"YOU'RE NOT WHAT I ORDERED", THE DUKE SAID — SHE HANDED BACK HIS RING AND WALKED OUT
A young woman travels four days through spring rain to meet the Duke of Ashcombe on the morning of her own marriage interview. She steps down from a hired chaise in a mud-hemmed grey travelling gown. A duke's household of four footmen, a steward, and a housekeeper does not treat her as a guest. In the grand marble hall she is told, without preamble, that she is not what he ordered. She folds the Burgundy velvet cloth neatly over the emerald ring he has slid across the table, places the whole bundle back into his open hand, and walks out of Ashcombe Manor on her own feet. Evangeline Marchmont is twenty-four, plain-spoken, clever at account books, and has spent five years as the household's convenience in her uncle's house — a girl sent in her prettier cousin's place because her cousin refused to come. Maxwell Ashworth, the new Duke of Ashcombe, is thirty-one, eleven months into an inheritance he does not yet understand, and has just said the first sentence he should not have said. By the time her hired chaise reaches the village inn he is already going up the back stairs of his own house to open a walnut writing-desk that has not been opened in five years. Listen to the full story by candlelight — a regency romance of a returned ring, a steward's quiet fraud, a late duke's unfinished correspondence, a two-mile walk up a spring lane, a village schoolroom full of the letter c, and the slow discovery, between two people of some competence, that the match neither of them had chosen was the one that had been waiting for them all along. --- Adrian's Fireside Stories — Regency romance audiobooks read by the fire. New stories every week. #RegencyRomance #Audiobook #DukeRomance #ForcedMatch #HistoricalRomance #SlowBurn #EnemiesToLovers #EnglishManor #RegencyEra #StorytimeYouTube
The Duke Secretly Visited the Village Every Week — One Woman Never Recognized Him
"Let Her Play at Farming" the Duke Said — His Tenants Paid Their Rents to Her by Spring
The Duke Gave Her His Coat to Hold — He Realized His Mistake Too Late
She Married a Cowboy to Survive — Then Learned He'd Secretly Loved Her for 9 Years
The Duke's Bride Arrived Dressed as a Maid to Meet Him — What She Overheard Changed Everything
"You're Not What I Ordered," the Duke Said—She Returned His Ring and Walked Away
The Duke Gave Her the Old Estate to Be Rid of Her—She Made It the Most Desired in the County
SHE WAS THE ONLY WOMAN IN LONDON WHO DIDN'T WANT THE DUKE AND THE ONLY ONE HE WANTED
THE DUKE PROPOSED AT THE WRONG HOUSE TO THE WRONG WOMAN — AND REFUSED TO TAKE IT BACK
SHE STOOD BETWEEN THE DOGS AND THE FRIGHTENED BEGGAR CHILD—UNAWARE THE DUKE WAS WATCHING
Her Sisters Dared Her to Sit Beside the Duke Everyone Feared — He Treated Her Like a Queen
👑HE MARRIED THE UGLIEST DAUGHTER OF A POWERFUL DUKE,BUT WHAT HE SAW ON THE WEDDING NIGHT SHOCKED ALL
He Called Her Plain at His Table — She Curtsied, Packed Her Trunk and the Duke Woke to Find Her Gone
"Give Her a Month Before She Runs," the Duke Sneered — By Harvest Forty Servants Answered to Her
The Young Heir Watched His Father Return With a Mistress — Then Saw His Mother End the Duke’s Rule
He Left Her a Broken Farm and No Love—She Built a Home Worth Coming Back To
The Duke Banished Her to the Flooded Manor — She Made It the Only Estate That Survived the Winter
She Stood at the Altar for the Duke — He Never Came — Ten Years Later He Knocked on Her Door
The Duke Walked In While His Governess Hid Her Bruises From Everyone… What He Saw Changed Everything
