66 Not Used To Rejection

Charles Lancaster, the Duke of Orla, was not used to rejection. Everyone had been willing to lick his boots from a young age when he took over his father's old and prestigious title.

He worked hard to live up to others' expectations and was lauded as a prodigy among the nobility. So why? Why did the one thing he actually wanted have to be taken away by someone so useless?

The first time he saw Catherine du Pont he was intrigued by how she put her brother Edmund, one of the most ridiculous people he knew, in his place. His curiosity only grew when he saw her reading such advanced political texts in her father's library.

She was as sharp as she was beautiful. The perfect duchess—unlike his mother, who wasted her days on needlepoint and gossip.

The dukedom of Orla was barely beneath the archduke in terms of power and prestige. Yet Catherine had chosen a useless, forgotten prince with no political power of his own simply because he made her laugh.