First Line Friday & The Friday 56: The Duke's Bargain by I. Benott

 
First Line Friday is hosted by Carrie @ Reading Is My Superpower
The Friday 56 is created by Freda's Voice and hosted by Anne @ My Head Is Full of Books
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First Line Friday:

Grab the nearest book and share its first line

"What a wretched excuse of a man."

 The Friday 56:

Grab a book, turn to page 56 (or 56% on your e-reader), and share a spoiler-free snippet.

Arthur had grown accustomed to falling asleep to the sound of her voice, to their endless questions, to the easy companionship that existed only in the darkness of his room.

A marriage of convenience. A scarred duke. And a young woman who was never supposed to capture his heart.

Arthur Wellington, the formidable Duke of Buckingham, has survived war, scandal and a lifetime of expectations. In need of an heir and with little interest in love, he proposes a simple bargain: marriage in exchange for the money that will secure the future of the orphanage Eliza Harper calls home.

For nineteen-year-old Eliza, the choice should be equally simple. Twenty thousand pounds could change countless lives, and all she must do in return is become the wife of one of England’s most feared noblemen.

Neither expects their carefully negotiated arrangement to become something dangerously real.

But as war calls Arthur away and secrets from both their pasts begin to surface, their unlikely marriage is tested by the rigid expectations of Regency society. Eliza must discover where she belongs in a world that was never meant to welcome her, while Arthur must confront a truth far more terrifying than anything he faced on the battlefield: He may have finally found something he cannot bear to lose.

The Duke’s Bargain is a sweeping Regency romance about an arranged marriage that becomes anything but convenient, and two people discovering that sometimes the greatest bargains demand the heart in return.

What do you think of these snippets?