Bell ( For the Duke’s Eyes Only, 2018, etc.) writes a pleasingly layered romance about characters caught between societal expectations, family duty, and individual goals. Their adventures have a delightfully madcap feel, with the pair climbing walls, sneaking through hedges, and searching for clues in hidden rooms. Drew and Mina suspect their individual investigations are related and decide to work together. Meanwhile, a threat of blackmail and kidnapping against his family brings Drew to town from his country home in Cornwall.

She craves adventure and is determined to live up to the last words her mother ever spoke to her, “Don’t be a good girl.” Now that she’s in London for her first season, her uncle presents her with a “Duke Dossier” designed to help her land the ton’s most eligible bachelor, Andrew, Duke of Thorndon however, Mina’s interest in balls and gowns is only a cover for her true goal of finding Le Triton and bringing him to justice. Mina has been trapped in a dull, boring life as her uncle’s secretary, desperately learning everything she can about code-breaking, weapons, and spycraft. Her parents were Malcolm’s most valuable assets but were killed by the French smuggler and thief Le Triton. Mina Penny (an allusion to Miss Moneypenny, the most famous woman sidelined in the spy business) was orphaned as a young child and raised by her overprotective Uncle Malcolm, Britain’s most accomplished spymaster. A staid, upstanding duke disrupts a young woman’s plans to become a spy.

One Fine Duke by Lenora Bell