A Wager at Midnight

The stakes are high in this dazzling and diverse Regency romance, in which a clever duke has made a wager with the now-widowed Viscountess who is the love of his life: To win a second chance with her, he will find husbands for her two sisters—or resign himself to a life of longing in this enchanting tale from award-winning author Vanessa Riley.

Scarlett Wilcox is willing to live out her life as a spinster if it means being able to continue her medical research to help a friend in need. After all, few husbands would tolerate her dressing as a man to attend lectures at the Royal Academy of Science. If the Duke of Torrance finds her such a specimen, she'll agree to a marriage in name only, much to the dismay of her elder sister, the Viscountess.

When she's unmasked at a lecture on ophthalmology, Scarlett prepares to be disgraced, but she's saved by Trinidadian-born physician Stephen Carew who claims her as a cousin. Dedicated to caring for his community, Stephen has no wish to marry a frivolous and privileged lady, no matter how many fall for his disarming accent and seductive charm. But Scarlett proves the opposite of any he’s ever met before. Yet the pressure to marry blinds them both to the chemistry growing between them, pitting their brilliant minds against their reluctant hearts—as the Duke and Viscountess await with bated breath to see who will win . . . A WAGER AT MIDNIGHT.

Vanessa Riley is an award-winning author of historical romance, mystery, and fiction novels featuring realistic multicultural communities and powerful persons of color. To fuel her interest in the Regency and early-Victorian eras, she made time for attending renaissance fairs and consuming period novels and films while obtaining her Ph.D. in mechanical engineering and a master’s in industrial engineering and engineering management from Stanford University, as well as a BS and MS in mechanical engineering from Penn State University. A frequent speaker at literary, women's, and STEM events, she lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her military husband and teenage kid. Visit her online at VanessaRiley.com.