So for me, Covent Garden is a very lucky and romantic place.

About the Author

ELOISA JAMES is a New York Times bestselling author and professor of English literature who lives with her family in New York, but can sometimes be found in Paris or Italy. She is the mother of two and, in a particularly delicious irony for a romance writer, is married to a genuine Italian knight.

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Also by Eloisa James

The Would-Be Wallflowers series

• How to be a Wallflower

The Wildes of Lindow Castle series

• Wilde in Love
• Too Wilde to Wed
• Born to Be Wilde
• Say No to the Duke
• Say Yes to the Duke
• My Last Duchess
• Wilde Child

Desperate Duchesses series

• Desperate Duchesses
• An Affair Before Christmas
• Duchess by Night
• When the Duke Returns
• This Duchess of Mine
• A Duke of Her Own
• Three Weeks with Lady X
• Four Nights with the Duke
• Seven Minutes in Heaven

Fairy Tales series

• A Kiss at Midnight
• Storming the Castle (a novella)
• When Beauty Tamed the Beast
• The Duke Is Mine
• Winning the Wallflower (a novella)
• The Ugly Duchess
• Seduced by a Pirate (a novella)
• With This Kiss (a novella in three parts)
• Once Upon a Tower
• As You Wish

Essex Sisters series

• Much Ado About You
• Kiss Me, Annabel
• The Taming of the Duke
• Pleasure for Pleasure
• A Gentleman Never Tells (a novella)

Duchess in Love series

• Duchess in Love
• Fool for Love
• A Wild Pursuit
• Your Wicked Ways
• A Fool Again (a novella)

Ladies Most series

• The Lady Most Likely (with Julia Quinn and Connie Brockway)
• The Lady Most Willing (with Julia Quinn and Connie Brockway)

Standalone novels

• My American Duchess

Anthologies

• Mistletoe Christmas (with Christi Caldwell, Janna MacGregor, and Erica Ridley)

Copyright

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

the reluctant countess. Copyright © 2022 by Eloisa James, Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers. For information, address HarperCollins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007.

Digital Edition NOVEMBER 2022 ISBN: 978-0-06-313958-9

Print Edition ISBN: 978-0-06-313957-2