The Lord of Misrule
Description
December 1817. Derbyshire.
Alexander Hartford never wanted a title-he wanted a seminary. But when his uncle's death makes him Baron Thornfield, he inherits not just an estate on the brink of ruin, but a predator circling its tenants: the elegant, ruthless Lord Blackwood, who engineers poverty only to offer salvation-for a price.
Phoebe Danvers came to Hartford Hall seeking her father's architectural legacy. She never expected to find a theologian harvesting feverfew in frozen soil, nor to decode a cipher that would expose Blackwood's empire of forged debts and manufactured crises.
He was called the Lord of Misrule for upending every expectation of nobility-kneeling in gardens when he should be in ballrooms, valuing fellowship over hierarchy, building sanctuaries with his hands while quoting scripture on remembrance. She was the architect who saw that his misrule was not chaos, but covenant.
Together, they build not with ledgers, but with lime mortar and whispered psalms. Not with threats, but with witness. As Blackwood tightens his grip, Alexander and Phoebe discover that the strongest sanctuaries aren't built upward-they grow downward, root by root, in the spaces between heartbeats where care takes root.
A slow-burn Regency romance where holiness dwells not only in cathedrals, but in cottage roofs kept dry through love.