The Calculus of a Countess

She needs a protector. He needs a fortune. But in the game of high-society hearts, the math has never been more dangerous.Elara Vance is the ton's most successful ghost. A "Dull Orchid" who hides her brilliant mathematical mind behind beige silk, she has spent years invisible, waiting for the chance to escape her predatory uncle. When she realizes her vast inheritance is at risk, she decides to buy the one thing her uncle can't touch: the protection of a powerful, albeit penniless, husband.Arthur Devlin, the Earl of Radcliff, is a man of stone and scars. Returning from the Napoleonic Wars to find his estate in ruins and his family name dragged through the mud, the "Ice Earl" has no time for the fripperies of Mayfair-until a quiet wallflower corners him in a library with a cold-blooded business proposition.