For sixteen years, they’ve hated each other...and craved each other.
Widowed and betrayed, Eva Castellane will do anything to protect her daughter’s inheritance.
Standing in her way?
Alex Castellane—her late husband’s steely, magnetic half brother.
The man poised to take it all.
Her worst enemy.
Her forbidden temptation.
Stuck together in the family castle, their legal fight spirals into war…
until a common threat forces a reluctant alliance.
Desire blurs the lines.
Chemistry sizzles.
Rules get broken.
But as the verdict nears, one slip could unravel Eva’s explosive secret…
A Duchess with a Secret stands alone within the Montevor Royals Saga. It is a spicy contemporary enemies-to-lovers romance with forced proximity, family secrets, and a hard-won HEA.
I decided early on that Fort Vauclairt would be the ancestral castle of the Duchy of Rohinn. But it didn’t arrive fully formed. It grew, layer by layer, until it felt as real as the characters moving through it.
I started with the bones: a proud stone fortress standing on a hill, its walls steeped in feudal history. Then I added the formal gardens where a breeze could carry a dangerous secret, the stables, and the woods that slope away from the fortress like a green invitation to disappear.
Before long the duchy’s landscape came alive around it, with its rolling hills and valleys, and the agricultural lands where old grazing rights still matter. Then came the main town of Aymon, close enough for easy access yet far enough to keep the castle’s rural privacy.
The most exciting part? The hidden layers.
I gave Fort Vauclairt two secret tunnel systems: one ancient escape route from the Revolutionary era that leads from the old dungeons to the wooded slopes, and a more recent smuggling tunnel connected to a hunting lodge. These weren’t just pretty details. They shaped the tension, the stakes, and the way Eva and Alex move through their story.
A fun fact: most of this rich “portrait” never made it onto the page. You won’t find every historical footnote or the full scope of the late duke’s ambitious plans for the estate. But having those details in my mind changed how I wrote every scene. The castle became a full-fledged character of my novel.
Writing A Duchess with a Secret reminded me why I adore creating these fictional worlds. When the setting feels this vivid and lived-in, the romance, the secrets, and the enemies-to-lovers sparks burn even brighter. Eva and Alex’s journey unfolds against a backdrop that’s as grand, complicated, and full of hidden corners as their feelings for each other.
If you love royal romances where the castle itself seems to hold its breath and keep its own secrets, I think you’ll feel right at home in the Duchy of Rohinn. Eva and Alex’s story is waiting for you in the pages of A Duchess with a Secret
Eva
“He’s here,” Millie whispers.
I don’t look. I don’t need to.
The man she’s warning me about radiates a chill so palpable I can sense which door he entered through. The air in Fort Vauclairt’s reception hall, warmed by hundreds of flickering candles and the breath of mourners grows colder by the second.
Of course, Alex would show up! Nothing like a funeral to size up how much of the estate he can have, just because he happens to share the same father as Geoffroy.
I’m being unfair, I know.
After all, Alex is the old duke’s second son. In neighboring France, the math prodigy would’ve inherited half of the duchy when Rodolphe passed.
Then again, there are no dukes or duchies in the Republic of France, nor are we subject to its laws. We’re old school in Mount Evor. Here, the principles of primogeniture and representation still reign supreme. The firstborn takes it all. The child comes before the sibling. With both Geoffroy and Julian gone, Millie’s birthright ensures that she inherits everything.
The only way Alex Castellane gets a chunk of the estate is if Geoffroy named him in his will. Which I know he didn’t. My late husband and his younger half brother had been estranged long before I met and married Geoffroy Castellane, a dashing widower twice my age.
Alex will get nothing or next to nothing. And Millie will be the next Duchess of Rohinn.
He knows this, of course he does. Yet he carries his tall, infuriatingly well-proportioned form with confidence, which lends an air of legitimacy to his potential claims.
Alix Nichols is a caffeine addict, a longtime fan of Mr. Darcy. She pens sexy romantic comedies and romantasy. At the age of six, she released her first book. It featured highly creative spelling on a dozen pages stitched together and bound in velvet paper.
Thank you for featuring A DUCHESS WITH A SECRET.
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