The Importance of Being Scandalous

Ruin awaits them, but neither is sure if they mind.

Amelia Bishop would rather spend the rest of her life with her unlikely-to-wed sister than spend another moment with her insensitive, opportunistic fiance. When she tries to break off the engagement in the wake of their disastrous engagement party, he threatens to ruin her family in a breach of promise lawsuit. Her way out? Entice childhood friend and neighbor Nicholas to help her create an engagement-ending scandal.

Nicholas Wakefield spent two years touring the continent trying to forget Amelia. Unlike his parents, and the rest of Victorian society, he doesn’t see the Bishop family as undesirable, nor does he look down on Amelia’s sister’s disability. But the Wakefields are the height of propriety, and his parents have made it clear a Bishop wife would be unacceptable for him. He’d disregard it all for her if Amelia would ever see him as anything more than a childhood friend.

But when Nicholas returns just in time for Amelia to ask him for help in sabotaging her engagement, he can’t say no. He’ll go along with her schemes, even if it means ruining them both, because he’s got a plan that will change her mind about him being the boy next door.