The Lyon’s Dilemma, my next Lyon’s Den Connected World book, has just gone back to the publisher after I went through the developmental edits. Have I mentioned that I love Cynthia, my editor? The Lyon’s Dilemma gives the Duke of Kempbury the happy ending the poor man needs. You may remember him from Thrown to the Lyon.

Dukes don’t wait. Dukes keep other people waiting, but they are never left kicking their heels in the absence of the person on whom they have condescended to call—after making an appointment, mind you.

Felix Seward, the Duke of Kempbury, was tempted to get up and leave, but coming here once was hard enough. Leaving and then returning was unthinkable. And nothing else he had tried had worked.

He sat on the uncomfortable chair to which he had been directed. It was at least, a private parlor, but he could not forget that the establishment was a gambling den, and one in which light-heeled ladies—or prostitutes, if one wished to avoid polite euphemisms—prosecuted their trade.

Felix had been here once before, and he had been at a disadvantage that time, too.

That previous time, it had been his own fault. Mrs. Dove Lyon, the proprietress of this gambling den, had been rightly protective of her guest, and rightly reluctant to allow him to see her.

He had been operating on false information—believing what he had been told about his half-brother’s widow by his other half-brother and step-mother. He should have known they were lying—he should have investigated for himself.

It had all turned out well. The widow had married nine months ago, becoming the Countess of Somerford. Felix saw the Somerfords often—her, her doting husband, and their delightful son Stephen, who was the son of her first husband, and therefore, his nephew and currently, his heir.

Indirectly, Dorcas Somerford and her son had sent him here. Stephen Seward was a delightful boy, and made him long for a son of his own. Dorcas and Ben had that rarest of things, a happy marriage, and Felix wanted one, too.

Which was why he had come to the Lyon’s Den, after weeks—no, months—of indecision. Mrs. Dove Lyon was a highly successful matchmaker. Dorcas and Ben had married as a result of her machinations, and Felix knew of at least twenty other marriages that, from his observations, were credits to her work.

The truth of the matter was he needed a matchmaker. Felix had had no success in finding a wife. A duchess? That would have been easy. Almost any woman in the ton would be delighted to take on the role. But wife? Felix didn’t know how to out a lady’s true character. Nor did he know how to make himself agreeable to a lady in a way that would lead her to look on him with favor. Him. Felix the man, rather than Kempbury, the duke. In his mind’s eye, he could see them, the women who slavered over him when he was forced to make an appearance at a social event. As they looked up to him with adoring eyes, they did not see the man at all. For them, he was simply his title, the words obscuring him entirely—words that were capitalized, perhaps in gilded letters and possibly shedding gold dust: The Duke. Gilded title or not, Felix wanted to be simply a man to his wife, if to nobody else.