a rusty anchor. The only time Papa smiled lately was when Poppy came home with news of a bountiful haul, but there’d been precious little cause for celebration lately. A devastating uptick in cod worm meant a third of the fish she caught weren’t fit to eat, and the healthy ones tended to be younger, smaller fish that didn’t bring nearly as good a price.
 She’d weathered tough seasons before, but this summer was different. Her poor father rarely left his bed since taking ill over the winter, and her brother, Dane, had been spending more time in London of late. Perhaps that was for the best, though, since he had an infuriating habit of gambling away the meager earnings from the family’s business—a business that she was now single-handedly trying to keep afloat.
 Still, she supposed an empty net was the least of her problems. The stranger passed out on the